<p>I just finished my freshman year at NYU Stern (so I'm now a sophomore), and I thought I would open myself up to questions. Threads like this and current students were extremely helpful for me in the college admissions process as well as preparing for freshman year. So feel free to ask me questions about NYU, Stern, life in NYC, college life, etc. I won't give out any personal info obviously, but I'll try to answer you're questions the best I can. I'm pretty knowledgeable of the university.</p>
<p>If there is a question you have that you don't want to ask in the thread, feel free to PM me also.</p>
<p>I was just wondering what the work load is for freshman year. Also if i attend Stern will i always have to study? or can i have fun a little bit. And lastly, was it worth the money for you??</p>
<p>Can you give any advice for how to pay for it? I would love to go there but I will not leave an undergrad school 200k in debt. Any advice for making it possible? (really really really really want to go here btw )</p>
<p>@trossi2121 The workload freshman year is definitely more than what you got in high school. But it is still very doable. I never really had a problem with having time to do my work. The hard part is to just stop procrastinating, which is very easy in the city. Your first semester will be mostly MAP courses, which generally aren’t that hard. Writing the Essya is considered our hardest MAP class, especially because of it’s abstractness and the fact that you get multiple page writing assignments for homework after each class. I actually enjoyed my class though because I had a great professor you made me actually care about what I was writing. I found Cultures & Context to be really difficult, but I was never good at humanities classes in high school anyway. Your second semester you will probably begin your Steen requirements. This is when you begin to see the effect of the Stern curve. From my experience this past semester I probably should have studied more because I got a bit screwed over. You wouldn’t have to study all the time. Do expect a couple all nighters though, as per usual in college. You’ll still have plenty of time for fun on weekends. I highly advise that you always try to find time for yourself anyway because otherwise you will burn out by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Yes, NYU/Stern is worth the money for me. (There are a few programs at NYU that I don’t feel that way about but that’s just personal opinion.) The school gives you so many opportunities. In reality you wind up paying for a lot of what you won’t even have time to use but at least it’s all there available to you which I think is amazing.</p>
<p>@PICKME The best advice I can really give you is to apply for every scholarship possible during your senior year. I did that that and it’s the only thing that made comings here a possibility financially. Even if you don’t think you’ll get a scholarship, apply anyway. You nevr know. You may be surprised. All the time and effort the applications take will feel with I once you’re at the school you really want to be at and without an insane amount of loans.</p>
<p>Can you spare your views on the Stern curve? I heard it’s incredibly harsh. In addition, have you received or applied for any internships? And if you could, at your own discretion of course, can you post up your stats, your GPA and SAT when you entered, etc. ?</p>
<p>I felt that the freshman year workload was much lighter than that of high school, although I suppose it also depends on how hard you worked in high school. Each semester will probably only really have you write 6-8 major papers along with 4-6 major exams to study for. Each paper/exam only really take a couple days and/or an all-nighter to do well on. Then you have minor assignments interspersed, which really don’t take that long. Also, consider the fact that you only go to class an average of about 3-4 hours per weekday, much less than the ~7 hours of high school. Freshman year is a breeze if you have good time management. Juggling 3+ APs plus extracurriculars in high school was much more of a time commitment for me.</p>
<p>The Stern curve’s harshness is really overrated. 35% A/A-s is actually quite generous, giving out any more than that in any class, even one without a curve, means the class was probably designed to be too easy anyways. Also, a lot of CAS classes are uncurved and are graded much more harshly. A good thing about the curve is that your grade won’t be screwed over if you get a bad/hard professor, and it’s practically impossible to get below a 3.0 GPA unless you’re consistently in the bottom 5-15%, in which case you really deserve the GPA you get. A lot of professors don’t even use the curve though, or at least they claim not to. At the end of the day, your actual GPA really doesn’t matter much for job/internship hunting unless it’s below like 3.4.</p>
<p>@azhong Well MY view of the Stern curve is that it’s harshness depends on the course. Microeconomic, for example, is a fairly easy class but because it’s graded on the curve many students end up B’s (or sometimes lower) for making little mistakes. Off the curve, those students would probably get A’s. It took like a 98 to get an A on our midterm. But my 4 credit Stats was a rather difficult class (putting aside that fact that exams were open notes) and students aren’t hurt as much for small mistakes because the person with the highest score most likely made plenty as well.</p>
<p>Yes, I have applied for internships. I’m actually interning in the city right now this summer. I know a couple other Sternies hat managed to get some pretty good internships too. They’re not necessary this early but it doesn’t hurt to have one.</p>
<p>@toastedcheerios I dont know what classes you took but you have to aknowledge that not everyone is going to have as easy a freshman year as you apparently did. It depends on what you take, when you take it and where your strong and weak points are academically. Plently of my friends in stern busted then behinds last semester and still got screwed over by the curve in the one or two classes that were graded according to it.</p>
<p>The fact that everyone talks so objectively about the ‘Stern curve’ without defining it as what it really is points out how little people actually understand it.</p>
<p>If you want a definition of the Stern curve you can just go to the Wikipedia page. ToastedCheerios started to explain it though, but here’s the link. Just scroll down to the part about the Stern curve. </p>
<p>Hello,
Regarding your current internship, where/ how did you sign up for/ find your internship ? Did you get help from the school or did you just look on your own? If you don’t mind my asking, is it a paid internship ?</p>
<p>I just opened the bookmark I had to the (hard to find) official listing on the Stern webpage but when the site got redone this past year I guess the URL got changed, because I now only have a redirect to the main welcome page.</p>
<p>In short though, the “Stern curve” is really the finance department’s curve. There is no set curve for all of Stern. I have been in classes where 40% have received an A, not the A-, a legit A. I have also been in classes where <10% have received an A. Out of a graduate class syllabus, the curve is explained like this: “The Stern finance department follows a strict grading curve for graduate core courses (see finance department web site). I am required to strictly adhere to this curve. The finance curve for core courses is: A (10%), A- (15%), B+ (15%), B (40%), B- (15%), C (5%).”</p>
<p>I have also seen this in some syllabi:
• 25%-35% of students can expect to receive A’s for excellent work
• 50%-70% of students can expect to receive B’s for good or very good work
• 5%-15% of students can expect to receive C’s or less for adequate or below work</p>
<p>And I have also seen “15%-25% of students can expect to receive A’s for excellent work, 50%-75% of students can expect to receive B’s for good or very good work, and 5%-15% of students can expect to receive C’s or less for adequate or below work.”</p>
<p>As you can see, there is a loosely held curve for all core courses (the middle quote), a strict one for finance courses, and other ones for non-core courses. Unfortunately, since Stern is such a finance factory, everyone associates the finance curve as being the “Stern curve.” We do have grade deflation, just like the Wikipedia article says, but it’s typically across some of the core courses and all the finance ones.</p>
<p>I’m an incoming Stern freshman and I’d like some advice on what classes/professors to take since registration is coming up. For freshman fall semester I plan on taking:</p>
<p>Calc I
Commerce and Culture
Microeconomics
???</p>
<p>I have no idea whether I should take a Texts&Ideas class or Cultures&Context. Which of the two is easier or less work load? Also which professors do you recommend for these classes? I’ve also heard that Spring Microeconomics is much harder than Fall Micro? Is this true?</p>
<p>i was just wondering if the work load is as bad as people make it seem. i know stern is a very elite progrram but could someone study hard but still have time to see the city???</p>
<p>@blizzard28
All the internships I applied for I found through the clubs/organizations I was in. Another useful tool is CareerNet, which you’ll learn more about once you get here. I did not get help from NYU for finding my internship, but I could have gone to the Wasserman Center for Career Development to get help if I felt I needed it. Yes, it is a paid internship. Stern does not accept credit for internships. They do not require that you get paid, but it suggest they we ask for monetary compensation of our time in the Stern internship policy. Stern keeps its hands out of students’ and their internships really. There are not any limitations as to what kind of internships you can get, as long as they don’t get in the way of your attendance and performance in school.</p>
<p>@runi27
Calculus I - Nawaf Bou-Rabee. He’s a young guy, but a great teacher. Always willing to help or explain. The class is fairly easy anyway though.</p>
<p>Commerce and Culture - I did not take this class. I took Writing the Essay with David Ellis. He’s another fantastic teacher for those who have to take WTE. He made the class somewhat enjoyable for me and the other in my class. He’s a fair grader that pushes you to become better at writing and analyzing. And in all honesty, I enjoyed Writing the Essay more than Business & Its Public (the Stern freshman writing class), but that’s just me. I hear Commerce and Culture is easier than Writing the Essay though.</p>
<p>Microeconomics - I took this class this past spring with Vasiliki Skreta. She’s a very good teacher. She was always willing to slow down or go back and explain sections of the lectures. Micro is the only class I’ve taken so far where I feel recitations are actually useful though. I learned more from my TA than in class. I think everything just clicked better after I did the homework anyway. Still, Skreta is a good choice. </p>
<p>I don’t know anyone that enjoyed their Texts & Ideas class. I took the Animal Humans course and hated it. The professor was annoying and my TA was anal. There is a ton of reading for T&I classes, but I hardly did any of it. The grading wasn’t too bad though, probably because everyone had to BS their way through the essays anyway. Your grade depends entirely on your TA.</p>
<p>I also hated by Cultures & Context class. I took Japan with George Solt. Nice guy but his lecture were much too compact and it was hard to pay attention or know what was important to remember or not. This was another reading intensive class. The essays were easy but the exams were extremely difficult. Recitation was useless. Your grade depends entirely on your TA.</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer to your question about Micro in the fall versus the spring. I’ve never heard that before.</p>
<p>I do suggest taking a fun 2-credit elective that you’ll enjoy. It’ll help you enjoy school a little more and it’ll be a GPA booster. I took Voice for Non-Majors in Steinhardt.</p>
<p>@trossi2121
The workload freshman year isn’t too bad. I got my work done and still have plenty of time to go out and explore the city. But it depends on how you work. I’m a crammer, aka the kind of student that can’t really do work well before it is due. All my essays were written a day or two before they were due, with the exception of Writing the Essay. Most of my homework was done a day or two before it was due. And I can only study a day or two before an exam. Not to mention most of my classes only had 2-3 exams per semester anyway, including the midterm and final. Writing the Essay, Business & Its Publics and Text & Ideas were all graded on essays and homework.</p>
<p>The workload definitely intensifies after freshman year though.</p>
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