<p>Hi all! What are your thoughts (pros and cons) on JMU? We have scoured the website and visited in person. How us the quality of life? Are the students happy and fulfilled? Upon graduation, are they employable and/or able to get into reputable grad schools? Are there things you wish you had known prior to attending?</p>
<p>My son graduated from JMU May 2012, CS major. By that July, he had two job offers, and began working in August, following graduation. We are OOS, from NY, and have only good things to say about JMU. It was a great experience for him, and us, and we would do it again without hesitation. His girlfriend graduated a year later, and also had several job offers, and is working too!</p>
<p>Pros:</p>
<p>-Good campus life. Lots of sports, activities, and partying if you’re into that kind of thing. </p>
<p>-Strong academics. Especially the business program. It’s no UVA, but kids come in with usually high GPA’s and decent SAT scores.</p>
<p>-It’s a positive campus, has a good vibe.</p>
<p>-I’ve only heard good things about employment after graduation. Lot of big cities like J Maddy students.</p>
<p>Cons:</p>
<p>-Harrisonburg. It’s pretty far out of the way compared to say Mary Washington and doesn’t sit inside a large city like UVA, CNU, U of R, etc. </p>
<p>-The size can be good or bad, depending on what you want.</p>
<p>My son is a senior at JMU. I think it is a great school, (so does he) and faculty was always helpful. I also think it is a great value, even coming from out of state.
Something to be aware of though, most kids go off campus by their second year, and that creates even more of a party scene, and the price for housing, etc becomes more expensive. I also think Greek life is stronger than they say it is.
At this point he is longing for more city.
He did go on numerous Alternative Spring Break trips, very reasonable, and good for the resume.
We’ll see about the job possibilities…</p>
<p>My son is a junior at JMU. He absolutely loves it and is plenty intellectually challenged while also having a great social life. He has formed strong relationships with several professors. He’s majoring in Geographic Science (A mix of computer technology, environmental studies, physical geography, and cultural geography). He is constantly busy and immersed in numerous activities, including two intramural sports, one club sport, the Geography Club, and one honor society. He says it’s a very social school and that although there’s a party scene, it’s no more or less party-ish than UVA or VA Tech – two schools where he has a lot of friends and has visited. The Greeks are active at JMU but not nearly as dominant of the social scene as they are at UVA. Kids stay on campus at JMU on weekends, so it’s definitely not a suitcase school. My son lived on campus for the first two years and then moved just off campus to a townhouse (right next to campus and can use the bus system easily). For him, it’s been cheaper living off campus. I think this may be because they are in an old townhouse (so not as fancy as some of the newer digs that have been going up around Harrisonburg) and have five people in their house (although they each have their own room). Harrisonburg is a small town, but it’s quaint and they are doing a lot to develop it. There are lots of cute restaurants, taverns, bars, etc. that have a music scene and good food. There is also a small mall with shops like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart, and Belks. The campus of JMU itself has a ton of activities. Nobody should ever have any problem finding things to get involved in there. By the way, Charlottesville (where UVA is) is by no means a metropolis. It’s just a small city and isn’t all that exciting either. And Blacksburg, where VA Tech is, is even smaller than Harrisonburg. Pretty much the only really urban campuses in Virginia are VCU and George Mason. The thing about the really urban campuses is that they have a more commuter feel to them and less of a sense of community as the less urban campuses. At JMU, there is a real feeling of close-knit community, and it’s a very friendly campus. Even the kids who live off campus are fairly close to campus and are surrounded by other students, and there’s a great bus service that goes to all of the off campus housing throughout the day and until about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. In terms of job prospects, JMU graduates seem to be employable and also get into good grad schools. My neighbor’s daughter, who majored in Chemistry at JMU a couple of years ago, is now at Yale for med school. Several kids my son knows who majored in business have gone on to grad MBA programs such as Wharton/UPenn, UVA, Duke, etc. Some also landed Wall Street investment banking jobs. There a lot of JMU grads working in the government agencies and contract companies in the DC area, including a JMU grad I’ve been working with on a project in my workplace who speaks Russian fluently and got his MA in Russian Studies at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced Int’l Studies. A lady I exercise with who has twin sons who just graduated from college last year – one from JMU and one from UVA – says that the JMU one had five job offers right away (majored in Geographic Science), while the UVA one took about a year to find a job (English major). I think that had more to do with the majors they chose than anything else. JMU has a good reputation. It may not be “Mr. Jefferson’s University,” but it is a great school in its own right that prepares kids well nevertheless and has some interesting majors in technical fields that the more traditional universities don’t offer. Some things that set it apart are that it’s very undergraduate focused – you almost never have a grad assistant teaching you but rather full professors. Also, the classes at JMU are smaller than they are at UVA and VA Tech, and there is less of a problem getting the classes you want there. JMU has an amazing two-part orientation program that includes each student meeting one-on-one with an adviser to arrange his/her first semester schedule. The only other college in Virginia that I have heard of that has as good or as thorough of a freshman orientation as JMU is William & Mary. I believe that is because they are both undergrad focused schools whose main purpose is to keep undergrads happy and help them be successful – less emphasis and money put towards grad students. And even though you can major in many technical fields at JMU, including Computer Science, Geographic Science, Engineering, Biotechnology, etc. – they still require that all students complete a Liberal Arts track of general education classes that include a lot of writing and class presentations so that the students learn to communicate effectively both in writing and speaking. There is also an excellent arts scene at JMU, including musical theater, regular theater, several choirs, several bands, a couple of orchestras, and eight a capella groups. The school is wonderfully well run, and both my son and we (his parents) have been able to get quick, efficient assistance with any issue that has arisen during his time there. This school knows that they are competing with UVA, Tech, and W&M for students, so they don’t take anything or anyone for granted, and they are always working hard to improve and make sure their undergrads are having a stellar experience.</p>
<p>Thank you for such a thorough and very detailed post ! Very, very helpful!</p>