2008 Woodie Awards
UW-Whitewater offers few big city lessons
Letter to the editor
Issue date: 1/30/08 Section: Opinion
As a recent UW-Whitewater graduate, I have a few observations about my alma mater.
UW-Whitewater is affordable for poor students or those wary of the risks of financing a private education; that's a major plus. The campus is also relatively safe and easy to get around.
In retrospect, I noticed some serious pitfalls within the system. I am the son of two UW-Whitewater alumni. My father is currently attending as a returning student. Neither of my parents were able to find appropriate job placement after graduating. We lived in low-rent apartments most of my life, and I even make a higher wage than my mother at my current job as a graphics assistant in Milwaukee. The road getting to that, though, was full of many different stop-ups.
Some of UW-Whitewater's professors have been on tenure so long that they are unshakeable from their positions and completely out of touch with current field goings-on, which undoubtedly happen in, or in the vicinity of, major metropolitan areas. I am not taking a stab at UW-Whitewater being in a small town. A world of larger opportunities have opened up to me since I have moved to Milwaukee, but I somehow feel as if I am constantly playing catch-up with graduates in my field.
To summarize, UW-Whitewater has not cut my teeth nearly enough to take on the metropolitan work world, especially if I move to Chicago or somewhere else. Instead, I'm forced to adjust.
I sincerely hope some improvements can be made to Whitewater's believability on a résumé by not cementing professors in tenure positions with no student surveys, thus affording students more opportunities to work in their field in an actual city.
Adam?Smith
UW-Whitewater alumnus
UW-Whitewater is affordable for poor students or those wary of the risks of financing a private education; that's a major plus. The campus is also relatively safe and easy to get around.
In retrospect, I noticed some serious pitfalls within the system. I am the son of two UW-Whitewater alumni. My father is currently attending as a returning student. Neither of my parents were able to find appropriate job placement after graduating. We lived in low-rent apartments most of my life, and I even make a higher wage than my mother at my current job as a graphics assistant in Milwaukee. The road getting to that, though, was full of many different stop-ups.
Some of UW-Whitewater's professors have been on tenure so long that they are unshakeable from their positions and completely out of touch with current field goings-on, which undoubtedly happen in, or in the vicinity of, major metropolitan areas. I am not taking a stab at UW-Whitewater being in a small town. A world of larger opportunities have opened up to me since I have moved to Milwaukee, but I somehow feel as if I am constantly playing catch-up with graduates in my field.
To summarize, UW-Whitewater has not cut my teeth nearly enough to take on the metropolitan work world, especially if I move to Chicago or somewhere else. Instead, I'm forced to adjust.
I sincerely hope some improvements can be made to Whitewater's believability on a résumé by not cementing professors in tenure positions with no student surveys, thus affording students more opportunities to work in their field in an actual city.
Adam?Smith
UW-Whitewater alumnus
Be the first to comment on this story