Student Section

[Tugg Speedman]

I agree it is laziness. My son is freshman and none of his buddies wanted to go on Monday night. He has only been to a few games and really comes down to kids being lazy IMO.

All you guys that say it is laziness are 100% wrong.  The problem is you have unrealistic expectations.

First we need a benchmark to measure the students.  Some stories so you can get your expectations correct:

http://dukechronicle.com/article/low-attendance-forces-duke-athletics-sell-student-seats
January 24, 2012
"Student attendance at men's basketball games has fallen consistently over the last five years, even dropping after Duke won its fourth national championship in 2010. This season, approximately 650 undergraduates have attended each game, 150 fewer than during the 2008-09 season. As a result, Duke Athletics has begun to sell an increasing number of general admission tickets in the student section on a regular basis."


http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3897386
February 11, 2009
The NCAA promises not to bust a budget or a bracket when March Madness arrives.  The recession has some schools scrambling to fill budget holes and seats.  Last month, The Associated Press reported Stanford University projects a $5 million shortfall over the next three years and is considering reducing its staff. At Indiana, athletic director Fred Glass has reduced ticket costs for balcony seating to $5, hoping to improve slipping attendance.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/preview2012/story/_/id/8576032/indiana-hoosiers-ready-see-match-lofty-expectations-season-men-college-basketball
November 5, 2012
Where once the athletic department offered upper-deck tickets for $5 to fill Assembly Hall, home games now have long been sold out. Where once disillusioned students accounted for only 4,000 tickets, they now take 12,000 seats.


MU student section is 3,600, undergrad enrollment is 8,400.  Fact is other than maybe Creighton, MU has about the largest student section as a percentage of its undergraduate enroll (43%) in the country.  (for comparison, 43% of UW student enrollment is 19,000, the Kohl center seats 17,000 and maybe 1/3 to 1/2 is students.)

If you want a "Duke like" student section, I suggest we fire Buzz, join the Horizon league and play in the AL.  Sell all but 500 tickets to students and then admit only those that really want to go to the game (just like Duke does).

Or, you donate $1 billion to the MU endowment so MU can run the enrollment up to 30,000.

What I'm saying is the participation and excitement for basketball among the students is great.  Those that do not know this are speaking from ignorance about what is happening elsewhere.

[WarhawkWarrior]

Need to compare to BB only schools.  Badgers get great turn out for football and competing hockey. seats for hockey and BB are often available only on a lottery basis.  Just saying, our attendance is down and sporadic.  Maybe not worth it but you can market your way out of it.  Why not give a couple thousand seats away to deserving grade school and high school families to expose them to the experience and create a new fan base.

[Tugg Speedman]

Why not give a couple thousand seats away to deserving grade school and high school families to expose them to the experience and create a new fan base.

I believe they do that now.

[MerrittsMustache]

It's all the same reasons why some NFL teams are worried about attendance: Watching a game from home is becoming more and more appealing.

Watching a game from your couch on a giant flat-screen HD TV in your climate-controlled living room while drinking a $10 six-pack of beer and being able to flip to other games during commercials is a lot more appealing to some people than braving the elements, paying to park, moving through the masses to your seat and watching a game from one vantage point with limited replays.

[KenoshaWarrior]

Honestly, this economy sucks if you don't have top grades. 

LOl at the top grades part.   Rarely if ever do employers want to take a look at your college transcript.   
If you plan on going to law school, medical school, or some sort of major academic field than than yes your grades matter a lot.  But for most people it using your connections which you are more likely to do rubbing elbows with alumni at a basketball game than studying an extra 2 hours for a bio-chem test

[warriorchick]

LOl at the top grades part.   Rarely if ever do employers want to take a look at your college transcript.   
If you plan on going to law school, medical school, or some sort of major academic field than than yes your grades matter a lot.  But for most people it using your connections which you are more likely to do rubbing elbows with alumni at a basketball game than studying an extra 2 hours for a bio-chem test

Not in my field, at least straight out of school.  The top employers used your GPA to weed out the field, and then went from there.

And I was going to say that no student rubs elbows with potential employers in the student section, but then I thought of all of my fellow MU students who were drunken idiots but are now huge business muckety-mucks.  So I guess you never know....

[frozena pizza]

Personally, I think the student section is fine.  We are a small-ish school that plays in an arena off campus.  Not every student wants to be out late on a weeknight watching us play a mediocre opponent.  I think they bring pretty good energy.

To me, its the "adult section" that needs to step it up a bit.  The upper level has been pretty sparse this year.

[Jay Bee]

Not in my field, at least straight out of school.  The top employers used your GPA to weed out the field, and then went from there.

And I was going to say that no student rubs elbows with potential employers in the student section, but then I thought of all of my fellow MU students who were drunken idiots but are now huge business muckety-mucks.  So I guess you never know....

Word up. Grades are very important to be seriously considered in **our** field.

[GGGG]

Not in my field, at least straight out of school.  The top employers used your GPA to weed out the field, and then went from there.

Exactly.  The only way my son got an internship last summer...which lead to a job offer after graduation this summer...was due to his GPA, and his GPA in his major, which was used as an initial screening.

When I asked him about other kids in his major (actuarial science), he said that only a handful have offers now.  So yeah...the job market sucks.  So GPA matters even more.

[klyrish]

GPA potentially matters for your industry but it's not like it's across the board. I have a degree in English - Writing Intensive and I'm a web developer. Not once as my GPA or even chosen major come into play. They always ask, "So what's an English major doing as a web developer" and then after I tell them I've been doing web dev since I was 16, it's my true passion and MU didn't have a web program until my senior year (and by then I could have [and did] taught the classes), I chose English as I'm also a pretty good writer.

If you're in the sciences or want to go on to grad school, grades matter. If you're going to look for a job in marketing, IT, etc, being able to do what you say you can matters far more than what any stupid piece of paper says.

[MerrittsMustache]

Exactly.  The only way my son got an internship last summer...which lead to a job offer after graduation this summer...was due to his GPA, and his GPA in his major, which was used as an initial screening.

When I asked him about other kids in his major (actuarial science), he said that only a handful have offers now.  So yeah...the job market sucks.  So GPA matters even more.

From my experience, GPA matters to some extent but networking is, was and always will be, more important. Interview skills are also more important than GPA. GPA might get you an interview but if you can't concisely put into words why we should hire you, GPA doesn't matter.

[GGGG]

From my experience, GPA matters to some extent but networking is, was and always will be, more important. Interview skills are also more important than GPA. GPA might get you an interview but if you can't concisely put into words why we should hire you, GPA doesn't matter.

I agree with that completely.  I also think that once you have your first job, GPA doesn't matter much at all.

And I think that's why warriorchick and I mentioned it being used as a "screening process" more than anything.

[Golden Avalanche]

Honestly, this economy sucks if you don't have top grades.  Most people I know at the college level are scared to death about being one of those out in the cold by graduation.  In the grand scheme, supporting your future seems a hell of a lot more important than a game against South Florida.  I get it, you were able to take breaks and balance things... but today balancing your life means "doing every activity I can to make myself standout as a job applicant and ignoring most other things."  I'm not saying this is everyone, but colleges are much more about creating earning power than enjoyment it is starting to seem.

So it's pretty much academics first, last, and everything in between for kids at Marquette. There's irony in this only because the majority of my interactions with college kids ever since my days leaving Marquette has shown a distinct lack of this concern but perhaps the last two to three years has really changed the young adult population.

The other part of this discussion is the one about a University degree. It's always surprising to me when I meet someone who's profession is directly related to their area of study as more often than not graduates end up working in a field only remotely related to their major/minor. And that's why there are responses here geared more towards networking/luck then grades.

[mu_hilltopper]

What's really scary .. really, for the entire economy / middle class america .. is this article:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/100414962

A new study finds that about half of all workers with a college degree are overqualified for their current jobs. ... Today, 15 percent of US taxi drivers have a college degree, up from fewer than 1 percent in 1970.

Brutal.  Here we are, pumping up college enrollment with $1T in student loan debt .. and half of those grads are working in jobs that .. are beneath their education level.

[GGGG]

Parents and students need to have a better understanding of their skills, and whether or not a four year degree is a wise investment.  There is no shame in getting a good associates degree from MATC.  You can live a long and happy life, with a satisfying career, with that type of degree.

[MarsupialMadness]

GPA potentially matters for your industry but it's not like it's across the board. I have a degree in English - Writing Intensive and I'm a web developer. Not once as my GPA or even chosen major come into play. They always ask, "So what's an English major doing as a web developer" and then after I tell them I've been doing web dev since I was 16, it's my true passion and MU didn't have a web program until my senior year (and by then I could have [and did] taught the classes), I chose English as I'm also a pretty good writer.

If you're in the sciences or want to go on to grad school, grades matter. If you're going to look for a job in marketing, IT, etc, being able to do what you say you can matters far more than what any stupid piece of paper says.

Fellow WINE major... cheers!

[klyrish]

Fellow WINE major... cheers!

Nice!

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

From my experience, GPA matters to some extent but networking is, was and always will be, more important. Interview skills are also more important than GPA. GPA might get you an interview but if you can't concisely put into words why we should hire you, GPA doesn't matter.

GPA only matters, if at all, for your first job out of college and beyond that it means nothing.  I agree on the interviewing skills also.  You have to be ready to answer the "loaded or trick" questions.  There's all kinds of lists out there about what questions to expect in an interview and I always pre-fill out my answers (tailored to my experience) and practice my answers as pre-interview prep.  I agree on the networking as I always tell people that it's not what you know it's who you know.  Where I went to high school, helped me land 3 out 5 of my post-college jobs.  I keep my high school name on my resume and when I interview, my former school would come up and I'd find out the interviewee was a fellow graduate.    I was definitely qualified for the positions, but the common high school helped me get over the top to obtain an offer.  

[Tugg Speedman]

Need to compare to BB only schools.  Badgers get great turn out for football and competing hockey. seats for hockey and BB are often available only on a lottery basis.  Just saying, our attendance is down and sporadic.  Maybe not worth it but you can market your way out of it.  Why not give a couple thousand seats away to deserving grade school and high school families to expose them to the experience and create a new fan base.

Again we have 8,600 undergrads.  Madison has 43,000.  We play in a 19,000+ stadium.  They play in a 17,000 seat stadium.  Madison BETTER have a wait list and have it difficult to get tickets.

If MU had enrollment of 43,000, which also means hundreds of thousands more alumni, the BC would have been sold out every year since 1988.

Fact is MU is the ONLY non-football school in the top 20 of national attendance for the last 10 years.  Not Georgetown, Nova, St. Johns, Creighton, etc.  Only MU.

MU's student section is 43% the size of undergrad enrollment, one of the highest in the country.  20% to 30% of the students turn out on some random weeknight to watch us play a lousy school (USF).  If possible, in Madison would 13,000 (30% of UW undergrads) turn out an a Tuesday night to watch the badgers play Penn State or Rutgers (coming soon!).  My bet is no.

So stop with the excuses.  Their is nothing wrong with the student section.  Those that think their is, please apologize.

[Stronghold]

Again we have 8,600 undergrads.  Madison has 43,000.  We play in a 19,000+ stadium.  They play in a 17,000 seat stadium.  Madison BETTER have a wait list and have it difficult to get tickets.

If MU had enrollment of 43,000, which also means hundreds of thousands more alumni, the BC would have been sold out every year since 1988.

Fact is MU is the ONLY non-football school in the top 20 of national attendance for the last 10 years.  Not Georgetown, Nova, St. Johns, Creighton, etc.  Only MU.

MU's student section is 43% the size of undergrad enrollment, one of the highest in the country.  20% to 30% of the students turn out on some random weeknight to watch us play a lousy school (USF).  If possible, in Madison would 13,000 (30% of UW undergrads) turn out an a Tuesday night to watch the badgers play Penn State or Rutgers (coming soon!).  My bet is no.

So stop with the excuses.  Their is nothing wrong with the student section.  Those that think their is, please apologize.

Careful, rational thinking is discouraged here.

[Litehouse]

UW does not have a wait list for basketball.  They used to sell out with season tickets, but they haven't the past few years.  Also, their student section is only about 2,000 and their message boards also bash students for late arrivals and lack of attendance.

For Louisville, they have a very large percentage of fans that are not alumni.  It's the only game in town (no NBA), so there are a lot of people that are just basketball fans and this is their only option.  They draw large crowds, but they aren't necessarily rowdy.

Our student section may have been sparse for USF, but I'm confident they'll bring it for the last 4 games.  Also, it's difficult to compare to other places you see on TV.  Compared to an NBA arena like the BC, the vast majority of colleges play in glorified HS gyms and put their student section of a couple hundred kids right on the floor, in view of the cameras.  Plus, most games you watch on TV are probably one of the biggest games of the season for that school, which is why you're watching it on ESPN or ESPN2, so everyone is into it, and it's not fair to compare to USF on a late Monday night.  We could always do better, but we really do have one of the best game-day atmospheres out there (including in the BC and surrounding bar/restaurants), and there aren't many that come close.

[jsglow]

I believe coach has a thought on this topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-I5rVTaWZ0&list=UUjbANOIkx9gio5f24p4yeEg&index=2

+1000