Is Michigan weak in any way?

@klingon97. “Not Notifiable” means that a state Department of Public Health is not required to notify the Federal CDC of the outbreak. It does NOT mean that the affected community shouldn’t engage in notice to its residents. Public Health guidelines actually urge that this take place especially at schools and other places ( cruise ships, hotels) where people live together.

@maya54 I know what it means. However, I did contact the Michigan health authorities and they said they had “no issues” with how it was responsible. I also have just spoken to my cousin who lives in East Quad. He said some people were hysterics. Bigger issue is non vaccinated kids from luddite families who do not believe in vaccinations.

In any event, this was an interesting discussion but there you have it.

@klingon97. Interesting about the vaccinations. At least my kid and her classmates are required to be vaccinated to even attend the university. No exceptions

This has nothing to do with how the university handled it. No, it is not a “reportable” disease, like syphilis. But that’s irrelevant to the discussion. The university did not take all reasonable measures to contain the outbreak, as per CDC guidance contained in the MMWR. @klingon97

The Michigan health authorities have no idea. They did not visit the campus. NOBODY from UHS or the county health dept saw the on-the-ground conditions. UHS only knew about the people who came into UHS or the ER. They did not go out to the dorms to see what was going on. They had no idea what was going on in the dorms and in the classrooms, where people were vomiting every day, in public, not making it to the bathroom on time, bathrooms soiled with vomit and diarrhea not cleaned soon enough or thoroughly enough. It was a mess.

You were not there. Why do you even have a stake in claiming that it was no big deal? I am pointing out, as per the subject of this thread, that this was a big weakness. But one that can be fixed with a robust contingency plan for campus outbreaks.

@brantly I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. In my experience I didn’t feel like my daily life was affected at all by Norovirus. Of course I am only one person but I never saw anyone vomit in public or have dealt with a bathroom covered in vomit/diarrhea. In South Quad that might’ve been a problem but as a general student it had virtually no effect on my life, maybe except that I avoided eating at South Quad dining hall haha.

And I want to argue that the university did take measures to try and stop it. It’s not like they just stood aside and let it take its course. All dining hall food was no longer self-served (i.e someone working there had to give it to you), people who felt sick were given exception from class/exams, and of course they took extra measures to make sure that everyone who was sick to stay at home so as to not infect other people.

@hailbate It depends if you were at any of the “ground zeros” of the outbreak. My daughter was in the worst floor of the worst dorm affected. It was horrible. No exaggeration. Food is just one way that it can be transmitted, and that was the only mode of transmission that was addressed.

This is precisely where they fell down on the job. This was a red herring. After the ER hydrated sick kids, they sent them back to the dorm and told them to isolate there. But these kids don’t have private bathrooms, so there’s that. That’s how it spread. It is highly contagious. Every time an infected person hits the keypad to get into the bathroom, everyone who touches that keypad for the next week is bound to get it. And they got it through aerosolized particles from the vomit.

Think about the cruise ships where norovirus runs rampant. Those people don’t even share a bathroom! Imagine the same virus in a closed environment where 25 people share a bathroom. That’s what happened.

^^^ And it took several days into the outbreak for them to tell professors to stop telling students they would need to go to the ER or health services to get a note to be excused. Until they put out the new message sick kids were hauling themselves onto busses to go to the doctor to get a note exposing everyone.

OMG @maya54 I didn’t even know that part. The whole thing was handled terribly from start to finish.

By the way, the university president is an MD, MPH.

You all being Americans, I suggest you sue. That’s the usual practice, isn’t it?

I have to say I’m a little surprised at the outrage over the handling of what is a very common virus. Even in America in 2016 we can’t avoid every illness. Cruise lines deal with this all the time and somehow carry on. I have been on cruises many times and there is hand sanitizer all over the place but there is only so much you can do. I am not sure I would automatically second guess the University’s handling when, as noted, the President is an MD, MPH. S*&t happens. Sometimes literally. And the outbreak petered out as norovirus usually does. But there is going to be a certain amount of outbreak before the problem is even identified; that is why there is a “spike” before the virus is contained.

@blprof I just spent a wonderful week in Ann Arbor, utterly unrelated to college admissions. This “outrage” wasn’t at all obvious from the many people (students and faculty) I met. Indeed, even when I raised it, I got a look like it wasn’t that big of a deal. Manufactured outrage seems very in vogue these days.

I would say it depends whether you were at the “ground zero” of the outbreak. There are 46,000 students. 1,500 were sick. So, it depends who you talk to.

I live in South Quad aka “Ground Zero.” Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal. People overhyped it. Sure, people avoided Squad Dining Hall for the next week or so, but it soon returned to normal after a week or so. ’

1500 students is kinda a big number. It was more like 100 students, and then it was transmitted through germs.

Plus, it’s common life. Universities are going to always have virus outbreaks. It’s how they bounce back that matters, and I think that UMich bounced back pretty well after spring break.

100-125 students were treated in the ER. In epidemiology, we know that we multiply by 10 (for norovirus) to estimate how many were sick. And, personally knowing about 25 people who were sick and did not go to the ER, this number rings true.

Of course it’s transmitted through “germs.” It’s a virus. Viruses are germs. It’s not food poisoning in that it has nothing to do with the characteristics or preparation of the food. Food is one potential vector, just as a doorknob is a vector.

Anyway, how you experienced the outbreak depended on whether or not you lived on a floor where every single person got it. You would have a different point of view if you had to walk over vomit puddles every day on your hall and take a shower listening to people vomit in the toilets every day for a week. If you did not have this on your floor, consider yourself lucky, but don’t downplay the effect this had on the people who DID have this on their floor.

I recently graduated from Michigan, and here are the biggest weaknesses that I saw during my 4 years at Michigan:

  1. The statistics are heavily dependent on prestige that comes from research. But coming to Michigan is no guarantee that you will find a good research lab or a supportive one that can help you get published, boost your resume, or whatever. But undergraduate research is a massive hit or miss thing. A lot of PI’s and grad students don’t trust undergrads to do difficult research, so you’ll probably end up washing dishes, running basic PCR, typing aimlessly on a computer, making agar plates, and not really doing much more if you work in a lab that hates undergraduates. If you find a good lab though, the experience could be worth its weight in gold, and you can do some truly interesting research, perform inner ear surgery on mice, publish papers, go to conferences and more. It just so happened that I fell in that first category. lol. This also leads me to the second part…

  2. The school heavily research based, so many of the professors are hired to do research. Some of these professors only teach one class per year just to keep their tenures. So the quality of teaching often times lags behind in the name of school prestige and research. I found many professors in my department of Cellular and Molecular Biology (definitely a research-heavy major) to be arrogant, and indifferent to the concerns of the students. Everyone I met in the music department was fantastic though, so that also largely depends on which department you go to and what you want to study. But really, it’s not about you at Michigan. This was something a lot of people were fine with. Some kids would never show up to lecture and watch the recorded ones while wearing boxers at home. But I wasn’t fine with the 400 person classrooms where the professor doesn’t know your name at all or care about you. That’s just me though.

  3. It’s super competitive: Someone else brought this up, but there are sooooo many students, and grading often becomes a numbers game, so competition is bound to be there. The average GPA in my major was a 2.7 or a 2.8, and competing with a bunch of pre-med students aiming for 3.8/3.9 GPA’s was a fiasco in and of itself. Because teachers wanted similar cutoffs each year, exams were ridiculously hard in my department, studying didn’t always guarantee a good grade, and everyone had a bad time. Classes/discussions/study group sessions tended to be tense in general, and the vibes weren’t that great. People weren’t the friendliest, and a lot of acquaintances only talked to me about school/class related business.

  4. It’s big: Classes are massive, there are lots of clubs/student organizations, and there are lots of resources on campus if you need literally anything. But a lot of things end up being difficult to find. If you ever go out during Festifall to look at all the student orgs/clubs that advertise and say “join our club!” there are literally hundreds of them. From dance marathon, to squirrel feeding, to fly fishing, to jazz bands, and more. If you want to do it, there’s probably someone else at Michigan who’s already doing it. But with the school being so large, these people might be really hard to find. I had the problem where there were way too many choices, and I had way too many interests. I tried to do a million things at once, but ended up doing none of them and watching Netflix on my sofa all day instead. It’s really important to be decisive on what you want to and don’t want to be a part of, since I found myself being stretched between unrelated friend groups, and running around campus all day just to do X, Y, and Z.

  5. It’s expensive: No explanation needed here

Michigan was always my dream school since I was in the 6th grade, but after spending 4 years here, I sometimes wonder how life would have been if I had explored my options more during high school. Although I applied to lots of schools and had a choice between 6 schools, I didn’t visit any of them, and committed to Michigan as soon as I got that acceptance letter. Coming from a small school with a graduating class of 70 was definitely a tough transition, and the entire experience at Michigan left me with a lot to be desired in the end. Although I met some wonderful people, and got to experience some great things, most of these great moments happened outside of the classroom, and the overall academic environment wasn’t ideal for me. Most of my friends coming from big high schools, and what not transitioned just fine and even thrived at Michigan, but I wasn’t able to really find my niche or find academic fulfillment/happiness within my department while I was at Michigan. Not all is bad, and I hope this doesn’t come off as a “don’t come to Michigan, you’ll hate it here” sort of rant because there are ways to make the campus work for you. But do look at all your options, know your strengths and weaknesses, and good luck getting into college! I hope this helps!

Thanks for sharing fishfish. You bring attention to a very important factor that is often overlooked; one cannot stress enough the importance of fit.

Michigan is a major research institution. As such, faculty will be driven by research and graduate student advising at least as much as it is by undergraduate instruction. Those enrolled in popular majors such as Engineering, Business, Economics, Political Science and Psychology are going to have to contend with large classes. Those facts are not restricted to just Michigan. Any major research university will share similar traits, and that includes the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Berkeley etc…

Students who wish to have a more intimate experience will be best served attending a LAC or quasi-LAC research university like Georgetown, BC, Tufts, Emory, Vanderbilt etc…

That being said, there are benefits to major research universities that cannot be matched by LACs and quasi-LACs. The sheer depth and breadth of curricular options are mind boggling. Those enrolled in the vast, vast majority of majors, will have unmatched resources at their disposal. Students majoring in the Classics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Philosophy etc…, will enjoy intermediate and advanced classes that seldom have more than 20 students, taught by faculty that is undeniably among the top 10 in the country.

Thanks for sharing fishfish. You bring attention to a very important factor that is often overlooked; one cannot stress enough the importance of fit.

Michigan is a major research institution. As such, faculty will be driven by research and graduate student advising at least as much as it is by undergraduate instruction. Those enrolled in popular majors such as Engineering, Business, Economics, Political Science and Psychology are going to have to contend with large classes throughout most of their four years of college. Those facts are not restricted to just Michigan. The engineering programs at Columbia and Stanford have worse student to faculty ratios than Michigan. Any major research university will share similar traits, and that includes the likes of Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Berkeley etc…

Students who wish to have a more intimate experience will be best served attending a LAC or quasi-LAC research university like Georgetown, BC, Tufts, Emory, Vanderbilt etc…

That being said, there are benefits to major research universities that cannot be matched by LACs and quasi-LACs. The sheer depth and breadth of curricular options are mind boggling. Those enrolled in the vast, vast majority of majors, will have unmatched resources at their disposal. Students majoring in the Classics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Philosophy etc…, will enjoy intermediate and advanced classes that seldom have more than 20 students, taught by faculty that is undeniably among the top 10 in the country.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that point. The notion of fit is absolutely paramount when it comes to selecting a school. I just got blinded by the dream to go to Michigan, and didn’t weigh my options properly. Michigan was definitely the biggest school I applied to. I chose a very popular major, and classes do end up having 80-100+ people packed into a lecture hall. Even through your upper level courses, where you’d expect the class sizes to shrink. I only took maybe 2 or 3 classes with less than 40 people, and I definitely ended up doing much better in the classes where the professor was able to at least recognize my face or acknowledge my presence.

And yes, Michigan (along with other top research institutions) have amazing depth and breadth of curricular options, and you end up in a situation where you can often times feel like the the world is your oyster. No matter where you go and what you choose to study, you will find comfort in knowing that your school is still one of the best in that major. I think that’s part of the reason why LS&A encourages students to come in as “undecided” to wipe the slate clean and explore their options, which is one of the few great parts about Michigan IMO. I just feel like it would have worked out much better if Michigan had better academic advisers. They pretty much did everything that you could do on your LSA Audit Checklist at the comfort of your own home. They also really didn’t seem interested in helping students find appropriate courses or professors to get in touch with for research and kind of just said “why don’t you do it yourself?” when you asked for something outside of your major/minor.

I just feel like you need the right personality to succeed at Michigan (extroverted, gung-ho mentality), along with a little bit of luck. I just ended up trying to look for a decent lab job, and ended up in bad/un-supportive labs. I also got stuck with professors who didn’t really seem to care about teaching (one professor of mine cancelled his office hours 2 days before a major project was due because he wanted to work on his $3 million grant proposal for the NIH) which made my Michigan experience feel even worse. I just eventually grew disillusioned with my department, and I guess that bled through and tainted the rest of my Michigan experience.

But don’t worry, there is still hope in this world. A lot of students (including myself) end up going to fantastic graduate schools or finding good jobs after life as an undergrad at Michigan. If you go through a program where the average GPA is unusually low, or a school that is notorious for grade deflation, employers/graduate schools definitely take that into account. And that Michigan name does carry a fair bit of weight/prestige behind it. So I guess not all is lost.

If I can share a bit of advice for UM grads and job seekers – here in the midwest, your school is obviously one of the great academic institutions. However, don’t go into job interviews entitled or assuming ppl owe you anything b/c of your UM degree.

Maybe this isn’t you and you’d never dream of appearing this way – but I can tell you many previous grads have gone out and soiled the path for you. Hiring managers are wary of the puffed up and entitled UM grad.

My friend (a UM grad himself who recruits engineers), shakes his head at the number of UM applicants who think their robotics team participation and their 3.1 GPA will land them the job – they’re not even TRYING that hard to get the position. His company is soured on UM due to the prior poor hires. They have much better experience with grads from “lesser” schools who demonstrate drive, determination, and a willingness to learn.

UM can breed a false sense of arrogance for sure. Even if you have it, stuff it away. It’ll only hurt you. People are wise to it. Even if this doesn’t describe you in the slightest, know that you may be painted with the same brush.

“If I can share a bit of advice for UM grads and job seekers – here in the midwest, your school is obviously one of the great academic institutions.”

T26E4, just to clarify, Michigan is generally regarded as the best university in the Midwest, along with Chicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame and WUSTL. All five of those universities have national reputations and are regarded among the elite.

That being said, I agree with the rest of your post. Students at top universities often assume, and falsely so, that they will automatically be associated with the greatness of their university. That may be partly correct intrinsically, but it does not translate to what others will see or think. In fact, that is one of the qualities companies and recruiters dislike about students at top universities; the arrogance and sense of entitlement. However, Michigan students tend to suffer from this troubling trait far less than their counterparts art peer institutions, particularly the Ivies.