The University of Michigan - Dearborn

Date: Feb 13 2013
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
Where to begin? I'm a freshman here and I can't wait to transfer out.

Pros:

Cheap

Generous with scholarships

Close to home for me

Most classes transfer to other universities

Small class sizes

Cons:

While the classes may be small, a lot of them are still lecture-based, and as such most professors won't know your name. Heck, a lot of instructors aren't even professors, their "lecturers", basically adjuncts.

Being in Dearborn, a lot of the professors, especially in math, are Arabic, and have thick accents. I realize that this is normal at most other colleges, however, but a lot of them are VERY hard to understand.

A lot of adults going back to school. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however it makes UMD feel a lot less collegial than other schools.

As has been mentioned in pretty much every other review, good luck having a social life. I understand that there's more to school than socializing, and I'm not much of a partier or social butterfly, but from a social standpoint UMD feels like a big high school with a lot of adults and kids that don't know each other. There are some clubs, but that's about it.

Stupid administration that tries to pretend that Dearborn is the same thing as Ann Arbor. For example, at orientation, the dean of student life gave a speech about how this is the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. Seriously, give it a rest. This school needs to develop its own identity as a strong regional school rather than trying to piggy back on Ann Arbor's reputation.

Along with this, UMD has kind of a bad reputation. Everyone assumes, for better or worse, that you're going to Dearborn because you didn't get into Ann Arbor, even though this could be said about any other student at any other school in Michigan. It's honestly embarrassing to tell people that I go to U of M…Dearborn.

Bad career placement. The only companies that recruit at Dearborn are the auto companies and small local companies. This is fine, I suppose, but when this is THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, apparently, I'd expect better. Maybe if you move out of state you can tell people that you went to U of M and they won't be able to tell the difference.

Lack of parking. There is a large parking structure in the back of the campus, but besides that, you will not be able to find a spot anywhere else after 8:45 a.m.

Everyone that goes here is from southeast Michigan. Good luck meeting people different from yourself and experiencing different.

Overall, UMD feels like a community college on steroids. I'd recommend coming here for two years to save money and then transfer to Ann Arbor or MSU. I do think UMD is a good choice for older people from the area looking to go back to school

Good Luck