Another CAS freshman available for questions!

<p>Hey... I used to worship this website when I was a college-obsessed high school student just like you all! I just finished my first semester at NYU and now I have nothing to do all winter break. I'd love to spend my time at home thinking about NYU. Ask away!</p>

<p>How was your first semester?
How hard was the classes?
How did you like the "campus"?
How you like your dorm?</p>

<p>=]</p>

<p>Hey there NyJeo. </p>

<p>Pretty broad based questions... so here we go.</p>

<ol>
<li>My first semester was seriously incredible. The fact that it took place in New York City should speak for itself, so I'll tell you a little about my classes. Quite honestly, I was extraordinarily impressed with all of my classes. Two out of four were about 15 people, one was about 100, and one was 500. While it's true that the huge lecture class made it harder to feel a personal connection with the professor / other students, I still found our professor to be very captivating and easy to understand. One of them was a "Freshman Honors Seminar" which took us to a bunch of different places around the city (including dinners at huge fancy law firms) for amazing presentations / interviews. All of my teachers were renowned and brilliant in their subjects, which was a nice breath of fresh air after high school.</li>
<li>The classes were very challenging. Basically the first time in my life I couldn't ******** my homework. You actually HAVE to do the readings for the most part... and I would say I had about 4 hours of homework every day on average. But basically all of the subject matter was very interesting, and there were only a few times when I felt that I was doing busy work. The workload was definitely a change after high school, but at least the material in college is engaging and thought-provoking!!</li>
<li>I love our campus!! Whoever says NYU doesn't have a campus is an idiot. If you walk through Washington Square Park on any weekday from 8-6 pm it's basically 75% college students, and very obviously so. It's true that some dorms are further from "campus" than others but who cares! You get to have a different taste of the city every year depending on where you choose to live. Not to mention living in the heart of downtown New York is seriously 500x cooler than any college campus could ever be. You will never feel like you're the only student around the area, or whatever else people seem to fear about NYU's "lack of campus." That's just stupid. It's EASIER to meet people in New York City than anywhere else I've ever been, college campuses included.</li>
<li>I got extremely, extremely lucky with my dorm. I live on the 16th floor of Hayden and have a massive, BEAUTIFUL view of the Empire State Building. It's a two person room with a TON of space, two walk in closets, one bathroom, and one kitchen area. Way more than enough room for both of us... we hardly even use one of our closets and our kitchen has a ton of empty space. Great heater / air conditioner and all the facilities work fine. Hayden is pretty cozy compared to some of the other dorms, and yes, it's quite social. I do have a few floormates who never seem to shut up at any hour (until I open my door at 3 am and yell "SHUT UP!"), but everyone is really nice to each other so it's fine. All the dorms are social, just in different ways. I'd say it's really easy to meet people in Hayden, though. Very similar other college dorms I presume.</li>
</ol>

<p>Hope that helped!!!</p>

<p>Thanx =]!</p>

<p>Can't wait till next year now! I really want high school to finish quicker now lol.</p>

<p>Ah, that's so amazing. Being a sophomore right now bites. :(</p>

<p>-What's your major/school?
-High school stats, if you don't mind?
-What do you do on weekends?
-Is it reallllllly as expensive to live there as they say?</p>

<p>Thanks! That helped alot. </p>

<p>I am still deciding between Hayden and 3rd North next year. I like Hayden for everything, except that I was under the impression that the rooms didn't have kitchens. Did you apply or ask for that specific type of room at Hayden, or did you just get really lucky?</p>

<p>rachael525 - </p>

<p>I'm a Political Science major at CAS, but I'm also on track for International Relations in case I decide to apply for that next year.
High school stats - 3.98 unweighted GPA, 750/770/650 (1390/2160) SAT. umm subject tests I believe were 760 and 680. I had a few very devoted, unique extracurriculars.
On weekends... well, I have a fake so I pretty much always go bar hopping. I have to admit that I probably wouldn't have had as amazing of a first semester if it weren't for the ID. It really helps to enjoy what NY has to offer. But when I'm hanging out with other friends who didn't have fakes, we still did it all... Restaurants, parties, hookah bars, theater/comedy... oh and there are plenty of restaurants that will serve you without ID too. Heh.
Expensive? Hell. Yes. Food is super pricey, things are super pricey, everything is verrrry expensive. The good news is ... you don't really HAVE to buy anything to have a good time. Your meal plan is payed for, so that covers food; you can use declining dollars to buy supplies and food for the room; and so the rest is really up to you. But yes, if you want to go out and have fun at the nicer places it's going to add up really fast. Also depending on how much you travel out of the village, public transportation can be expensive too. </p>

<p>Bryanm -
Yeah, I was sort of unclear. Hayden doesn't actually have kitchens, but many of the rooms have random extra rooms with nothing in them. They used to be kitchens when Hayden was an old hotel but they took out all the furniture. So you can use the room however you want. My roommate and I put a minifridge, microwave, coffee machine, and blender in there with all our plates and food and utencils and stuff so we just naturally call it the kitchen. But I've seen other people put beds in there, or even just nice carpets and stuff to have an extra place to hang out.
Third North is just as fun. The distance from classes can be a little tedious. But the suites really bond since there is the common room. As always though, it all depends who your floor mates are in any of the dorms, and that sort of thing is obviously random.</p>

<p>how easy was it to get a fake? assuming you got it in NYC. </p>

<p>What classes are you taking for poli sci? thats what i enrolled as, but i dunno if I want to switch to econ. opposites, but i am just as interested in both.</p>

<p>
[quote]
4. I got extremely, extremely lucky with my dorm. I live on the 16th floor of Hayden and have a massive, BEAUTIFUL view of the Empire State Building. It's a two person room with a TON of space, two walk in closets, one bathroom, and one kitchen area.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Hayden has kitchens?! Really? I thought only apartment-style dorms did. Kinda makes me want to chose Hayden now. Is the building nice? Like, stuff's not broken here and there and everything's working, and a generally nice appearance? What's inside Hayden?</p>

<p>gwarner - i don't know much about the fake id situation in new york and i don't want to expose how i got mine. i know there are lots of sketchy places to pay a lot to get a pretty poorly made ID... but to me it's not even worth the investment if it's gonna be confiscated at bars.
last semester none of the classes i took counted towards politics (but i did take econ for international relations). next semester i'm taking political theory and international politics. </p>

<p>bimachris - see the question i answered earlier today.</p>

<p>DrumsAreForGirls, thank you so much for your contribution!</p>

<p>Hey, I have a question too.
I'm thinking of going for the Economics and Computer Science program. Are there many people in this program? Do you recommend me doing this program?
Also, is there any way to start my freshman year as a double-major student? I'm hoping to double major in economics (if Econ. & CS joint program is not attractive) and, possibly, international relations.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

<p>just wondering, what was your honors seminar? i'm a freshman at nyu too and my roommate was in an honors seminar and she also had trips to law firms, so you might've been in the same one as her.</p>

<p>FreeThinker90 - To be honest I don't know much / anything about that major. In fact I've never even heard of it. I know economics on its own is huge at NYU... from what I can tell it's pretty good, too. If you mean double majoring in Econ + CS at once, I mean, yeah you can start your freshman year however you want. Most people choose to get their GE's out of the way so they have some time to think more about their major. You might wanna do that... maybe also start by taking intro to econ or something.</p>

<p>Art_Star - how funny. I was in "What Makes a Great Leader." Considering it was only 16 people that would be so funny if your roommate had been in my class!</p>

<p>I want to major in politics aswell. When do we start taking class for it? Is the first 2 years just MAP courses? then the last 2 years is focus on your major?</p>

<p>How are the politics professors and the classes?</p>

<p>You can start taking classes for it whenever you like. Basically you have to fulfill however many MAP courses and 10 politics classes in order to graduate with a politics major... but the order doesn't matter. Generally people get MAP out of the way by the end of sophomore year to focus on major during junior and senior year. </p>

<p>I haven't really taken a politics class yet so I wouldn't know. From what I can tell it seems to be pretty legit... but I'll be able to answer better next semester :-P.</p>

<p>haha yeah my roommate was in your class. she would not stop talking about how much she hated it!</p>

<p>did you have core/ intro classes? If so which ones and how were they?</p>

<p>I took intro to econ, which was a huuuuge (500 person) lecture but still very good. The professor did a great job presenting all the information and making it very easy to understand. It's hard to have a class that big and impersonal but you'll get that at any big school. Otherwise I took two MAP (GE) classes and one freshman honors seminar. The MAP classes were much smaller... one was 15 people and one was about 80. I absolutely loved them both and found them fascinating. The honors seminar was 16 people. The class itself was slightly lacking but the field trips / hook ups involved were unbelievable.</p>

<p>thats pretty cool. whaty kind of field trips?</p>

<p>let's see... we had dinner at one law firm, dinner at a big fancy TV studio building, dinner in the NYU presidential penthouse (amazing.), a day long field trip to West Point Academy (the military academy where all the famous generals go), and presentations by really successful businessmen / lawyers / actresses (one from The West Wing!). It was pretty sweet for being just another class, you know?</p>