Temple University

Commuting is not a good idea. I live on campus, but those who commute are late to class due to traffic/public transportation and also miss out on social aspects of college life. Also, Temple has certain things they like to hide on the tour. Yes, the campus is safe-during the day, where there are Temple flags. As soon as you cross Broad street, campus security is no longer responsible for you. Their security, no matter what they tell people about it, is seriously lacking. Walking four blocks from campus, I was held at gunpoint for money. Unless you don't plan to leave your dorm at night for four years, Temple is not a good idea. I was asked in broad daylight for some of my prescription while filling it a block from the Liacouras center at RiteAid. The local neighbors regularly come on campus and try to talk to you, which makes walking alone (if you're female especially) a nightmare at times. There are no gates they close at night that keep anyone out-anyone can walk onto campus. Also, the dorms are in terrible shape, at least the one I live in. A short list of problems is rats running wild, drunk security guards at the building entrances (they do have 24 hour security. It's just drunk 24 hour security.), fire drills at all hours of the morning, and I mean all hours (it could be 3 am), because people come back drunk and burn the popcorn, and the entire building is evacuated for the next hour until they defuse the "burning" popcorn, lacking building maintenence (a few weeks ago an elevator fell about five stories, but stopped before the ground floor), bugs breeding in public indoor trash cans, a public kitchen for the dorm with no soap or sponges to wash the dishes, so they are left unwashed to breed disease...the list goes on. Drinking is a big part of campus life. I didn't expect to drink when I moved to Temple; I actually intended to not drink. However, when you're at a party and everyone else is drinking, after a while you start to do it too. Also, people do a lot of pot smoking outside on campus and the Temple cops don't say a word. People sit outside smoking pot or stand outside a building with it and the Temple police don't stop them, take it, anything. A larger problem than this, though, is roofies on campus. At any frat party there is most likely roofies. All drinks labeled girls-only should be avoided, and drinks put down should not be picked back up. A disturbing number of people have had roofies put in their drinks, and it's only October. If you go to a party, there is drinking and drugs all around you, and smoking, so you breathe in the second hand smoke. You also run the risk of getting "busted," though Temple cops just make you leave and dump your beer on the way out. If you stay in the dorms, there is absolutely nothing to do. It's a lose-lose situation. Basically; the security is seriously lacking, which is ironic considering it's a major point of their tours, and their dorms are a disgusting place to be. The lights they have for security at night are burned out in certain places and were never replaced.

The classes are good. Class sizes are small usually, and if it's a major core class, the class feels small. It never seems like a large school or like a large class. There are some great classes at Temple and some great people. I have a lot of friends who I see all the time, even when we don't have class together.

Temple is one of the best schools for diversity you can find. I'm currently working on learning more languages because it seems like I'm the only one there speaking english. Everyone speaks it, and everyone speaks it in class, but outside the classroom there are many different languages being spoken. I love the diversity we have here, and I wish we had even more, if that's even possible. The cafeteria food is not great, but it isn't too bad. I'm glad I didn't go to Drexel, even with the things Temple needs to work on.Temple just has some major weak points to work on, as discussed above.

1st Year Female -- Class 2008

Individual Value: A, Campus Maintenance: F

Bad dorms. Mice swarm in cafeteria. Insane billing, fines, holds. Temple= brutalist pit to get $ from poor ppl. Bail on mandatory meal plan. Live with "relative" to skip mandatory year in dorm. they will raid your financial aid and merit ASAP. All they want from you is cash. All systems, administrators are there to minimize and gaslight: head of the honors program threatened to ?destroy my academic career? and blew up at me for asking for help twice in 6 months. casual cruelty makes getting an education here a lesson in dispassionate barbarity of big institutions. rigged credit system= 6 years to graduate on avg. ?super-seniors? @7+ years. transfer! school built on eminent domain; neighborhoods hate us. Cecil B Moore was jazz capital of US. Now? wasteland of slabs, 10? fencing. Ambler nicer, but hollowed out. Off-campus will never be safe. Zero post-grad support. Silent fines on your acct @grad. interest+fees tiny fines = $3k. GL getting transcript or copy of diploma.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

Horrible dorms- room was consistently 87-89F maintenance refused to fix it 5 times. Mice swarm in back of J&H, no one cared and reported to health dept no change ever. Insane billing and fine practices, even worse than the average. I switched majors 3 times and got decent snapshots of 3 programs and 2 campuses. Main campus is a brutalist pit designed to get blood from stones. Tell them you can't eat anything to get out of the mandatory meal plan. Tell them you will be living with a relative and skip the mandatory year in dorms. Do not trust the bursar- they will rob your financial aid and merit ASAP. All they want from you is cash and at every step all systems and administrators are there to minimize and gaslight you and your problems. The head of the honors program threatened to ?destroy my academic career? and blew up at me for asking for their help twice in 6 months. This school has some incredible professors (1/10) but the casual cruelty of their bosses and administrators makes getting an education here a brutal lesson in the dispassionate barbarity of big institutions. Need a health check or therapy? Fill out 10 forms for 15 minutes to have someone tell you to come back next time. Don't try to work and take fewer classes than you think you can handle. Temple constantly re-rigs the credit system so virtually all students will take 6 years to graduate without tons of crunch time. They want you to take a decade to matriculate: you will meet ?super-seniors? who have been at temple for a decade or more taking a few credits a semester. My real advice if you ended up here? Transfer. For the love of god transfer out. The whole place is cursed. The land the school is built on was stolen using eminent domain and the neighborhoods still hate everyone at temple. Cecil B Moore was once the jazz capital of the US. Now it's a wasteland of hideous slabs and 10? fencing. Ambler campus is nicer, but being destroyed from within- it's not profitable enough so they've been shutting down more and more buildings and trying to put all the classes in one spot. The horticulture program is dying. Botany is a joke with ancient equipment and labs.

Campus and near will never be safe because the school is an open wound to north philly- which has plenty of those to begin with. You will get zero post graduation support or help with finding work. This schools graduation rate is horrible and they will not help. In fact they will hit you up for money within a year of graduating. They will also delete your student email ASAP, and never tell you they slapped some fines on your acct just as you were leaving. With interest and fees these tiny fines will be thousands of dollars if you need your transcript or a copy of your diploma. Good luck and get out ASAP. Also please remember a lot of the programs are fake. E.g. there is no Portuguese faculty, but they list it in all the literature. You can do self study under the Spanish department, but that's it. There's dozens of programs like this that only exist on paper to entrap you.

Overall I wish I had gone to a better school- temple pulled my year's merit aid a month before 1st semester for 5 years? to grow the endowment. I was early admissions and was totally blind sided. It still seemed cheaper than NYU, brown etc- boy was I wrong. The sticker price is a complete lie, I ended up paying what they still quote as total cost every semester. I had to beg my family every month and had to deal with holds messing up my schedule. I was also working multiple part time jobs on and off and was always out of food. These may sound like individual problems- but the bursar and other services (sauna-like dorms, inedible food) we're dramatically compounded by how bad temple's services are. And there's really no one to go to for help or assistance. Every office is designed to deflect people away and do as little work as possible. I met plenty of sympathetic professors who tried to give me advice, but ultimately Temple is a crushing machine that crushes students and drains their cash and future earnings but doesn't put them back together again. Stay away.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000