Northern Illinois University

Date: Jun 04 2002
Major: Geography and Geosciences (This Major's Salary over time)
The time that I spent in the graduate school at NIU were probably the worst in my life. I say this after serious reflection. Not only were the faculty and staff not helpful, they seemed to do everything they could to throw road blocks in my way. My so-called advisor never had one serious discussion with me on my thesis or career. He did have time to cut me down to the other grad students with remarks like,

someone of his social class should not be allowed to attend a university.

I'm not kidding- I overheard that one myself. I recived my B.S. with honors, I scored exremely well on the GRE, and I was a member of MENSA. Plus, I was a quiet sort of person that kept in the background and just did his work.
I think that the only reason that I was recruited was to be slave labor (graduate teaching assistant.) I was piled with so much work (teaching lab sessions, lab work, filing, cleaning, bottle washing) that I had little time for my own work.
No one had a stronger work ethic than I did, or a stronger commitment to the field of geology. NIU totally killed that. I ended up leaving and retraining in engineering.