University of Minnesota Reviews of Master's in Liberal Arts

"The university has many support systems and resources available to it's traditional students. However, many of those resources are not available to nontraditional students like myself. Thankfully, my program had a healthy scholarship program to help financially. But there were many support systems that would have been extremely valuable to me that I couldn't access."

"The program is great, but I wish staff would seek more diverse ways of teaching the material rather than just use methods what their fathers & forefathers taught them. They all are certainly capable, they've always proved that, but they should do more than just the classic slideshow and enigmatic notes. I know this isn't everybody, but I know for the more technical classes, it is this way. I feel like for such an emerging exciting new technology system with such diversity within its field and cross-platform goodliness, it sorely needs professors who can teach in these ways too. Also, it's so small. The technology system is huge; why is the department so small?"

"I like that the program is small and intimate amidst a vast campus so people can network and delve into the pool of skills with that personal element that invites more value than quantity."

"Most faculty members are accessible, thoughtful, and interested in your work, even if you aren't their advisee. Very close-knit group of students. Everyone has the same funding. Students are supportive of their peers' projects. Sometimes you are assigned a teaching assistantship that is not relevant to your work, but it is still valuable professional experience."

"Pros: a lot of diversity and learning from the best institution. cons: too big campus"

"Library and other support definitely makes the PRO list. Faculty are knowledgeable and accessible. School is great overall. Cons: expensive."

"Pros: flexibility. experience of faculty. Cons: expensive as all hell."

"My program is wonderful to its graduate students and provides them with plenty of social and monetary support overall. My biggest problems are less with my department and more with the University at large, which has steadily defunded most liberal arts programs in favor of athletics and upper administration salaries. The admin. put down an attempt to form a Grad workers union earlier this year, which would have guaranteed all grad assistants collective bargaining rights over their benefits and wages, and that has left a really sour taste in my mouth. Don't expect much help from the U at large, but if your program is good, I would recommend applying."

"I'm not really certain what the purpose is of rating an entire college (in this case, the College of Liberal Arts) when any prospective graduate student should be interested primarily in the quality of the specific department where he/she will do the vast majority of his coursework. At the University of Minnesota, some departments in the College of Liberal Arts are highly regarded (geography and political science are two examples) while others (for instance, anthropology) are probably not of particularly high quality. Also, any prospective graduate student who is going to use ratings on athletics or campus food services as part of his/her decision-making process probably isn't mature enough to succeed at grad school."