The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

I had a not so great experience at the U of M Ann Arbor as a 3+ master of architecture program student.

The academics were definitely a mixed bag. The studio courses were exciting and very creative with a great set of experienced and creative professors to encourage your development in design and artistic sensibility.

The non-studio courses were not relevant. Many classmates would not even show up or bother to buy the book. These courses were supposed to cover useful technical information but you got a very general non-useful overview of things like structures, construction and environmental technology. I got the feeling that they were only there because they had to be, and designed to be easy and fluffy enough to not get in the way of studio classes.

There was definitely a philosophy of design concept/appearance is the most important thing. However, if you are looking for a job in architecture then I feel like you are seriously lacking in technical skills, and no one gets hired right out of school as a design architect.

One saving grace of this system is that Michigan has an excellent internship program. They do week long spring break internships (unpaid). That may not seem like much, however the list of firms you can ask to intern for are impressive. Additionally, sometimes as an architect what you need is to be able to make connections and visiting a firm for a week is an excellent way to network. I did this week long intern program and found it to be a good experience and would have interned for the firm over the summer if I didn't already have other plans.

Unfortunately these plans involved interning with a firm that wasn't directly set up with Michigan. This proved to be a very bad experience as the firm had expectations that I had a set of technical skills and understandings which I didn't have. At this point I realized how unprepared I would be to go to work for a firm that didn't have an understanding/relationship with University of Michigan. The firm itself was a terrible environment, so maybe more of a reflection of the firm than the Michigan. However, it did make me painfully aware of the technical skills and understandings I had not at all developed while in school.

The experience I had socially with the school was not a great one. I have a quiet book worm, down to earth personality, and found it really hard to make friends if I didn't want to take part in drinking heavily and/or going to sports games. Also, I came from a middle class background and felt at times looked down upon because I didn't come from a wealthy family or have a wardrobe of designer clothing. My class/year specifically I've heard from a student still there has been known to the faculty as one of the more cut throat groups of students to be at tcaup. I didn't feel like there was a helpful community of students, but more of an unhealthy environment where sometimes classmates would avoid helping each other or try to steal ideas and make them better than the person who originally came up with them.Overall I would not return to Michigan if I had the choice.

The overall university's educational environment is good but the curriculum and faculty members of my department (School of Information) is way below the alleged reputation. Personally, more than 80% of curriculums are not useful, helpful, nor professional. Half of professors and gradutate students are in Library Science people, who are the dumbest I have ever talked while they do not know they are intellectually low level.

The University of Michigan acts as a large corporation so unfortunately, students are treated as numbers. The difficulty with this, of course, is that it's hard to get your voice heard when you do have a problem and it's really easy to fall through the cracks since your safety net (a.k.a. advisor) is often too busy to help you. Plus, the university essentially is out there to protect themselves, so problems with the faculty or with certain university policy usually have a clear winner (the university).

While my advisor, and some other faculty in my department were helpful in my research and toward my time to completion, I found that faculty were generally difficult to access. Many would never return emails and would try not to interact with students unless they absolutely had to do so. My other problem with my specific department, and to a lesser extent the university administration, were regarding ethics and some acts that I have found to be unsettling for an academic institution where learning is touted to be the primary objective. I have witnessed a situation where students were theatened in order to keep them quiet about problems within the school. Although I understand that the school is concerned about their reputation, it was obvious that the school was not concerned about the students' well-being. Their first concern was making sure that the students did not speak about the department's problems. Specific problems that I have had, such as abusive professors, were dismissed, even though several students had made formal complaints about this individual. I understand that the school does not the costly option of looking for a new professor, but lack of protection for students in the presence of this person showed that the school was once again not concerned about the well-being of it's students. Of course, this all becomes political and makes things very uncomfortable for everyone involved, especially since everyone realizes that there is a problem that has non yet been dealt with. This is not what I expected of a liberal institution, and certainly not what I expected out of my academic career. I feel that my education here was not of the highest quality because professors did not have time to meet with me, much less plan classes that were organized and thoughtful. I feel the push to finish a degree program without the proper classes and advisorship has caused research quality to decline. Funding problems have also caused the research quality to decline as most people cannot compose projects without the proper equipment.

I hate to be negative, but I am definitely going to give a "darker" review of the University of Michigan. I am about to complete my first year of graduate school in the Masters' program for Computer Science and Engineering. As a West Point graduate and Army veteran, I came from a background where people work together to achieve a common goal. This is definitely not the case at U of M. First of all, if you are a military veteran (or if you support your nation's soldiers), the University of Michigan is not the place to be. This university is the ONLY public institution in the state of Michigan (and perhaps the entire country) that does not grant in-state tuition to veterans moving Michigan after active duty. I have not found a single organization on campus that supports students heading to or returning from the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan; this is probably the only public institution that ignores us completely.

Anyway, enough about military service. Let's move to academics. Now, please keep in mind that I can only speak from the perspective of a graduate engineering student. I will first tell you that most of the students here are brilliant. They work extremely hard, and they are extremely gifted. However, the classes are designed not to foster learning and understanding of the course material, but rather as "contests" to see which students are the smartest, forcing them into cutthroat competition. The assignments, exams, and projects do not test students on how well they understand the course material; they seem to be nothing more than indicators of who is the most gifted. This, in my opinion, is not what learning is all about. Although I was impressed with the relatively small class sizes, don't let that fool you into thinking that you will receive any attention from a professor. My assigned graduate advisor doesn't even know my name. I have to remind him when I come to see him for an appointment (which he usually has to postpone three or four times anyway). Unless you have a shining beacon on your forehead that reads "I have the potential to be the next Nobel Prize recipient", don't expect the faculty to take the slightest acknowledgement of you.

Finances. The education and resources available at the University of Michigan are definitely not worth the Ivy League price for out-of-state students like myself. I had a successful career as an Army officer (and I continue in the reserves) making an average of $60K a year , yet I cannot afford to pay for just one year of education (and this is after veterans benefits, loans, etc). Furthermore, the university has extremely low funding available for work-study programs (only $180K for a school of more than 40,000) and other types of financial aid. Also, the university does not have the graduate staff assistanships that you see at so many other universities. Unless you are here as a doctoral candidate with an external grant from the DoD, NASA, NSF (or other external source), don't expect a penny to come your way.

Social life. Perhaps I am just cold-hearted, unattractive, and full of body odor, but I have not made a single friend here at the university. I have never had a problem in social environments before, but this place is something else. I don't know if it's because engineering students are too engrossed in their work, or if they are afraid to befriend someone with whom they are competing for an 'A', but it almost seems that I am actually avoided by my fellow students. I have tried to attend a few graduate student organization meetings, and when I try to introduce myself, I get little or no reply. So, basically, I have given up in the social department.I have plenty more that I can say, but hopefully someone out there with a similar background will read this before making their decision.

The University of Michigan is an institution of anti-white racism and anti-male sexism. The school engages in an unusually high amount of discrimination against whites in hiring and promotions, and they give large amounts of money to certain groups for their racist and sexist agendas. In the classroom, racism is a part of nearly every classroom lecture. Professors have thorough and comprehensive ways of making white people think less of themselves. Every part of the educational experience: readings, lectures, tests, small group discussions, are neatly dovetailed into a matrix of racist and sexist themes. Students are required to bring information from all these sources together, making the same arguments in long essay-type midterms and final exams. It is a very effective form of indoctrination. The University of Michigan allocates large amounts of money to programs which are off-limits to whites. The Comprehensive Studies Program is one example. This is a program of special courses, mentoring, and academic advising which is almost entirely for blacks. University of Michigan professors engage in egregious research strategies and racial bias, depicting whites and males in the worst ways possible, and dispensing their bias to the larger society by every means possible. The ways in which professors re-write history are limitless and the abuses are extreme. There is no oversight over their actions and virtually no academic accountability whatsoever. Professors promote their agendas in classroom lectures with impassioned authority and self-righteousness. Students are graded unfairly if they don’t present themselves as liberals and embrace left-wing topics and viewpoints in their papers. The University of Michigan is a degenerate institution in which academic professionalism and scholarship are ignored to advance a racist and sexist agenda.

Yes, U of M is a good school (provided you're a graduate student). The research I've seen has been outstanding, even intimidating. It's definitely the top if the field for research.However, I think you end up paying too high a high price for the prestige of U of M. The size of the school means you're just a number. The beaurocracy can be absolutely stifling and patently unfair. Professors are focused so much on their research and too busy to teach classes (mcuh less talk to you). Instead you have to teach yourself a lot of the time. Finally, the workload is insane. I am physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted from all the all-nighters and 75 hour work weeks.