Saint Mary's College - IN Rankings by Salary Score™

I am an unusual graduate of SMC as a much older male. First, I graduated from Notre Dame decades ago. At the time, SMC was all-female. I was a STEM major at Notre Dame and experienced the extreme rigor of courses. I had always understood SMC to have a similar academic rigor since it was the "sister" university of the previously all-male Notre Dame. ND went co-ed back in the 1970s but was still overwhelmingly male when I was there. As an undergraduate, I visited SMC a few times and took a running course that... Read More went right near SMC. So, I was familiar with the campus. I graduated from ND and studied science. Years later I was working remotely as a software engineer and felt a need to update my technical skills for machine learning and artificial intelligence. During COVID-19 lockdown, I worked remotely and felt isolated. Around late spring of 2020 I saw a Facebook feed for the new data science program at SMC. I assumed it was still all-female but clicked into the link out of curiosity. I found that modern SMC has a graduate school that now admits men. So, I felt motivated to apply for three reasons: (1) update technical skills for AI/ML, (2) return to ND/SMC after decades away, and (3) enhance communication given real-world demands of industry. For (1), the curriculum at SMC was excellent. The class sizes were small, so the professors often responded quickly within the same day. The presentation of data science topics was very comprehensive and rigorous. The breadth and depth were large for exploring each course agenda. The customary pattern of "15-20 hours for each 3 credits" is common for graduate school, and SMC is not an exception. A sensitive problem that currently exists in industry and online in the "manosphere" of many blogs of social media, YouTube channels, Tik Tok, Twitter, etc. is the male perspective of the "Me Too" movement. Unfortunately, there are male engineers who have decided to irrationally avoid or minimize interaction with females in the work environment - particularly young women. The common fear among such irrational men is the view that any "slightly wrong move" will lead to accusations of sexual harassment. They usually cite anecdotal "evidence" and "overgeneralize". But as a guy I firmly disagree with that irrational view of the "Me Too" movement and working with females. I wanted to force myself to go into a communication medium with female STEM majors in graduate school with training on a professional focus. SMC provides a crucial communication course that is innovative and very strong given the realistic complications of the working world in male-female interactions or general challenges of communication. I communicated in discussions with the instructor and female STEM students about the challenges of communication at work, common problems, personality types, strategies, etc. In particular, the instructor decided to include a major week of study on the "Me Too" movement and resulting needs for communication in the work environment regarding the topic. I found this to be most helpful for real-world communication with female colleagues on the job. So, this course was very strong in the need to fulfill item (2) noted above. Finally, for (3) I was a much older graduate student who felt a desire to return to my undergraduate roots of the ND/SMC environment. I had not been back in years, and I missed my Catholic roots on campus. I returned for graduation and the commencement weekend was extremely active with many alumni, graduating students, and families. As a much older graduation student who had been at ND decades ago for Generation X, I felt awkward initially. But as I met the SMC students, they were very polite and inclusive. I joked with them that I had been at ND when the football team won a championship. I enjoyed the ceremony and excellent speeches. Overall, it was great to be back at ND/SMC with completion of a rigorous graduate curriculum of data science that applies well to the real-world job scenarios I often deal with. In summary, I recommend the data science graduate program to working professional engineers as a viable option for data science now that AI has evolved tremendously throughout multiple industries. (Disclaimer: this is an informal blog post - not a formal submission to an academic journal with specific rubric on format, headings, font, spacing, alignment, etc. using tools such as Overleaf. I just added this disclaimer because I had a recent post that was criticized for minor spacing when I pointed out the informal blogs don't have a rubric. When I did the capstone project for SMC, I used Overleaf for my study with a machine learning group of graduate students and principal investigators that was NSF-funded and submitted studies to various journals and conferences. I know how to use Overleaf and specific rubrics of formatting if I have to.)

Saint Mary's College provided me with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to be an agent for change and a well-rounded human. During my time at Saint Mary's, I studied Psychology and Philosophy, and I received so many opportunities to learn and put my knowledge into practice. I worked with children at the Early Childhood Development Center, I interned at a hospice center, and I conducted experiments on campus. I also had the opportunity to be a Teaching Assistant in multiple Psychology courses. I found my... Read More voice, created bonds with lifelong friends, and expanded my worldview by studying abroad with their well-established Rome Program. Saint Mary's has so much to offer. I would highly recommend this institution!