Pros
McGraw Teaching and Learning center is phenomenal, with many passionate administrators focused on developing students' abilities to educate themselves and others proactively. Many odd discretionary funds (for travel, medical expenses, hardship funds), though they are not publicly advertised and many of them you need to ask around and know the right people in the graduate school Name prestige colleagues with in depth knowledge in their fields, great academic and non-academic discussions with critical thinkers Collaborative (within the university)
Cons
Professors and students alike can be very entitled, lack diversity of thought Widespread adoption of policies that are detrimental to student success (e.g., choosing not to publish work at all rather than publish in a lesser journal, choosing to compete with labs outside the university working on similar projects rather than collaborating) NO REGULATION OF FACULTY - the system is very de-centralized and there is a large power gap between graduate students and faculty, providing little protection in precarious situations. There is no accountability for their actions Low network connections to non-academic jobs Housing