Got my undergraduate double-major from Texas Tech. A couple years after I moved back to the Falls to try out another degree that would mesh with my previous two. The experience from beginning to end was awful.
First, after having over 173 transfer credit hours, I was forced to attend the "new-student" orientation, which consisted mostly of hand-holding items such as where and how to pay bills and other things that would be good for someone still classified as a freshman, but in my case a HUGE waste of time. I met with my advisor months prior to the first day of classes to get my schedule lined up and approved. Well, turns out I had to attend the orientation before I could register... well that orientation was 2 days before classes started and of course all the classes I wanted were full. Thankfully I got overrides because I raised enough hell but the hoops I had to jump through were just ridiculous. Bottom line, they admit more students than they can effectively put in class rooms per semester. Nice way to rip you off and waste your time basically.
I also had to take a 'required' class everyone had to take, Ethics. This actually turned out to be a fantastic class, although completely unnecessary if truth be told, and I highly recommend Dr. Nathan Jun as a wonderful professor. That aside, the other quality of education seemed just low compared to what I had to go through to get in classes and compared to Texas Tech. I had two engineering classes, calculus and chemistry in addition to the afore-mentioned ethics. Nothing blew my skirt up at all, and in fact again that thing about having not enough enough classes/rooms/computers/what-have-you in correlation to students admitted - that whole taste never left my mouth. It felt very much like for the money the University had and was receiving, they weren't using it as effectively as they could be.
Another irritation for having two degrees and multiple minors was the fact I had to take a writing proficiency test before I could move on to my second semester classes. I had to pay to take this test and if I failed it I would have to take a full semester of a course to help prepare me for the test that I would have to re-take. I have several published research papers from my stay at TTU, but when presented to the proper channels in effort to bypass this asinine test (for me personally) I was shut down and told I HAD to take it just as I HAD to go to the orientation for new students.
In the end I only spent a single semester there because I felt truly ripped off. I received an A in all classes I took in addition to working my full-time job, just in case you might be wondering.
Seriously, the school has a good reputation and did the whole time I grew up in the Falls, but I find it grossly bloated and not worth the hype and definitely not worth the money. I also had a short stint at the University of North Texas in addition to being at Texas Tech, and both of those universities far eclipsed MSU in every aspect. read more