The University of Connecticut

Date: Jun 27 2003
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
A LONG UCONN ALUMNUS TOME

Thirty two years ago, after a couple of transfers from wildly varied, far-away colleges, I matriculated at UCONN, on a basketball scholarship while majoring in communications, with a minor in environmental sciences at the Ag school. Back then, UCONN was starting to make its quite slow transition away from its reputation as a cow college towards today's excellence. Today, UCONN is THE BEST UP & COMING state university in all of America with the greatest commitment to change and excellence. Very attractive.

I would recommend the school to almost everyone. The only ones who probably would not like UCONN would be out-of-state black and minority students used to more urban social environments with limited access to white social scenes. Storrs and even Hartford offer them little social relief! Though UCONN is more diverse and international, it's still largely comprised of mostly white Nutmeg state types.

In 1970, I spent/wasted lots of time in the Ag school's science programs - poor teachers and limited, ugly facilities, no good advisement, conservative hardcore leadership and curriculum. I was somewhat of a social misfit in the Ag school as an environmentally-conscious, green-proponent, writing student when compared with a majority made up mostly of conservative, right-winged, hard-assed, insulated vested, crew cut lads in a time of long hair and great change and social upheaval, even at bucolic UCONN. Imagine my surprise when the head of the fresh water ecology program, my advisor, advocated poisoning certain fresh pond fish in order to grow healthier game fish populations?!? That sure pissed me off, a guy who wanted to write about America's environmental challenges and issues.

I'd have to say that almost all of my science classes at UCONN were a waste of time, the exception being two semesters of Marine Biology under the godfather of UCONN marine sciences and a founder of Wood's Hole - DOC Fowler (now deceased). Luckily, I found solace (and literate compadres) in my communications, creative writing and journalism classes. UCONN offers quite a variety of people, so keep looking and you'll find your own, guaranteed.

Even then, I loved UCONN's size and location, isolated in the lovely CT countryside along with 10,000 other hungry, horny, party animals, including many rebellious, naturally beautiful women, midway between NYC and Boston. All I had to do when I needed solitude was to take a walk, and five minutes later I'd be reading Whitman, Dickinson, Thoreau, Abby Hoffman, Eugene O'Neill or playing love songs on guitar to some lovely lass I'd met along the way, in some gorgeous, autumn-color, wooded setting down by the Fenton River. I'd even go out into blizzards, such was the pristine beauty and sense of natural peace a couple of minutes from the big school. Such a fantastic sense of natural, Indian and American history in those woods. And lots of pakololo and free-love too as I recall now in my dotage.

Often, friends at say, BU, Harvard, NYU or Yale would call and invite me to visit and audit a great class or lecture for the day at their schools. Those were often fantastic!!!Back then, one could hitchhike safely to ANY New England location in just a few hours. These excursions to other schools proved almost as educationally valuable as any of the UCONN classes I took. I heard John Galbraith lecture on Keynesian economics at BC, took a weekly film class with Dustin Hoffman at NYU, heard the Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson lecture about the population bomb at Wellsley, even attended a debate between Henry Kissinger and a few of the Chicago 7 about renewed U.S. bombing in Viet Nam at Harvard, wow! There's a lot out there! I recommend that you do that often!

I found UCONN's kids back then to be a bit more apolitical, conservative and more "homebody" than this radical NY native was, but also very decent, smart and interesting people. CT doesn't raise fools, even on the farms. UCONN helped me forge a life-long love affair with New England and its people, though ironically, I've chosen to live in Hawaii for the past 27 years and rarely visit UCONN and NE.

I did visit last year ('02), and was TOTALLY amazed that the positive rumours I'd heard about UCONN's progress the last 10 years were more than true. In fact, I doubt there is a school anywhere with the commitment to total progress than UCONN, this side of, say, Cornell.

The entire campus, always fairly attractive, well cared for, well located and rural, is now breathtakingly beautiful. It's as nice as any older Ivy type of college or university in the region. Everything has been upgraded, including the caliber of it's students and most programs. It offers a lot more to alumni too, which is why UCONN leads all other public universities in alumni giving. Storrs is still boring Storrs. But it's always been like that and if it were built up, much of the charm of the region and school would be lost, right?

UCONN has willed itself into being a very challenging place these days. It has one of the top five honors programs in the land. I was blown away by all the changes (though I still think that my daughter is much better off at her Ancient Eight school). In terms of public schools, UCONN is leaping forward! Bravo!

However, I still hear that the coursework and professor experiences are uneven, UCONN's large size (and now budget cuts) working against it as usual. However, I wouldn't be surprised if UCONN meets its goal (within 20 years) of being in league with the UVA's, UNC's, Michigan's, UCLA's and Berkley's of the academic world, such are the changes and commitments kept by the State of Connecticut.

What would I have done better at UCONN? First, I'd have been more proactive in getting the courses and profs and advisors I truly needed, more complaining should do the trick. I'd have gone to class more often (anti-war activities and love interests all over the Northeast often kept me off campus for weeks when I wasn't playing hoops for Dee Rowe). I'd have taken one year abroad (VERY IMPORTANT FOR AMERICANS TO DO EARLY IN THEIR LIVES!). I'd have become more involved personally with the leaders and professors of the university.

That said, I think I got more from my UCONN experience because of the commraderie I felt with the many different kinds of people I met on the large campus.

Whenever I got bored with UCONN, I'd just go visit friends at another school for a couple days or go to concerts and hang-out in NYC or Cambridge with musician or radical friends. That always made me feel better about being in the bucolic woods at UCONN. So did Rhode Island's sunny beaches in the Spring.

I recommend that very serious students try to challenge themselves as much as possible wherever they matriculate. But don't try to be all things to all people or take on every challenge or you will burn out. Keep the experiences varied and fresh. UCONN provides a big candy store of choices with many more opportunities, freedoms and educational license than I ever had while there. But keep a balanced life at all times. Be true to yourself and your core beliefs.

I would highly recommend that you use UCONN's central location to go all over the Northeast to other schools, classes, cultural interests, for related work, internships, and other kinds of experiences and passions.

I recommend that you attend Summer school one year and take a Summer Flora class in Life Sciences at Storrs so you can truly appreciate and understand the beauty of the eastern Connecticut woods.

If at all possible, take FEWER classes per semester. It will cost you more time and money, but the only way to come at any subject from may angles is through independent study - and that takes concentration and freedom from distraction. Take fewer courses per semester if possible, depending on your program. The reward is knowledge, not just grades to get into grad school (not a choice for real students).

If I had all the money in the world, time and no commitments, I'd take one class per year on one topic from the best professor in the world on the topic - and then come at it from history, science, religion, Great Books on the subject, geography, literature, philosophy, techology, etc.. Can you inmagine that? I try to do it in my spare time down at Borders right now. (Where I live, the very poor University of Hawaii is NOT an option!)

By the way, if you want to get deeper into a given topic and can make the time for further reading, then check out St. John's College in Annapolis, MD online. It concentrates on one curriculum: the study of the Great Books of Western

Civilization. They provide their annual book lists by year online. I've found it very useful as a bibliography for every topic I want to study. Check it out.

I recommend that you use UCONN's liberal, friendly, un-stuck-up and loose social atmosphere to meet as many different types of people as you can, and to party (you can do it moderately all the time and still keep a decent gpa with a little balance) with gusto. There's no better place to do so in the Northeast than UCONN! (However, I've heard they've cracked down now on the Jungle. Can you imagine that. In 1971, that place levitated every weekend with all the acid)

After you graduate, it'll be time to get really serious about your life and commitments. So don't waste the partying opportunities at UCONN - Best in the East,IMO! I recommend that you also spend a year abroad. Get to Boston, NYC, the Cape, Vermont, etc., as often as you can.

Finally, though parking is a hassle, bring a car and enough money for gas to Storrs! You can't hitchhike anymore.

GO TO UCONN. IT'S BECOMING A GREAT UNIVERSITY WITH A GREAT CAMPUS AND WITH GREATER OPPORTUNITIES FOR GREATER STUDENTS.

Of course, if you're a really great, independent student and want total academic freedom, excellence and a more international kind of student body, then try to get into Brown (almost impossible, you need luck), just 44 miles away from UCONN in Providence. It has no firm academic requirements! Ultimate freedom to explore things you'd normally be afraid to take because you can take them pass-fail. I know a medical doctor who also minored in Chinese art at Brown. Man, that's the way to go, friends. Or try Cornell, about the same size as UCONN, easier to get into than Brown, but with 4,000 courses taught by the best teachers on the planet. Short of that, UCONN will be a very great choice! Good Luck!

PS: You might want to tone down your personal emphasis on Husky Basketball Mania. Though it may sound heretical coming from a former player, there are so many more creative and fun ways of spending your time than being drunk and bellowing at Gampel Arena. Go a few times a year, but not to every game! Take an art major over to the Dairy Bar on game night and enjoy the peace. You'll actually be able to get to know each other much better at the Dairy Bar than in that moiling, noisy mob at Gampel. So take my advice, tone down the spectator sports activities (unless you're big on playing intramurals, which can be a lot more fun even than playing for the Huskies, IMO!), and diversify your activities.

Scenario: When everyone else is cheering for Okafor blocking shots against St. John's at Madison Sq. Garden for the Big East Tourney, you could be sipping espresso in a coffehouse with a great poetry slam in session a few blocks away down on Christopher St, in the Village with a sweet heart sitting close to you, hanging on your every word. Or you could be over at MOMA, wowing some wide-eyed CT hamlet art major babe with your superior knowledge about something you know nothing about. Hey, it worked for me! Aloha Friends