I heard about it long ago, but never thought about it until this last spring break. During the short vacation, I was pondering Mississippi State University’s graduate programs and talks about closing some of them down due to the finances affected by a decrease in the school’s budget.
While enjoying the culture, history and science in Boston, one of America’s biggest and oldest cities, it hit me. There were a lot of universities in the area, and I visited two of the most prestigious universities in the United States: Harvard and MIT. There, I came to know that MIT has more graduate students than undergraduates, which I thought was amazing. It is likely then to expect scientific research and breakthroughs from the students there.
That same statistic is true for Harvard. It is the research that students do that helps advance the world but also attracts the world’s attention and money (from patents and published papers and employing their findings in the market).
I have been hearing discussions going on around campus that the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering may eliminate the master’s and Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering and the master’s program in biological engineering, as recommended by the President’s Select Committee on Efficiencies and Innovations.
Nothing is official yet, and hopefully nothing will be, because it seems to me that the benefits of keeping the graduate programs are great and exceed any burden to the department it may cause.
Graduate students teach labs, help with professors’ research, conduct their own research and publish papers. They are a big asset to any department. It is noteworthy that the graduate programs here at MSU are some of the best in the country, more specifically in the region.
I hope there will be no cuts in the funding going to research as much as I hope no programs will shut down at MSU. From what I understand, MSU is trying to increase its student population to more than 20,000 in the next few years.
I would hope that this increase in number would be a result of an increase in the number of graduate programs at MSU. This would definitely help enrich the academics at the university as well as raise the rankings. Don’t you think Mississippi State should be a Southern Ivy?
The Department of Aerospace Engineering had only one student last semester in its graduate program. It might not be official, but the colleges and departments seem to accept fewer students as graduates and teaching assistants as well as research assistants because the budget does not allow hiring more people. Fortunately though, this semester the Department of Aerospace Engineering accepted more graduate students.
I understand that sustaining some graduate programs at this moment can cause some economic hardship because the investment takes time to generate revenue: research does not just generate money in weeks. Research takes years to achieve good results. I urge Mississippi State to join this investment.
Hopefully the adverse impacts of the financial crisis will fade away from MSU, so that very soon the university can continue to expand its programs and number of students.
All Bulldogs should be concerned about this issue. For those who were planning on earning their graduate degree at MSU, talk to people in your department and inquire about the situation and their plans for the following few years. I know many people are Bulldogs at heart and want to stay in Bulldog territory all their educational careers while others will love the ringing sounds of cowbells during the pursuit of their post-baccalaureate degrees.
My department, electrical and computer engineering, has a big graduate student body &mdash thank God. Hopefully the program will continue to expand.
Abdallah Abu Ghazaleh is a freshman majoring in electrical engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].