GrumpyGrouch

I'm not really concerned with selectivity - I think a lot of this could be fixed by getting everyone on the same page in prep - if the prep program was expanded a few weeks it would make this a lot easier. The fact that there IS a prep program for math/English is encouraging, but there ought to be some way to get students with no polisci/govt/law/geopol/history classes caught up as well. I would have even been happy taking a few summer undergrad courses to get caught up and ready for GPS. I agree there are some impressive students, I just hope we don't lose a lot of them here after the first quarter. I hope you're right about the curve. My assessment, as I said in my previous post, is biased by my perspective of being in my first quarter. Your optimism is encouraging, but you have to understand where I'm coming from. Despite my natural skeptical pessimism, I'm very much looking forward to next year - the bulk of the courses in which I am interested are only available in the second year because of the size of the core classes. I haven't really taken a look too hard at the BA/MIA program, so I'll have to take your word on it. I had a choice between GPS and a school in DC as well. Please don't mistake my grumpiness for enthusiasm with an East Coast program, because that would be incorrect. I do not regret choosing GPS - I am merely grumpy and making an initial assessment based on limited information.

Coming back to school after a long hiatus and I'm working at the same time part-time (I don't advise it - this isn't just any grad program - this is a nightmare). I'm past mid-terms now. I also did the prep-course this summer to help prepare for all of the bloody math we have to do (but it was a gigantic cram session - maybe they should just spread the fucking econ out over more than a bloody quarter?). The courses are punishing. It's very math heavy, which I HATE. The lectures are gawd-awful long and without breaks, and the professors seem to be dead set on blasting through everything at light-speed. Multiple topics are covered in the same lecture. The assignments are graded on the whims of TAs that can't seem to maintain any sort of consistency in grading. The language professor doesn't even have a proper syllabus, nor does she have a textbook or any sort of structure to the classes - it's basically us teaching ourselves through conversations in her class and her assigning readings from online blogs and news outlets she chooses without any set vocabulary to focus on and a lot of sighs and eye rolling when you don't know what she's saying. The Globalization class is a nebulous clusterfuck of vague concepts tied together with some stupid buzzwords. None of the classes have daily assignments or weekly quizzes to measure progress and provide a check on learning. The class sizes are huge (except for language, but you're lumped together with people of very different abilities and so the class size being small is nearly irrelevant). Most of the students coming here can't find major countries on a map and have no background in a field related to strategy, geopolitics, international law, or polisci. A lot of economics whizkids, accountants, and fucking management types (ooh, look at me, I can do a cost benefit analysis! FUCK EVERYONE IN THAT MAJOR) fresh from undergrad. I haven't heard or seen anything strategic come from anybody's mouth since coming here. I've been helping the foreign students with their essays, and the kiddos coming from censored countries (looking at you, China) have painfully bad understandings of the outside world and their historical knowledge is so full of propaganda it hurts. So far, I'm very, very disappointed. This program seems geared towards making it's students into a bunch of basement-dwelling dorks working for the actual decision makers. Hopefully shit turns around in year two. I need a drink.