Colorado State University - Fort Collins Rankings by Salary Score™

I came to csu with the goal of preparing myself for a career in museum and research zoological science, and CSU mostly succeeded with this. But with the time and money invested in, it certainly could have done more. My main issue with CSU is with the degree requirements and lack of coordination in the natural sciences college. I spent probably over 50% of my time taking difficult classes that had little to do with my major and I had no interest in, that I feel were mostly about weeding students out rather... Read More than preparing us for work in our field. If I’m studying zoology, it seems ridiculous to have to take two semesters of chemistry and two semesters of physics, and only one semester of ecology, evolution, vertebrate zoology, invertebrate zoology, or statistics, which are much more relevant. I am 6 credits from graduating and panicking because I didn’t learn about all the things I wanted to. Thankfully CSU has a lot of good field courses and undergraduate research opportunities that gave me a taste of what my future career would be like- and I did not once use any material I learned in chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, or physics. I didn’t even need any cell biology- All my work is on a whole organism or populations, in fact animal behavior or population genetics would have been more helpful, but only cell bio was required. Maybe that’s what vet med students need for vet school- but that’s not me. Even more upsetting was that classes like “physics for life scientists” was just regular physics class, on par with an intro to physics in general- the professor had no background in biology at all and no idea what concepts we would need to know. Those base science classes should be adapted for practical purposes and taught by professors with an interdisciplinary interest in both zoology and whatever the class is on. If not, students should have more choice in what they want to take, perhaps by using major concentrations. And that’s not to say I believe zoologists should only take zoologists classes (I actually had a minor in a different field), I just think we should have more choice in it depending on what we want the degree to be for- as I would much rather take, say, more statistics, science writing, or geology, instead of chemistry or physics.

I often felt like a second class person at CSU, both the professors and university staff made me feel "less than". It really is a education assembly line without any attempt to understand you as an individual. The chemistry department acted like any task performed for me was a waste of time because I was never going to get my PhD. When I was preparing to defend some staff and professors started having conversations with me that felt like attempts to apologize for mistreating me, however at that point I really... Read More had no desire to hear apologies. Even when I passed my defense some professors and staff still seemed to feel like it was okay to act like I had wasted there time. I published papers as the 1st and only author other than my advisor, I passed all the classes, and finished my cumes. I did well in my preliminary exam, but they continued to treat me like I didn't belong. I did have a hand full of positive interactions and a couple professors were very helpful. Unfortunately, these positive interactions were always overshadowed by the constant barrage of negativity hurled at me by so many of professors and much of the staff.