University of Maryland, Baltimore County — Attraction in Arbutus

The fact of the matter is that although this university is somewhat small, this school still has a large and diverse population. Many students are here who come from first generation immigrant families or are waiting to get their US citizenship as Visa grad students. I came here for undergrad. I came to this place from community college and was not fresh-out-of-high-school as are many people here. Its a young, NERDY crowd mostly, nothing wrong at all with that. Most students here are also pursuing STEM and introverted. It can be quite slow to get to know some people. The real issue I had was simply the overly political and social energy here (as is the case in much of MD and elsewhere). You want to talk about the full nine yards of extreme Leftist ideology built into institution, you will find it here. I always felt that something was off with the 'vibe' of this place. I think it became more clear when I noticed that the Commons is a fake market: with fruits carts painted on walls. Things are a bit more odd when the showroom of the Commons, which looks like used to be a bar, is instead closed down and has these starring-Great Gatsby-like-dolls hanging around in these fake balconies. I've been in that room dozens of times and as a young adult I'm thinking: "Why is this layout fake, like why not a real balcony and a real bar??? Something to incentivize authentic connections." TBD if that changes. I cant tell you how many times I simply wanted to grab a beer with a scientist there and have a intellectually stimulating conversation: socialism vs capitalism, the problems of Baltimore's infrastructure, modern-day propaganda, how heavy are moonrocks, who is God?, play chess, you name it! That said, overall I felt this place did less to teach me how to become a decent person and instead taught me more on how to survive on my own. That is the nature of much of college education these days: they talk all day about socialism and equality yet operate as capitalists. I came there however with the idea I could interact with an open community. Instead I dealt with a ridiculous amount of high-school level drama and maturity both from students and even some faculty. The rest of the time was usually walking alone in the cold. Overall this place claims to look out for you: that is the overall message but Ive always had my suspicions starting with the overpriced bookstore, mmh. At the end of the day any education or experience is what you make of it. The system here is slow, the culture is outdated, and the parts that are mainstream feel forced and artificial. Same can be said about alot of my social interactions here...but I know how bases and acids work! Nevertheless, I was able to find a lot of peace of mind and emotional support from the counseling center there as well as from the blue collar workers who work on campus and also the vibes of Catonsville and Arbutus. Both places have their run-down, East Coast poverty vibes so common throughout the Baltimore area but the folk there have grit and love to give, even if it can be an prideful, drunk yelling match outside one of the local liquor store but hey that's love babeee. Respects to the OGs, they got actual life advice! I spent a summer working at the Catonsville cemetery and met the kids who worked there. I even met some Russians too. Growing up as an upper-middle class kid, I was grateful for the intensity and roughness of Baltimore. The story there is far deeper than most people realize. UMBC is as much as an emotional, Adderall-crazed shitshow as anywhere else in America, including BeMore. The difference is that people here are more prone to 'hide' it via passive aggression, intense judgment, fake smiles, vicious gossips, and of course the Grand Vision of the Woke of the last few decades. Come here, do your science, and the GTFO is my best advice. I do think it will change once people figure out how to hash out difficult conversations with their families/loved ones while also incentivize that sort of culture. Sorry but there's no math-based model that can...

This school is just using students for the money. I transferred from Mc back in 2016. Was supposed to finish originally with a masters in spring of 19. But they've done some shady sh** that they basically take your money, which has got me into debt and tremendously behind my 4 year plan in earning my degree.

1: My first class, computer science, was taught by a professor who literally read off of PowerPoints and was never there during office hours. This causes me to take it a second time. The second time I got a C since the TA were helping me wrong to a point where the professor caught my TAs giving me a C (TAs grade the exam and then tell the professor) in the final exam instead of a A (which she double checked).

2: The financial aid office doesn't know to correctly give the students the proper information needed to succeed here in the school. I had two awful occasions. First, this past semester I had to drop out of some classes since I didn't have a car at the time (commuter from DC area) and was not told about me having to pay since I dropped out of the classes literally a day before the 50%percent period. The "financial aid counselor " that was assigned to me said I had to pay about $3000 in order for me to continue with me studies. Once I did that, I encountered that I couldn't sign up for the classes I wanted to since he failed to mentioned that I was put into an financial hold since I dropped out that semester. When I tried confronting him, he apparently couldn't help me since he was going on vacation. When I talked to someone else, whose not really knowledgeable since she's a student working there to make extra cash, in the office, they tried to accuse me saying I didn't give him enough information in order for him to tell me that I was not going to receive financial help for my future classes, which clearly there was. So basically it had seemed like they knew I couldn't continue with financial help and just wanted to get $3000 out of me.

3: What got me to the breaking point was I sign up for Summer classes, which I will have to be paying out of pocket since I got no financial aid. I signed up for three classes, two in the first half and the other for the second half. The two that I'm taking now are with horrible professors. First, the yoga teacher says crazy things like "people who do yoga are usually vegan" and thinks everyone is flexible like her. Second, my math professor earned his degree very early on in life and thinks that the students learn the same way as him. When it comes to lectures, he just writes proofs on sections that one can just see on the textbook. When you try to ask him questions, he says "You should've read this before I taught it so then you wouldn't have questions to ask". I tried staying in but after taking the first quiz, which one of them no one knew the answer since it was a homework problem we turned in that day, I knew that this was a waste.

I HOPE THAT PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS SEE THIS AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I've literally wasted about $25,000 in a school which has caused me a bunch of Ws and misguided information that seems useless at this point. The only reason why I gave this a two star and not a one since there was one professor that...

I realize that my opinion can't stand for the whole school (chemical engineering​ 2017), but having held a student job that allowed me to see a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and was part of a department that was in the midst of a lot of changes, I do think I can offer some insight. First, unless you're a proactive genius who wants to do research their entire life, don't bother coming here. This school doesn't care about industry or the jobs it offers. This school talks a lot, but doesn't follow through very well. For instance, the higher ups tend to be good, but the people below them are horrible. The career center is a joke, the admin people are flakes who pretend to know what they're doing, and the professors are very hit or miss. How this school got "best undergrad teaching" is a mystery to me. The only good majors are comp sci and bio. The rest of the departments, especially mine, are either full of hot air, stupid in their decision making, or just plain lost. This university attracts a lot of insanely bright students to their undergraduate program and the stem majors would suck without them. God knows the STEM majors don't get genuine help from their professors. I had to go an extra year because of the negligence of my department and two of the many professors that left during my time were upset and thought I should have graduated a year earlier. I almost transferred twice. My department, similar to many others, don't have any connections to companies in industry. This school also hates transfer students despite having a lot of them. Don't expect to finish any degree in 4 years if you're transferring in. There's no social life here because the school is filled with pasty nerds. It's also surrounded by everything, but close to nothing. You have to drive to get anywhere...