Welcome to the Zoo!
Written: Apr 10 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good English department - for the time being
Cons: Budget cuts, grad students teaching undergrad classes, faculty decline
The Bottom Line: Until UMass solves their budget problems, hires more faculty, and makes graduate students a priority, don't go to school here
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| murasaki's Full Review: University of Massachusetts-Amherst |
I am currently in my third semester of graduate school at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. My experience so far is limited to the English Graduate Department and the French Department, but I’ll try to provide a general overview of the college for those interested in undergraduate studies.
General Information
Dorms - UMass has five housing complexes, Southwest, Central, Northeast Orchard Hill, and Sylvan. UMass also has a few apartments for graduate students with families, but these apartments have limited availability. Each of the dorm complexes is co-ed, however, each complex has either all-female/all-male buildings or all-female/all-male corridors. The dorms also have special interest living areas, such as wellness corridors or lesbigay corridors, even a 24-hour quiet corridor.
I have not lived on campus so I cannot comment on the quality of the dorms, but I can relate an anecdote told by one of my professors. He had a student who was serving a jail term and was given special permission to live on campus to attend classes. This student was formerly enlisted in the Army and had been a member of Special Forces. The student hadn’t been in the dorm (Southwest) for a week before he asked to go live back at the jail. The student claimed that the students in the dorm had no self-discipline or respect for other people’s things. The student went back to jail and a squad car brought him to school every morning. This incident took place several years ago, so things might have changed. Or not.
All of the dorms have high-speed internet access and ethernet capability. Some of the dorms also have computer rooms and classrooms where general ed classes are taught. The connectivity of the UMass campus is one of the big draws for potential students.
Altogether, about 11,000 of the 24,000 UMass students live on campus. The majority of these students are new students who are required to live in the dorms. Freshman and sophomores are also discouraged from bringing cars to campus because parking is a huge problem.
Parking - UMass parking lots are color-coded. Red lots are for employees only. Blue lots are for employees and graduate teaching assistants. Green lots are for students living off campus. Purple lots are for the family housing complexes. Yellow lots are for everyone else (i.e., undergraduates), and you can bet those are the furthest away from anything. The administration really, really does not want undergraduates to bring cars to school. With the bus system running between the five colleges for free (September to May), most undergraduates, and even some graduate students, can get away with not having a car.
I park in a green lot, as a commuter student, for which I pay $125 for the entire year. A freshman commuter student would pay $160 for the same lot. A graduate student who’s a member of the graduate teaching union pays only $60 for the same lot. Employees pay $60-115 for the same lot. The yellow lots are by far the cheapest ($80 for freshmen, $60 for non-freshmen, $40 for teaching assistants).
Cost - While undergraduate tuition for Massachusetts and other New England residents is fairly low, housing costs are not. Massachusetts residents pay $1714/year for tuition. New England residents pay $2570/year. Other out-of-state students pay $9756/year. Required fees (this includes mandatory medical insurance) come to $3498 for New England residents, $3609 for other out-of-state residents. The average annual cost for room and board on campus is $4790. The average yearly cost of books is $600.
Graduate students pay tuition based on the number of hours they are enrolled. Mass. residents pay $110/credit hour ($330 for a three-hour class); New England residents pay $165/credit hour; other out-of-state residents pay $414.25/credit hour. Fees range from $509/semester for someone taking 1-4 credit hours to $1788/semester for an out-of-state student taking nine credit hours or more.
My out-of-state graduate tuition and fees comes to about $13,000/year, including classes I take over the summer. I was able to waive the insurance fees since I receive free health care from the government. My books for the past three semesters cost over $800 since many of my classes require five to ten books.
Graduate teaching assistants do not pay tuition. As part of the union, they are employees of the university and tuition is free. They pay some fees and their books. Teaching assistants also receive a stipend of about $11,000/year which most of them live off of as their sole source of income.
All tuition and fees are subject to change. Given UMass’ budget problems at the moment, tuition and fees will be going up this fall. For updates to costs discussed above, check http://www.umass.edu
Five College System - UMass-Amherst is co-located in the Pioneer Valley with four other colleges: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Hampshire College. Students at any of the five universities can take classes at the other institutions for full credit. The university libraries are linked together as well.
The story goes that the student bodies of the five colleges are like the Scooby-Doo gang. Zelma represents Smith College. Mount Holyoke is like Daphne. Amherst College is like Fred. Hampshire College is like Shaggy. And UMass represents Scooby-Doo. Whoever made up the analogy does have a point.
English Graduate Department
I chose to attend UMass, over the other colleges that accepted me, because the graduate English department was very willing to work with me since I first thought I would be starting school in January, which is off-cycle and not a possibility for some of the other schools to which I applied. The English department has also been continuously rated as one a department of excellence and does well at placing graduates in academic jobs.
I really like the department and the quality of education that I feel I am getting. I’ve had six graduate classes so far, all with different professors and in different genres of English literature, composition and theory. The department has an outstanding reputation for Renaissance literature, however, with some of the faculty retiring, this may not remain the case (though the Massachusetts Renaissance Center falls under the auspices of the English department).
While I like the department in general, I and most of the other grad students feel we are getting short shrift in the number of courses offered each semester. The variety and timing for classes seems to have decreased each semester since I entered, and seems in even greater jeopardy with the budget cuts and early retirement of faculty. While I’ve only four more classes to take to finish my master’s degree (though I plan to squeeze in seven classes), most of the PhD students are stuck here for three or more years and the course offerings don’t look good. Neither do their possibilities for dissertation advisors.
Location
UMass is located in Amherst, Massachusetts. Amherst has a quaint downtown area within walking distance of campus (or one can take the bus). I prefer the downtown area of nearby Northampton which is a little larger and has more shops. Both are very picturesque and the cities work hard to keep them that way. Hadley, situated in between Northampton and Amherst, has the mega-strip malls with Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, Old Navy and the like. South Hadley has an adorable shopping area, though small, but very well maintained.
Despite being in the middle of Massachusetts and rather rural, the UMass area attracts a lot of special events. Many of the independent book shops host visiting authors on a weekly basis as well as poetry readings and the like. Some of the clubs in Northampton have venues of lesser known bands and musicians like Cowboy Junkies or Ricky Skaggs.
Amherst is about two hours from Boston, 30 minutes from Springfield. The Springfield-Hartford Airport is about a 45-minute drive down the interstate. The Holyoke Mall is a mere 15 minutes away.
The five-college area has the nickname of “the Happy Valley,” a somewhat cryptic reference to the large per capita population of lesbians. The area is friendly toward gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people in general, and especially so inside academic circles.
Library
If I could only have a study carrel as my apartment…
The UMass library is 26 stories tall. Two out of every three floors has “stacks,” or shelves upon shelves of books. The library also has two floors of computers for public use, first come, first serve. Some are reserved for library research only, others can be used to check email and surf the web or write papers. (Lederle Graduate Center also has some computer rooms but not as large as the library’s and it’s better to make an appointment.)
What’s more, I can do most of my preliminary research online from my home. I have a UMass OIT account, however, I tend to use my personal earthlink account for my library research--either account gives me the same access. One can search the card catalog and various databases linked to the library. I usually only physically go to the library when I’ve found books to check out or articles I want to read. I can also request books from other libraries in the five-college system and have them sent to UMass for me to pick up--that’s a great time saver for me instead of running around to five different libraries. I can also renew books online, as long as they do not have a hold placed on them. I found this feature very convenient while I was on winter break in another city for six weeks (the normal check-out time is one month, but renewals don’t seem to have a limit).
The view from the 23rd floor is simply magnificent, in any direction. Don’t miss it.
Budget Problems
Although the UMass president has increased the university endowment to $140 million in the last couple of years, UMass depends on the Massachusetts State Legislature for a great deal of its funding. This year, the legislature didn’t come through and UMass suffered massive budget cuts. Many of the tenured faculty were offered an early retirement package which a lot of them accepted. The number of faculty, therefore, is in sharp decline since the university has no plans to replace those who are leaving, giving the remaining faculty and even greater course load, as well as the graduate teacher’s assistants who do most of the teaching at UMass anyway.
The budget cuts resulted in the closure of the foreign language learning center, the daycare center (except for the graduate students’ union since they have specific day care provisions in their contract), and various other “extra” programs like the escort shuttle for transport of drunk students or women walking alone.
The real sting in all the budget cuts? UMass still felt it necessary to hire a defensive coordinator for a position that had been vacant for three months while other faculty positions have been vacant for up to five years, and last year they hired a football coach to the tune of $2 million. These expenditures might be the slightest bit justified if UMass had a football team worth anything. They don’t.
Overall
Although I like the graduate English department, I’m glad I’m not committed to this university for a PhD. I do not recommend this school at all. Compared to my undergraduate experience at a small liberal arts college, I think I got a better quality education there instead of the zoo that is UMass. My small liberal arts college didn’t have any graduate assistants teaching classes so I had access to the professors’ knowledge, most of which had doctorates. Graduate students, not the professors themselves, do most of the undergraduate teaching at UMass. The budget cuts have really hurt the school for the long term and until the legislature either funds the school or the endowment is secured, UMass will not attract the faculty needed for a great program, nor will the university be able to provide “extras” that might attract a better student body. For a research university in which the graduate students do most of the actual teach, they aren't doing a good job of making their graduate students, who are more invested in the school, happy or satisfied. If you’re going to spend $10,000 a year anyway, go find a small liberal arts college for undergraduate. Even for Massachusetts residents, UMass is no longer a bargain.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
murasaki
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