The University of Minnesota - Morris

Date: Aug 29 2011
Major: Chemistry (This Major's Salary over time)
I loved my time at UMM! Absolutely loved it. I came from a high school that had the same size student body as Morris, but Morris felt much more personal and everyone was so much friendlier and cohesive.

This will be a very haphazard post and not necessarily grammatically correct. Sorry, English profs of UMM

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I took classes in almost every department at one point or another and I always found the faculty to be accessible. Some more so than others, but they would be more accessible than any professors at larger universities. Whenever I had a professor that did not have many office hours or had an especially packed semester, they went out of their way to set up TAs specifically for that course and were always open to talking before or after class or via email. There were only a couple professors that I outright did not care for or was not challenged by, but that is to be expected of any university.

As others have said, some majors are more difficult or are better run than others. I would say that in general, the science majors are some of the top majors as far as bang-for-your-buck at UMM. All of the biology and chemistry faculty have research, but teaching is their top priority. They challenge you and force you to do more than the typical memorization and busy work. Many of the professors came from top-notch schools themselves and have all said that the UMM chemistry and biology programs are akin to ivy league schools'… although they could have been saying that to boost. All classes are taught by professors, and they all speak English well (some as a second language, but still well enough to understand easily).

If you want to get involved in research in the sciences, there are many opportunities to do so at UMM. They actually require you to do some research (as part of a class) for chemistry majors. This also gave many of us the opportunity to attend the national ACS conferences to present our research, and many students get published under their names, not their supervising professor's. The school also brought out several alumni chemistry speakers throughout my years at UMM and they all said that they were well prepared for the "real world" of chemistry and that they have seen first hand how far ahead UMM chemistry alumni are right out of school versus other universities.

Also—like others have said—people that say there's nothing to do in Morris but drink are not trying very hard. From my experience, those are normally the people that don't take their studies very seriously or are just not very creative or productive with their time. Yes, there's not a lot to do in town. It's a fact. However, you make your own fun, and the university goes out of its way to keep students occupied. There's free movies on campus, dances, Open Mic Night, concerts galore (both student and visiting… Flogging Molly came about 2009, Vienna Boys Choir, etc.), organized city-wide capture the flag, Zombies vs. Humans, and so many clubs you won't know what to do with yourself. If you need clubs and big-city entertainment, Morris is definitely NOT the place for you.

There are so many clubs and organizations to get involved in. I believe the count has surpassed 100 by now (and there's about 1800 students). Some are very unique and down to earth (Ground Quiddich, Bad Movie Club, Boffers), and some are very involved. There's fun clubs that don't really have much of a point and there's also clubs that are very focused on volunteerism, campus life improvement, raising money for causes, and for your major.

Two words: free tutoring. It's easy to get, whether you want a private tutor or to go to drop-in tutoring.

You can walk everywhere in Morris. You will not need a car unless you plan on commuting frequently… or if you're lazy. I found my feet, my bike, and occasional exploitation of my friends' vehicles to be sufficient enough. There is a shuttle that goes to and from St. Cloud and Maple Grove (towards the Twin Cities), but it costs about $30 round trip and seats are limited. Many students catch rides with other students that have cars. I did this for four years and never had a problem getting transportation when I needed it.

It is very easy to get involved in clubs and to rise to positions of leadership if you put the time and effort in, which is not common at larger universities. Things like these look great on job and grad school applications.

Did I mention that ALL of the classes are taught by professors and not TAs? And that they're pretty small? It's awesome. My largest class was about 100 people, but the professor still knew everyone's name and cared about our success in the class. My smallest class was about five people and was considered a "graduate style" class. I would say my average class size was about 15 to 20 people, but that varies drastically from major to major.

Parking on campus is very cheap and freshmen can keep cars on campus.

There are many ultra-conservative students and also many ultra-liberal students… and you have your few weirdos… but the majority of students are just normal people. There's the die-hard partiers and the students that stick their noses in their books and never take them out, and there's also people that find a happy medium betweent he two. If you think that there's only one type of "person" at any college, you have not branched out enough or tried to find people with your common lifestyle. Regardless, you'll find people that you fit in with.

Things I did not like about UMM:

The tiny, polarized town. It has several fun, quirky things to do, but you can only do them so many tunes. If you want to go outside of the university and the student body for fun times, you will hit a dead end pretty quickly. There's no shopping, unless you consider Family Dollar, Pamida, and the UMM Bookstore ample shopping. While it was annoying at times, I was actually grateful for not having many shopping opportunities because I saved a ton of money that way. Most people drive to Alexandria or St. Cloud if they are looking for shopping. Food is expensive at the only large-chain grocery store, Willies (Coborns closed a few years ago). You can also buy food at La Tienda, the Bent-N-Dent, or other healthy/organic eating co-ops.

The city is very cold and windy and is also not so good about plowing city roads quickly in the winter. However, the campus is very good about putting salt down and plowing its roads and sidewalks.

Student housing off campus is hit-and-miss. I lived in two separate houses with two separate landlords. Both were very unkempt houses, one was a friendly landlord that was a decent guy. The other just flat-out sucked. Some people manage to get good housing and good landlords, but it takes a lot of searching and getting opinions from people that have already lived off campus. Start looking early!

As another poster said, there are not many opportunities for employment off-campus or internships in town. It's sad, but true.

Most students I know loved their time at Morris and thought very highly of their education, but I also know a few people that hated it with a passion. They were just not a right fit for the school and town. Visit campus, stay overnight with a student (set this up with admissions or stay with someone you know), and think hard about if Morris is the school for you. I hope you choose Morris, but good luck with your college search either way!