The University of New Hampshire

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Chemistry (This Major's Salary over time)
I have honestly mixed feelings about my time here at UNH. I started as a Ph.D student and ended up leaving with a masters to pursue a Ph.D at another university (which isn't too uncommon in this department). My thoughts are the following:

The size of the department was small and that was both good and bad. As a positive, there was a strong sense of community and even a "family-like" atmosphere. All of the professors knew who you were and what you were working on, the graduate students generally all supported each other, and there were many times we were all in the same room which helped reinforce the community (lunch talks, seminars, etc). As a negative, when you are all around each other in a small area 24/7, gossip happens and there was some toxicity in the department- people talked about each other and there was frequent drama. This would probably happen in any department so I don't entirely blame UNH but they could have done more to facilitate a better work environment.

The coursework for the chemistry program was superb and I learned quite a bit (also had to work my butt off to get an A). However, coursework is a very small part of a Ph.D/research-intensive masters program. The research projects are all novel and interesting (in my opinion), but the funding isn't there. Therefore, students are supported on TA which has very demanding responsibilities and this takes away from research time. Most professors are well aware that students have TA responsibilities and understand but it results in most students taking at minimum 6 years to graduate for Ph.D and 3-4 years for masters (which is a very long time for a master's degree!). The department needs to find ways to lessen the TA load so that students can focus more on their research since it almost seemed that teaching was the primary responsibility followed by research when it should be the other way around.

In terms of the surrounding area, it is beautiful and I totally took that for granted. Portsmouth is only 10 minutes away and you are essentially right on the New Hampshire coastline! I lived in Dover and highly recommend- decent social atmosphere, young feel to it, and housing relatively inexpensive.

Overall, I liked my time here and grew a lot. It won't be perfect in any department but I truly think the faculty care about their graduate students there just isn't a ton they can do in terms of stipend. The stipend (16.5 K/year) is atrocious and it really does add to the stress… hard to focus on research when you are barely affording your rent. But, the community in the department is one of a kind and it took me a year away after graduating to realize and appreciate that.