Because this blog is where I go to complain.

If you're on the University of Maryland campus for long enough, you may hear a popular saying about the school. It goes, more or less, like this:

"When the University of Maryland graduates a virgin, pigs will fly. Because even if you've managed to make it through your years without having sex, you'll still end up getting raped by the university one way or another."

It may sound brash and immature, but this saying speaks a lot of truth to a majority of the students, usually on the topic on finances. UMD loves its money, and will seemingly do anything in its power to dip into your pockets and pick them dry.

This is not to say that the University of Maryland is a bad school. It is, in fact, a phenomenal university, with some of the top programs in the world and a fantastic student population. Students will attest to this, but they will also tell you that Maryland has - at one point or another - managed to charge them in some unreasonable fashion or has been stingy with that ever growing pot of change it keeps from tuition and fundraising. Even with the over 25,000 undergraduates currently attending or entering the university, Maryland has sufficient funds (cough millions cough) to provide them all with some sort of scholarship. So if you were to factor in those who actually apply for scholarships and their credentials, the candidates needing money would decrease and the funding to each student would increase. I'm not going crazy, right?

So let's hear the story of student for this semester.
This student came in fairly sure he would be a civil engineer, but after learning more about aerospace, eventually decided to pick up an aerospace engineering minor (gee golly, who could this be???). He had mantained a 3.86 GPA up through sophomore year, and was now entering his first semester, junior year with 20 credits. These classes were split between civil, aerospace, and band. It was going to be a rough semester, but hopefully worth it.
Upon starting the semester, this student decided to pledge an organization that he had been curious about and admired for some time. He was told that the workload of that pledge process would be great, and balancing this amongst classes and other responsibilities would be a tremendous challenge. This student managed to survive the semester, and came out as a brother.
This student also came out with a C- in one class and a 3.4 semester GPA.
Although the damage to his GPA had been done, this student was still happy, because he was now a member of that admired organization. And he knew that he had three more semesters to pick up his GPA and come out alright. The next semester he dropped civil engineering to become fully aerospace, and balanced a lighter credit-load (18) with his new responsibilities in the organization. He also took the time to join another organization, this one focused more towards his career and major. He clawed out of the semester with a 3.65 GPA, which now brought his cumulative GPA to 3.74.

By just looking at the student's transcript, you would see that his GPA took a nosedive junior year, which is one of the more critical times for a college student. You would also see that his resume would be updated with a few more bullets under the "activities" category. And unless you talked to the student, that's all you would see. Unless you shared several hours of conversation with the student, which is what it would take to relay his year of experiences, you would just see those two papers. Your image of that student would be numbers and bullets.

And then you would make an important decision for that student - say, his financial standing for the next year. You would decide how much financial assistance to give him based on your "detailed" account of his college career. Oh, and that paragraph in his scholarship application about his "education and career goals in engineering." Nevermind the fact that some students have lives outside their majors that go beyond what they can fit on a single-page resume. That maybe a entire part of their lives has been dedicated to something beyond engineering or science or math or physics, something that would not necessarily boost their careers. They had made a choice to follow a passion and ultimately succeed in that area, but take a hit in GPA. And then they were given no way to relay that experience, life-changing or otherwise, to those who made the university's financial decisions. Because did the university care what you did outside your major and career? In the end, did the university see a student who had taken risks, reaped the benefits and hefted the losses for a passion, or a student who had the potential to become a big name and put the university on the map as "producer of the successful"?

Here's the end of this student's story, at least for now. This student applied for scholarships. He found out that the university, in their ever-so-philanthropic way, had increased his loans to help cover the costs. Those loans that he would HAVE to pay anyway - the university decided he should have more. And then they tagged on a little scholarship at the end, as if to say "look, we sorta care, but we would've cared more had you just done engineering."


I get how and why the university works. It can't take every opportunity to stop and review the entire college career of every student here - it needs to make decisions in an efficient manner. The university is run like a business.

But that doesn't stop me from feeling a little disappointed now and again.