Went to Slippery Rock University Orientation Friday (Pittsburgh, Butler: schools, shop)

[gg]

Wow, someone comes on here all excited about going to college and everyone rains on his parade. Goodness, life is too short. Let some people enjoy themselves for goodness sake!

[Yac]

Grammar nazi alert!
Seriously though, this is just silly. If you can't post on topic and actually contribute, or at least make a funny but insightful observation, why post at all ? There are other ways to make yourself feel better you know, ones that don't involve attacking others, even if it's about grammar and even if you're right.
Yac.

[hornet67]

It wasn't all that long ago that Slippery Rock, Edinboro, Clarion, California, et al were known as State Teacher's Colleges. That's a long stretch to competing with the Ivy League.

[robrobrob]

Can we shut this one down? It really isn't going anywhere positive.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

On a more positive note, SRU has a rep of being a decent party school on the weekdays (on the weekends people seem to go home). If you're going to college there just enjoy it and have the time of your life and worry about the future later.

[Velvet Jones]

Originally Posted by UKyank

One thing I will say regarding Cal U, I think they need to lay off their huge push of their online class program. I know it is convenient for some people & it brings in lots of easy revenue for the school, but all their advertisements now are about being one of the largest online universities.

Regardless of its positives, online degrees still have the stigma (either fairly or not) of being less then legit in many fields. Your diplima doesn't state how you got your degree, so if the school truly wants to garner a rep as an online institution it will unfairly put a stigma on the students that are attending the traditional classroom classes and it would also tick me off if I was an alumnus from there.

I have to defend Cal U. on this one. On-line is the future. Most major universities offer at least some courses on-line, include Stanford. The University of Maryland has been offering on-line degrees for over a decade. To me, succeeding on-line can be even more impressive, as it shows you are self-reliant. I've taken several masters courses on-line, they are not cake walks. First off, you need well developed written communication skills. In most of the classes I've taken, writing was a major component. You usually have one or two papers to write, plus there are often interactive assignments. A common practice is to write a weekly essay and post it to the class black board. You then have to write a critique of one or two other students essays. The one knock on on-line classes is that the tests are basically open book, but if you've ever taken an advanced on-line test you'll know that this doesn't mean much. Most tests are extremely difficult. There is always a time limit that is strictly enforced, any questions not answered are counted as zero. Even on a multiple choice test this can be very challenging. Typical tests I had were 50 questions in one hours. Average question was several paragraphs, with each answer being a paragraph or more. So looking up the answer really isn't an option, and usually not even possible as the questions themselves usually required insight and thought. I know several times I was sweating that count down clock, trying to get the last questions finished. I literally finished a few times with mere seconds left.

Another odd thing about on-line. Even traditional classes are adding an on-line components. A couple of the classes I took had both class room and on-line versions, but even in the class room version of the course the tests were still done on-line outside of class. So the lecture was the only class room part. One of my co-workers took classes at Pitt, she said that a few of her classes were the same way. So even when it is not on-line it still may not be the old fashion class room style.

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't know much about the college per se, but I've really liked the town the few times I've been there.

[Katarina Witt]

My husband, from Nebraska, did not believe Slippery Rock really existed until he met me. He had seen the name on TV while watching the football scores, and thought SR was made up, as a joke. Just an aside to this conversation.

[Copanut]

All kidding aside, The Rock is a decent school, Ivy League, not so much. My sister is an SRU grad and retired at 55 after working for a national food service company and reaching the regional VP level. I have a few other Rock grad friends that have also done very well.

[gg]

Originally Posted by Copanut

All kidding aside, The Rock is a decent school, Ivy League, not so much. My sister is an SRU grad and retired at 55 after working for a national food service company and reaching the regional VP level. I have a few other Rock grad friends that have also done very well.

Sure it is a good school. Not sure why so many people crapped on the OP? Kind of shocking!