200m bronze medalist online or extended campus student?

[sanantone]

Little rant. When I heard that Olympian Gabby Thomas, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in neurobiology from Harvard, was training and studying public health and epidemiology at UT in Austin, I knew something was off. UT-Austin doesn't have an MS in epidemiology or any MPH program.

Her LinkedIn profile says that she's actually attending the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which has a pretty good public health school. Understandably, she's training at UT-Austin because they're excellent in track and field. The media has been confused. They've said she's a graduate student at Texas University (no such thing), Texas (that's UT-Austin), and University of Texas (also UT-Austin). Everyone seems to know the difference between all the University of California schools but can't understand that the UT and Texas A&M systems have multiple independent universities. No one I've come across thinks that UCLA and Berkeley are the same school.

She's either in the online MPH program or attending the Austin campus. UTHSCH also has extension campuses in Brownsville, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso.

[ReyMysterioso]

"Everyone seems to know the difference between all the University of California schools but can't understand that the UT and Texas A&M systems have multiple independent universities."

Probably because the California schools have done a better job of creating unique identities and marketing those unique brands around cultures. But the non-main UT and A&M schools have been completely overshadowed by the more dominant branding of their cousins.

But also....who cares?

[sanantone]

"Everyone seems to know the difference between all the University of California schools but can't understand that the UT and Texas A&M systems have multiple independent universities."

Probably because the California schools have done a better job of creating unique identities and marketing those unique brands around cultures. But the non-main UT and A&M schools have been completely overshadowed by the more dominant branding of their cousins.

But also....who cares?

If you don't care, then you don't have to comment. I swear, this forum has become worse than the other one since that psychopath stopped posting over there. This forum has gotten a lot of new members with bad attitudes the past couple of years. The proof is in the stark differences in how people respond to the same topic here and there. 


I've come across several people on this forum and the sister forum who got excited over a program at Texas A&M - Commerce or a similar school thinking they were going to have a degree from a high-ranking school and excellent employment opportunities. Texas A&M - College Station has an amazing network, and their degrees have a lot of weight when applying to jobs in Texas. That network and reputation doesn't extend to the other system schools, which is something people have had to repeatedly explain.

[dfrecore]

Little rant. When I heard that Olympian Gabby Thomas, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in neurobiology from Harvard, was training and studying public health and epidemiology at UT in Austin, I knew something was off. UT-Austin doesn't have an MS in epidemiology or any MPH program.

Her LinkedIn profile says that she's actually attending the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which has a pretty good public health school. Understandably, she's training at UT-Austin because they're excellent in track and field. The media has been confused. They've said she's a graduate student at Texas University (no such thing), Texas (that's UT-Austin), and University of Texas (also UT-Austin). Everyone seems to know the difference between all the University of California schools but can't understand that the UT and Texas A&M systems have multiple independent universities. No one I've come across thinks that UCLA and Berkeley are the same school.

She's either in the online MPH program or attending the Austin campus. UTHSCH also has extension campuses in Brownsville, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso.

I don't think people know the differences between the CA schools as much as you might think!  For instance, there are 2 separate systems: the UC-system (10 schools), and the CSU-system (23 schools).  But I think the main difference is that there isn't a single "main" campus of any of these.  They are ALWAYS called by their campus name or a nickname: hence UCLA, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Diego State, Sac State, etc.  

The ONLY exception is that if you say "Cal" then you're talking about UC Berkeley (it was first).  But it's not a "main" campus like the TX system seems to have, it's just one in a set of schools.

[ss20ts]

Everyone doesn't care about Texas colleges. Many of the universities in California system have been world renowned for decades. My degree is from UMPI. Outside of New England who cares about the University of Maine system? Probably no one except for alumni. Anyone care about the university system in Florida? Outside of Florida and the South, probably not. Sorry but Texas A&M isn't UCLA. Very few schools compare to UCLA.

[dfrecore]

Everyone doesn't care about Texas colleges. Many of the universities in California system have been world renowned for decades. My degree is from UMPI. Outside of New England who cares about the University of Maine system? Probably no one except for alumni. Anyone care about the university system in Florida? Outside of Florida and the South, probably not. Sorry but Texas A&M isn't UCLA. Very few schools compare to UCLA.

I don't see where sanantone was comparing 2 specific schools - she was comparing the 2 different state school systems, and wondering why CA was more well-known and TX less so.

[ss20ts]

Everyone doesn't care about Texas colleges. Many of the universities in California system have been world renowned for decades. My degree is from UMPI. Outside of New England who cares about the University of Maine system? Probably no one except for alumni. Anyone care about the university system in Florida? Outside of Florida and the South, probably not. Sorry but Texas A&M isn't UCLA. Very few schools compare to UCLA.

I don't see where sanantone was comparing 2 specific schools - she was comparing the 2 different state school systems, and wondering why CA was more well-known and TX less so.

Like I said.

[sanantone]

Everyone doesn't care about Texas colleges. Many of the universities in California system have been world renowned for decades. My degree is from UMPI. Outside of New England who cares about the University of Maine system? Probably no one except for alumni. Anyone care about the university system in Florida? Outside of Florida and the South, probably not. Sorry but Texas A&M isn't UCLA. Very few schools compare to UCLA.

There wasn't a comparison of school rankings, although, UT-Austin is typically ranked pretty high on various world ranking lists, and Texas A&M has one of the best engineering schools in the country. Their overall rankings are lower than their reputations in individual fields because of the way U.S. News factors in SAT and ACT scores. That's why their world rankings put them higher than many universities with higher U.S. News national rankings, but that's beside the point. 

It's about people not understanding that multiple universities within a system are independent even though they have the same name with different cities attached to the end. Florida, which happens to have one of the best state university systems in the country, doesn't have this issue because the universities have different names.

---

Texas A&M and especially UT-Austin are not the least bit comparable to UMPI.

[Thorne]

Little rant. When I heard that Olympian Gabby Thomas, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in neurobiology from Harvard, was training and studying public health and epidemiology at UT in Austin, I knew something was off. UT-Austin doesn't have an MS in epidemiology or any MPH program.

Her LinkedIn profile says that she's actually attending the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which has a pretty good public health school. Understandably, she's training at UT-Austin because they're excellent in track and field. The media has been confused. They've said she's a graduate student at Texas University (no such thing), Texas (that's UT-Austin), and University of Texas (also UT-Austin). Everyone seems to know the difference between all the University of California schools but can't understand that the UT and Texas A&M systems have multiple independent universities. No one I've come across thinks that UCLA and Berkeley are the same school.

She's either in the online MPH program or attending the Austin campus. UTHSCH also has extension campuses in Brownsville, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso.

I don't think people know the differences between the CA schools as much as you might think!  For instance, there are 2 separate systems: the UC-system (10 schools), and the CSU-system (23 schools).  But I think the main difference is that there isn't a single "main" campus of any of these.  They are ALWAYS called by their campus name or a nickname: hence UCLA, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Diego State, Sac State, etc.  

The ONLY exception is that if you say "Cal" then you're talking about UC Berkeley (it was first).  But it's not a "main" campus like the TX system seems to have, it's just one in a set of schools.

I think this is probably why. Honestly, if you don't live in Texas, TAMU Commerce probably seems like a business school that is part of TAMU. West TAMU sounds like a different campus and TAMU International seems like a sort of extension school.

As for the UT system, I think it should be more similar to the UC system, but the reality is that the UC schools are often world-renowned, as ss20ts said, while the only UT schools I heard of as a Texas resident were UT Austin and UT Dallas, which even the people in my area - the bloody DFW metroplex - often thought were just different campuses of the same school, rather than different schools in the system. Probably because they're called "University of Texas at [Location]."

[Vle045]

I don’t live in Texas nor California. And I certainly don’t know the intricacies of either system. I only know about they ones located where I live or attended school. It’s really not that important.