MSU Red Cedar Message Board

I'm learning the same thing, at near the same level of quality, with very good research opportunities in my field (if you don't think so you might want to do a little research of your own). It's less prestigious, but it's also $5,000 less a semester. You're right, the student life isn't on the same level. That wasn't a high priority for me since I'm an older student who got my partying out of the way during and after HS.

Nowhere did I say it is equal to the other schools, but it is equally competent for what I wanted out of it for much less. My response was to the people calling it a community college. Frankly, they sound more arrogant than anyone out of Ann Arbor.

By student life, I didn't mean drinking.

my friend. you are getting a very good education at a fine institution. but one of the things that distinguishes a world class university is the competition one has for grades. you are competing with a regional base of students who for the most part didn't do well enough in high school to earn their way into ann arbor. the students at uofm and msu are competing against a whole 'nuther animal.

and you are doing a smart thing. once you get into the work force, where you study won't matter nearly as much as your work performance. good luck.

I work by UM-Flint and laugh when I'm wearing a MSU shirt or jacket and kids say "you can't wear that around here." Soon as UMF is on our schedule, then you can talk.

When people tell me the "diploma doesn't say Flint or Dearborn" I respond by saying your transcript does and that's what you use when applying for a job or grad school.

Where you go to college or not, doesn't much matter. I have known or worked for multi millionaires who ranged from an 8th grade drop out to a Harvard grad. To each their own....

Back in the 80's I attended UM Dearborn for a year before transferring to MSU. I got to know lots of good folks there including one dude who pitched a fit because when he applied to UM Ann Arbor after a year at Dearborn, he was not accepted. He had a decent GPA at Dearborn from what I understood. But doing well at Dearborn was apparently not interpreted by UMAA admissions as any specific indicator of academic ability. It did not mean you could just slide over to Ann Arbor.

So when people suggest it's really the same school, I argue a bit based on this guy's story. This was back in the 80's though, so maybe it's changed since then.

Additionally, I had a class at Dearborn with a professor that also taught in Ann Arbor. He flat out told us that less was expected of us compared to the AA kids who he characterized as "silver spoon" kids. Simply put, less work was required of us. He recognized that most of us at Dearborn had jobs, perhaps full time, and we were more likely to be contributing to our own tuition bill while typically balancing more responsibilities in our lives than the typical kid in Ann Arbor did.

I know many UM Dearborn grads that like the idea that their diploma simply says "University of Michigan" on it, and they have UofM graduation rings, and football season tickets, and the whole deal. They never utter the word "Dearborn" when talking about where they went to school. They just say "I went to UofM".

True but you don't get those years back. I can't imagine how lame life would have been at a community college for two years compared to my freshman and sophomore years at MSU.

There are a couple of other very significant factors that provide a school such as UMAA an advantage over Dearborn or Flint, right or wrong.

1st, a huge factor are the companies that recruit at the school. My company recruits and hires from UMAA and similar schools, it would be very difficult to get into my company from Dearborn or Flint. Almost all of the top companies in the US have a prescence at UMAA, meaning a degree from there will at least give you the chance to talk to almost any major company. From Dearborn or Flint it will be very hard to get your foot in the door at most companies.

2nd, the networking opportunities from UMAA are tremendous. Both from personal relationships and the alumni network. If you graduate from UMAA's business school you will have executive contacts at any major company on the planet. This won't guarantee you a job, but it will at least get your foot in the door.

The same applies to a degree from MSU to a slightly lesser extent.