Be cautious, and better not to enroll in SFSU MA program

[SkepticFutile]

I am an MA student in SFSU in my second year. I suggest people who get the offer from SFSU to think twice about whether they want to join us because we are faced with severe over-enrollment NOW.

That is to say, we only have 9 professors at their positions: Professor Asta and Professor Tiwald have their names on the wbesite but they are actually in another university (Duke and U of HK), I do not know why they are only labled as "on leave"; Professor Peschard may not advice you and she does not deliver graduate seminars.

To make things worse, Professor Landy is on sabbatical, and Professor Garcia is a newcomer. So actually we only have maybe 7.5 professors here this semester.

And how many students enroll in classes this semester? I do not have the data for this semester, but the in 2022 Fall, we have 79 graduate students and 41 senior undergrads. (data source:Student Enrollment (sfsu.edu)) And many of the latter enroll in the "SF Scholar" program that have chance to enroll in Master seminars. So, put it more straightforwardly, we have 8 professors that have to deal with around 100 ought-to-be graduate students.

 

If you feel this situation crazy like me, please be cautious before you decide to accept the offer from SFSU. I am suspecting the university is going to exploit the prestige of the program and make this over-enrollment deliberately.

As for me, well, I am struggling in looking for someone to advice my thesis and so the writing sample for application. I have been in a hard time to find a professor to do independent study with to make that procedure more fluently. Finger crossed to me.