According to Miss Tracy Jan, UMass Amherst sucks. She is my age and she went to Stanford. Stanford costs about $38,000 per year now. Guess which one of us graduated with no student loan debt? ME! Maybe UMass Amherst has a bad rep because snobs like Tracy Jan love perpetuating that myth. Guess what? UMass Amherst was an amazing experience for me and I learned a lot. Sure, my dorm didn't have maids or ivy growing up its walls facing the quad. But I sure liked graduating debt free. Of course when I was 18, I was pissed that I had to go my safety school but after orientation I was in love. That is how people should form opinions - actually experiencing something rather than reiterating ignorant shit.
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Wow, it felt good to get that vitriol out of my system! My years at UMass were 1995 to 1999. I wasn't a 4.0 high school student but my grades were pretty decent. I got into Sarah Lawrence as well but I couldn't attend due to the miniscule financial aid package. For the second half of my senior year, I felt like a complete failure/loser as my friends got into BC, Holy Cross, Lehigh, and Middlebury. I received a letter from UMass about being sccepted into some program called TAP.
I went to my freshman orientation with the stoic resolve of Anne Boelyn facing the chopping block. For orientation, we stayed in the Northeatern dorms, had tours, and had various placement tests. I also met people who I have been friends with for years at freshman orientation. It turns out the TAP program was for talented students who were entering UMass with declared majors. Also thanks to orientation, I joined the marching band even though I had never marched in a band ever. Basically, getting all that hands-on UMass experience lead to some of the best decisions I have ever made for my undergraduate years. None of my job or financial woes have had anything to do with the stigma of attending a second tier university. Oh yeah, have I mentioned the number of job interviews I got thanks to being a UMass grad and the amazing faculty who helped me to get into business school?
If Tracy Jan had written this article back in 1995, I would have felt awful and hopeless about my future. I really do think it was tacky/cruel to publish this article on freshman move-in day. UMass Amherst offers amazing opportunities to students who are interested and an amazing network of alums.
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