Editor,
As my time at UNM draws to a close, I'd like to reflect on a few key things regarding this University that I feel future and current undergrads could benefit from.
Students are on the bottom of the totem pole, and I feel they should be on the top. The only reason UNM exists is because people choose to attend.
And why do 30,000 people choose to attend? Maybe the Lottery Success Scholarship or convenience was the final decision. But regardless of why the students come, once they get here they realize they are treated like cash machines and slaves.
The bookstore is an evil enterprise all unto its own. As an example, the iPod shuffle retails anywhere online or in major stores for $100. At the bookstore, it retails for $149 - a 50 percent markup. This is ridiculous, and most items in the bookstore follow this pattern. It's easy for students to get there, and it's easy to charge items to their student accounts, so why not just suck them dry, instead of giving back to the student community that is the sole reason staff at UNM have jobs.
ASUNM is an excuse for students to have something to put on their rÇsumÇ. They don't do anything of value, aside from strip student organizations of their budgets and hassle the Daily Lobo for not representing them in a good light. To be represented in a good light, you must do some good first.
Advisers lie. Maybe that's too harsh - I suppose they're just ill-trained and don't know what they're talking about. But as a student on the other end, when they do you wrong, it's as if they lied to you. If it weren't for the staff of the College of Arts & Sciences Advisement Center, I would have graduated a year ago and been several thousand dollars better for it.
Professors for the most part have forgotten what it means to be a student, and they don't care. This is a touchy subject, because there are some genuinely good people who teach and try to help students, but most of them are teaching assistants. When it comes to professors, they don't want to know what your problem is, and they don't want to help you. They would rather write sub-par textbooks, do their research in peace and collect their paychecks.
To sum it up, UNM is more akin to an Enron-like corporation than an institution of higher learning. UNM will squeeze money out of you and anyone else as often as it can, whether it be with repeated tuition hikes, astronomical class fees or textbook prices.
My advice to UNM is to change your ways before the students who are less tolerant than myself revolt. My advice to you, the student, is to get out while you're ahead. Transfer to a small school, where staff will know your name and care about your situation. I don't have a single professor who knows who I am, and when I walk across the stage on Saturday, they'll all fake that look of recognition. How pathetic.
Brandon Condrey
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