James Madison University Top Questions

The worst thing about JMU is the housing. The on-campus dorms are nice, however they are very hard to get. Many people can not live on campus after freshman year, and they are forced to move off campus. Then when communting the parking is horrible, there is not enough parking for all the students that live off campus, and parking services ticket all the time.

The worst thing about my school would be the class sizes. JMU is growing every year. With a bigger school comes less individualized attention. In a lecture hall of 100 people it is hard to ask questions, or be motivated to come to class at all because the teacher will not notice if you do not show up. You are a number, you are not known by name in most classes.

Campus is to large and spread out. Many of my classes are in the evening and walking across campus from dorms to class can be scary.

The worst thing about JMU is our meal plan options. The punches are very restricting and as a result they go to waste or we?re forced to eat when we?re not hungry. If JMU implemented a roll-over system, the students would save a lot of money and all the stress over meals would go away.

The worst thing about my school is that the strictness of the officials is not that great. It is frequently loud in my residence hall and people walk around obviously drunk and do not get reprimanded. I do not feel that people who fraternize with illegal products deserver to be accepted to a higher field of learning.

The school is too big, and on top of that, there is not much diversity. It isn't really "diverse" if you have to dig in and search for it. Also, regarding the size of the school, a lot of classes are unavailable. Faculty aren't much assistance either. I tried to ask my advisor how I could use my nursing degree abroad, and all he explained to me was the nursing application process. It's hard to find the right resources here.

The relationship between the harrisonburg community and JMU is pretty bad, though slowly increasing. Some locals see JMU students as 'rich college kids,' not too much respect from some of the harrisonburg population.

There is not much to do in Harrisonburg, thus most people turn to alcohol for entertainment. This seems to be all people can talk about and think about.

The worst thing is probably the diversity. There isn't much diversity on campus and I don't feel like the school does enough to keep promoting it. But not only that, I don't think the students are really interested in diversity. Most of them are Caucasian from pretty well off families and they stick to what they know, not really giving other cultures that much of a chance, at least that's how I see it.

Majors that attract a large number of students, such as business, make it difficult for students to sometimes apply to classes needed to enter the College of Business. The number of students outnumber the limited physical (classrooms) and intellectual (professors) resources.