How To Get The Most From Your UMM Experience

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Hints About How to Get the Most Benefit From Your UMM Experience

Advisor: Katherine A. Benson

Every UMM graduating class is surveyed about their satisfaction with their UMM educational experience after they have completed their degree. One source of pride for UMM as an institution is that departing students give us very high marks of satisfaction. At the same time, it is important to be aware of areas where the students rated UMM less high than they did in most areas, and to think ahead for each freshman class with an idea towards improving future graduating classes' eventual satisfaction with these areas. With this goal in mind I have prepared this page for advisees, because it seems to me that the students' choices of elective courses and activities play an important role in their development--or lack of it--in the areas where students were less satisfied with their accomplishments. My intention here is not to focus on the negative, but to guide incoming students toward choices which will lead to greater overall satisfaction when they graduate. Typically, we see that students are less satisfied in the academic areas that are unrelated to their majors; for example, science majors are less satisfied with how much they learned about the arts, and vice versa. Choosing a wide range of courses for your General Education will help you build and maintain strengths in these areas outside your major. The particular survey I list here was the 1993 Graduate Survey, although the finding has remained fairly consistent since that time on subsequent surveys.

1993 Survey: Although students overall give UMM very high marks of satisfaction (the highest within the University of Minnesota system), the lower averaged ratings for a UMM education by the 1993 graduating class were in the following areas. Again, remember that an in-depth analysis showed that science majors were the ones who rated the arts items below with lower scores, and vice versa::

"1. understanding major concepts of mathematics and quantitative analysis" [Remember, these are the arts majors selecting this.]

"2. broadened acquaintance with important literature" [Here are the science majors, etc.]

"3. skills and techniques directly applicable to a job

4. a basis for improving one's social status

5. understanding the nature of scientific theory and experimentation

6. appreciation of art, music, and drama

7. an awareness of other cultures"

Notice that 5 of the 7 items where students were not as highly satisfied might have been rated differently if the students had made other course choices. The first item could have been rated higher if the students had taken more math or more quantitative classes within or outside of their majors. (For example, in Psychology there is a course on quantitative analysis for psychologists.) The other 4 curricularly based items relate to courses in literature; scientific theory and experimentation; art, music, and drama; and, last, awareness of other cultures--which could come from Anthropology-type courses, study abroad or foreign language courses. Therefore: choose enough courses in these 5 areas so that you will build strong knowledge and skills in these general areas.

Coursework would not be the only way to strengthen the 5 items. Most, (e.g., art, music, and drama, etc.,) could be further developed by attendance at campus cultural events, convocations, and co-curricular activities. Item 3 (skills and techniques directly applicable to a job) can be gained by taking advantage of internship opportunities.

Item 4 can be developed through student activities and can be expected to increase over time. For example, graduates report that, as UMM has grown in national reputation, the "value" and prestige of their degree has increased. In addition, friends you make in college will go on to develop important careers, and in time you will see that alumni friendships can be very important contacts.

I hope these suggestions help; I'm sure you can come up with additional ideas which will further your making growth-enhancing educational choices.

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Since September 24, 2002

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Last Modification: January 29, 2007
URL: http://www.morris.umn.edu/~bensonka/hints.html

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