I
started by doing a year at Umass Dartmouth, then transferred
and took some local classes followed by transferring to Umass
Boston to work on finishing my undergrad. The Campus
Administration is nothing short of awful. Since I
started going parking has gone from bad to worse.
They've literally just closed a couple of parking garages just
giving up on repairs stating they were too costly to
do. Instead they've jacked up parking rates, closed down
other parking and made you park further away. Faculty
tends to be snobby and annoyed by questions though not
all of them. I'd have to be particular about
them, but it's quite hit or miss. I've had
very good professors and some of the worst in my
entire academic pursuits here. Many of them just walk
in with a laptop and powerpoint you to death, asking
redundant questions just to feebly attempt to keep you awake,
most of the time getting futile results. Typically professors
tend to be alright to approach with questions and help,
it's more the administrators who are awful.
God
help you if you want to get into a course
and you don't have some unrelated yet required prerequisite.
It's almost as if the order of courses is chosen
at random since nothing is all that sequential except for
math courses. Nothing about the curriculum ties into the
next. The campus itself is hideous. Crumbling cracked
concrete everywhere. The new Campus Center is nice, and
the catwalks between buildings are appreciated since the wind coming
in off of the ocean during colder months will cut
right through you regardless of how bundled you are.
It's a good thing they have these catwalks too since
the maintenance crew does some of the worst sanding and
snow removal jobs I've seen. If they were property
maintenance for a living area they'd be sued in a
heartbeat.
Administors working on setting up schedules are
callous and either meet you with disgruntled attitudes, as if
they're too busy for you, even if you are a
paying customer....or...they look at you like a deer in headlights
and pass the buck onto someone else...be careful to differentiate
between administrators and the advisors. My class advisors have
been particularly helpful..especially John Applebee who seems to be the
only person on the entire campus who isn't an absolute
dunce when it comes to accomplishing real work. It's
sort of the attitude of “just pass him along until
he gives up” type deal. Transferring in of credits
was mediocre...some did, some didn't...no out of average dealing there.
I've never been much for college sports, which is
good since Umass Boston doesn't really make any headlines for
any of their sports programs...it's a commuter school..so I expected
this. Most of the students are your typical “bleeding
heart” liberal types who want to save the world and
let all illegal aliens come in and live here for
free on our money, so if you're of the conservative
nature...you're in for a battle. The population of the
campus is decidedly majority minority, but there is no single
group that seems to dominate or make things uncomfortable.
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