<p>If any current students read this...</p>
<p>In general, are classes at MSU easy, middle-of-the-road, or challenging? How about honors classes or honors options? Are a lot of people actually serious about studying, or are more people there for the atmosphere and partying? Are there a lot of "intellectual" people at Michigan State?</p>
<p>There's a little bit of everything to be honest....many, many partiers and definately some intellectuals albeit a minority....as far as classes, they're for the most part quite easy and with a grading scale that awards a 4.0 for 90% in nearly all cases you can't complain....if you're really looking to challenge yourself or concerned with prestige however, I'd recommend going someplace else (this is my first and only year at State and I'll be at the University of Michigan)</p>
<p>MJB4431 - are you in the Honors College? What courses did you take, and how much did you look for intellectual people? Are classes curved? How? Just curious - thanks.</p>
<p>I was in the academic scholars program and the James Madison College so I did actually have an honors experience. There's a few intellectuals in Madison, but most are just stuck up kids that brag about how much they work and how hard their Madison classes are (since many do poorly in them compared to what they may be used to getting). I however pulled a 4.0 and a 3.5 in these two classes last semester and will do the same or possibly 4.0 both of them this semester. There's a few intellectuals in this bunch but most are frauds. Basically, all other general university classes but these ones have some kind of curve, even my honors econ was curved at an 85% for a 4.0. I'm not trying to be hard on MSU because it's a good school with some smart people (like every single college), but if you are desiring a real challenge and are qualified enough to go somewhere else I'd do it.</p>
<p>As someone who may have taught at MSU for several years, I can say that the idea of 90% A's is totally foreign to me! </p>
<p>It hardly reflects what goes on in most classes either (I can't speak about JMC in particular). I used to chair a department and know very well that the GPA's were very substantially below that, even though MSU has been subject to grade inflation over the years, like most colleges and universities.</p>
<p>You MAY have taught there? You're not sure? Sounds like you might have been there in the 60's. :-)</p>
<p>
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...are more people there for the atmosphere and partying?
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</p>
<p>In a word, yes.</p>
<p>
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Are there a lot of "intellectual" people at Michigan State?
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</p>
<p>In a word, no.</p>
<p>
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Sounds like you might have been there in the 60's.
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Good one! Actually, in the 60's I was in school in a neighboring state.</p>
<p>Quote:
...are more people there for the atmosphere and partying? </p>
<p>In a word, yes.</p>
<p>Quote:
Are there a lot of "intellectual" people at Michigan State? </p>
<p>In a word, no.</p>
<p>...er, GoBlueAlumMom, your screen name indicates you come in w/ some biases, so I think people should tend to discount your comment. I thought this board was for information, not trash talk.</p>
<p>I've been here too for nearly a full year so I can reasonably agree with the comment; on the basic level she's more than correct.</p>
<p>I have a dozen friends at MSU (not the brightest people) and they said it's pretty easy to get a 3.6 there.</p>
<p>MJB4431, I dont deny your feelings, but recognize that you are stating your perception. Your experiences are personal to you, and Im not here to deny what you feel. (btw, I give no credence to GoBlueAlumMom because shes merely taking pot shots as a UM loyalist with no facts and an ax to grind) </p>
<p>But to make broad, sweeping judgments about the motivations and intellectual level (or even atmosphere) of a school of any large, major university is specious, let alone one as successful as MSU. I dont know how you can blow off James Madison College students as (generally) anti-intellectual, merely stuck up kids who brag about how hard JMC classes are. But it is fact, beyond debate, that MSU has produced more Rhodes scholars of any Big 10/11 school (13) in the last two generations and that Madison, at only about 1,000 students, has graduated a number of the Rhodes Scholars and something like one third of all MSUs Phi Beta Kappa grads.</p>
<p>Outside of Madison, how do you account for the fact that MSUs has long had one of the nations top debate teams? That MSUs produced more Putnam (math) competition winners and received more National Science Foundation scholarships by her undergrads than any school? How would you account for the fact that Sam LeFrak (deceased), the wealthy planned community developer chose MSU as the host school (over his alma mater, Univ of Maryland a quality school in its own right) to establish his LeFrak Forum on Democracy (which has had various conferences broadcast on C-Span) based on MSUs political science curriculum strong national standing? Or the fact that brainy National Public Radio (along TVs PBS) has, for decades, broadcast directly from MSUs College of Communication? Why would the Lansing Symphony Orchestra a nationally well thought of medium-sized city orchestra -- base itself at MSUs Wharton Center which, after all, is not even in downtown Lansing (or in Lansing at all)? Indeed, why should MSU have even built a high quality fine arts facility on campus of the caliber of a Wharton Center if MSU is mainly populated (in your estimation and GoBlueAlumMoms silly put-down) by a bunch of partying, drunken anti-intellectuals? Why is Lyman Briggs, a science residential program parallel to Madison, considered even more intense than JMC, so much so that it is expanding? I could tell you that Briggs classes are taught by full professors, a number of whom are in MSUs renowned physics and biology departments? That neither JMC nor Briggs are honors colleges, but are widely perceived as such by outsiders; often Eastern Ivy League types (yep, the Yale Daily News Insiders Guide to The Colleges made this mistake several times) because theyre academically intense your negative JMC experience to the contrary. Or that the demand for such programs is causing a similar, 3rd residential program to be formed in the Liberal Arts on the old North Campus where the proposal, in part, will feature a Great Books curriculum (like U. Chicago) and seniors will write a theses and yet, this wont be an honors college either. How can a university like MSU, allegedly enrolling so many drunkards and anti-intellectuals, support all this? </p>
<p>How come East Lansing is dubbed the City of the Arts and many, many upper middle class professionals attracted to it (a decade or so ago, Rand McNally rated it among the top 5 college towns in America) if its home campus is populated by a bunch of drunken, partying slackers? When the recently deceased, internationally-renowned Harvard scientist/intellectual Stephen Jay Gould, students were angry that the U planned the lecture at Whartons Passant Theatre for lines to get in were out the door with many disappointed students how do you account for that? Along those lines, why do so many famous intellectuals and artists come and lecture at MSU? Why did Gould? Why did Chris Matthews, during and after his live Hardball show before the 2000 presidential race, note that MSUs audience seemed (by the questions/comments) to be the most informed of all the colleges hed visited to date? Why is the (MSU-based) East Lansing Film Festival the largest in the State and one of the most renowned in the country? Why did the renowned Clarion Science Fiction writers workshop (the best and first of its kind) choose MSU as its host campus? Why, ?</p>
<p>Ill stop, but could go on and on. My point is made. MJB4431, you are young and idealistic, not even a sophomore. As the saying goes: Perception is reality. You are seeing what you want to see what others have convinced you to see. All those smart, intellectual kids (who I see on a regular basis) sipping lattes discussing Sartre, Kafka or Kierkegaard at COSI, Starbucks and the like, on and off campus, are simply invisible to you. </p>
<p>Do a number of kids drink, with some getting drunk in public? Yes. Yet, if you had bumped into me as, an MSU student, hoisting a cold one at LandShark or MACs Bar, (or wherever), you wouldnt have seen a studious honors student who liked to have fun but who, also, went to a top law school, has a nice career and owns a nice home and car all well before age 40 you would have leapt to your same conclusion about me! Point being: you make a lot of assumptions and those assumptions are colored by popular stereotype, many born in Ann Arbor. </p>
<p>Generalized stereotypes about big schools are absurd, such as that everyone at U-M is brilliant, intellectual and studies all the time. Again MJB4431, you are entitled to your perceptions but I wish you wouldnt pass them along as fact. Ive given you fact, and that is irrefutable.</p>
<p>If I had come off a bit harsh that was not my intention...as I stated at any large university there are many different kinds of people, considering the size of MSU there's no question of this. Has MSU done great things? Absolutely. But I don't think that was the general idea of the original questions presented. The way I read it was to gain a general idea of the university and supporting this point would be the fact 75 % of admitted sutdents scored a 27 or lower on their ACT. Taken this along with the fact a significant number on the high end will go someplace else and the very bright students are a minority. This is not meant as disrespect but simply an illustration at a very rough level of student composition.</p>
<p>State students have gone on to do great things without question and your statistics illustrate that, but I did not take exception with this claim at any point. My main point was that the "average" student here is less intellectual than someplace else as well as that I did not believe my classes to be challenging, despite taking Madison and Honors classes (3.88 GPA).</p>
<p>I understand your belief about the resources available at State and the legitimacy of many of their accomplishments, but the fact is there IS a gap between MSU and Michigan, although there is no question someone could succeed in either place.</p>
<p>Gap in what, though? Reputation? I'll give you that UM has a better reputation than MSU. But is it totally justified? No, ... at least not in my opinion and not in what I've seen. UM, but its own admission, lacks somewhat in the undergraduate experience -- and they're trying to improve. They pay their salaries more (although many of these see few if any undergrads); have some more resources in some areas (but considerably less than others: physics, communication arts, botany/biology, etc); and attract a higher percentage of top students (part of it because MSU offers more undergrad programs which creates a larger student body); the gap is closing, but it does, I don't deny that. But is a lot of their rep based on their medical and law schools as opposed to undergrad education? I think, yes. </p>
<p>I think no school, not Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, Wisconsin, ... no where offers the complete quality college experience Michigan State offers, and on one of the most beautiful campuses and in one of the more attractive, vibrant quintessential college towns.</p>
<p>It is this reason why UM, for all its reputation, has consistently lost many a top HS student to MSU; obviously by choice and NOT because (as the popular illusion goes) because they couldn't get in to UM.</p>
<p>lmao @ East Lansing being called a "quintessential college town". It's a dump. Go off campus downtown and look around. That's not a college town.</p>
<p>Thank you, Quincy. As an MSU grad - and a proud one at that - I am so weary of the assinine and juvenile comments that come from proponents of that other school. Frankly, I think that most of the animosity from A-squared has more to do with (1) their having a traditionally better football team, and (2) contempt for MSU's origins as an agricultural school (farmers are just dumb rednecks, you know).</p>
<p>ah, A2Wolves6, care to what you define as a dump? ... Look, you've made it patently clear you don't like MSU nor do you care to go there. (which is fine, I wish you luck wherever you go) So why waste your (and our) time constantly putting down MSU. Why not just spend your time over on the UM Amen board? ... just curious.</p>
<p>Because I wish to educate others on the area around MSU based on my experiences there, and correct incorrect statements made by others. I just spent a weekend there, I toured the campus. The campus itself is nice, lots of greenery, big open spaces, but one could see that as a hassle to get to classes if they didn't have a bus (which they do). However, it's not a college town by any means. Off the campus, it's low income decrepit housing with high crime.</p>
<p>One weekend there makes you an authority? </p>
<p>I spent 4 years there, and I assume Quincy did too. I loved it there, and thought the town was just great, thank you very much. I was never the victim of crime, nor were any of my friends, that I'm aware of. The off-campus housing that is closest to the campus is largely student housing. It's not going to be luxurious, but it isn't slums, either. It's typical student housing in a typical college town. </p>
<p>And believe it or not, in my 4 years there I never set foot on a bus. It is NOT a hassle to get to classes. There are multiple sessions of many classes held in different buildings around campus. </p>
<p>You really have no right to come here and bad mouth a place you have never really experienced.</p>
<p>I have experienced, State, my parents went there, friends and family have gone there, i've been there for weekends. Again, just because my viewpoint isn't one from an alumnus who loves the place doesn't mean it's wrong. I do have a right to come here and share a contrasting point, this is a public forum isn't it? I'm not breaking any rules. Quit whining. It is a hassle to get to classes. You have a 5200 acre campus that is spread out. Housing isn't good. Compared to other Big Ten campuses, it's small and not well kept. I'm not an authority, I never even said close to that. I don't know what your problem is, maybe it's that MSU jealousy, being the little brother school and the second tier school in the state.</p>