University of Nevada - Reno Rankings by Salary Score™

I attended the MFA program in creative writing for a year. This is a great program for people who want to write speculative fiction. That said, the workload was hilariously easy in all but one class. The workshops don’t require students to read anything but each other's work. So, if you go here, know that you will be unemployable. An MFA is a terminal teaching degree, but anywhere that wants a fiction writer or poet will expect them to also teach contemporary literature and/or non-major literature. This program... Read More does not prepare its graduates to do that in any meaningful way. The workshops were full of lazy students who didn’t read (fiction, theory, or anything else really) beyond one pet author (usually George R.R. Martin or N.K. Jemisin). They routinely came to non-workshop classes without having done the reading. They then acted like they knew everything about literature. Workshops were very cliquey with comments revolving around a bunch of faux-literary “you can’t do that” rules that no published author actually follows. Anything experimental or nonlinear was attacked because the students had read so little that they couldn’t understand much of anything. There was also a gang of rich suburban Mean Girls who thought they were social justice warriors but who didn’t have a clue what they were talking about because—you guessed it!—they didn’t read any actual books on gender, sexuality, or race and just went off what they’d seen on Reddit. The department seemed well meaning, but the MFA professors were clearly more interested in being friends with the grad students than challenging them. Too many admitted students were there just because they’d done an undergrad degree in the program. The professors were overwhelmingly white (no black or gay/lesbian), and many were visibly afraid to talk about anything dealing with diversity. They clearly didn’t keep up on issues in the field the way most English professors do. The city is actually pretty cool. High rent prices (and shockingly low grad stipends in comparison), but still some cool underground/indie things to do. There are plenty of readings and visiting writers, so that part was great (mostly poets, though, even though most grad students are in fiction). They don’t fund their students over the summer, so when Covid hit, I couldn’t find employment and had to drop out.

The University was very difficult to navigate due to their poor advising staff. The advising department was poor and made many mistakes. They often didn't solve the mistakes made they just asked for me to continue taking classes. I earned my degree but unfortunately do not feel much pride for my school. I wish I had a different experience because of all the work I put into school. I looked forward to the my college experience and found the support system unfortunate. Other than the support the course work... Read More was enjoyable and has benefitted me later in life.