Andrew Fuller

Review of Morgan State Univeristy

I attended Morgan as both a transfer undergrad and...

I attended Morgan as both a transfer undergrad and throughout grad school. It's not a bad school... Depending on your major. I was in the architecture program, which is essentially it's own ecosystem within the university, and aside from university-required classes, classes are held all in the same CBEIS building. I'm going to review the college as a whole, rather than just the building I spent most of my time in. People need to understand that when they say the college is not "diverse", it is a prominent HBCU... However, if you actually look around and talk to people, you realize diversity is all over Morgan. People from different backgrounds, countries, cultures, people from all over the United States. Be careful you are not lumping diversity just to a skin color, or your own definition of it because after my 5 years there, I met people from all over and gained so much perspective and knowledge of other cultures.

If you are in a program that is particularly strong, then your classes will be pretty good (not necessarily organized, but the experience will be good). That being said, some of the professors and classes at Morgan are a joke. Professors who noticeably don't care about what they're teaching or constantly show up late; professors who poorly teach the required material and still expect you to retain it, etc. My best advice would be to not rely on your advisor to hold your hand through registration and advising processes (look over everything on your own first). There will be times that they'll accidentally "miss" a class you needed, or give you misguided information. This is especially true with the administration/student services, they'll say one thing and mean another and at the end of it all, they'll act like it's your fault because you didn't look into it yourself, but that's common in a lot of colleges. Just be careful.

Campus is nice - the ever-growing construction of new buildings gives the college a more premium feel for a historic university, but they really need to spend money on the dorms. They're awful. I advise you to look off campus for your living situation. I commuted my first semester from 45 minutes away, and finally ended up renting an apartment nearby with much better conditions. You'll start to notice that improvements to the campus grounds usually only happen around "event" time... Like graduation or something, but they're still well-kept the rest of the time. The food court is a joke for a school with students living on-campus. I feel bad for y'all because the pickings are slim and sometimes unreliable, so I really hope that can be remedied in the future because the experience would have been a lot better. Especially on my side of the campus where there was absolutely nothing - so you have to walk all the way across campus or drive off campus to get something to eat.

Parking. Parking is free for commuters, and $15 for a new pass if you lose yours or get a new car. Please take this into consideration if you're looking to commute. Parking is FREE. Colleges like Towson, etc, charge like $400+ just for a commuter pass.

Crime. It's an "urban" school - so yes, there are the consequences of crime here and there. However, people make it out to seem a lot worse than it is. I had signed up for the security text alerts and email alerts and we really didn't get THAT many, especially compared to other colleges. You have to be mindful of your surroundings and what you're doing while walking around, etc. If you make smart decisions, you won't have a problem. I never felt unsafe at Morgan.

While Morgan is very unorganized in some aspects, it makes up for it in a lot of other ways. I enjoyed my experiences and time at Morgan despite some of the hiccups and speedbumps along the way. I'd definitely recommend this school for its diverse student body, competitive tuition pricing, and overall experience - just do your research on the dos and don'ts before you decide to settle in.