<p>I have a question for the students, alumnae, and parents here:</p>
<p>What are the best and worst parts about living and learning at Fordham?</p>
<p>Best: This is not necessarily true for everyone, but all of my professors have been excellent. Many of them take a sincere interest in their students, and I loved going to office hours. On a similar note, the core and the classes I’ve taken have been great. Academics here are really stellar.</p>
<p>The location is awesome. And I mean the Bronx. (LC is awesome too.) Arthur Ave and Little Italy is great when you need a break from the not-so-stellar caf food. Fordham Road is teeming with awesome and cheap shops that sell every thing imaginable. The Botanical Gardens are beautiful, and the Bronx Zoo is magical. The Bronx is a culture shock for some, but it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. (Minus the occasional security alert.)</p>
<p>Worst: The administration. ResLife are terrible people to work with. There’s is often a lot of red tape you have to go through before you can get anything done, and it can be really annoying. They’re too wary of giving students responsibility, it seems… (Hence the lack of a free-speech zone on campus, despite efforts by the student senate this year and endorsements from the faculty. I don’t think it is a question of the administration objecting to it as much as it is all the bureaucratic policies they have to go through.) </p>
<p>The food is also a common complaint, and it’s not for nothing. Sodexho is a corporation, and thus they treat food like it’s just another part of the industry. The contract Fordham has with them hasn’t been released because it’s so ridiculous. I have no idea why the administration decided to chalk up so much money to such an inferior institution, especially one that has never been known for have good food. But that’s not to say it isn’t tolerable. I’ve survived pretty decently on salad, cereal, and cookies for the past two semesters. It just makes me wish I had a kitchen…</p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Sunshower: Your “bests” are right on. Glad you also appreciate the Bronx as much as I do.</p>
<p>Also, the awesome campus is part of Fordham’s charm. And I think the diverse student body is another great aspect of the school. For a catholic school, Fordham has a good amount of racial, religious, and economic diversity. And in general, there a so many personality types that you are always meeting new, vibrant people.</p>
<p>Personally, I’ve never really had a problem with the food. I think there’s a good amount of variety and compared to other schools I’ve been to, we’re doing just fine. I think it’s just something a lot of fordahm students like to complain about because everyone complains about it. I guess the fact that students like to complain about the food is one of my personal “worsts” haha.</p>
<p>Thank you both of you! It’s great to hear such wonderful things about this school. I can’t wait to visit. I’m glad to hear that Bronx is actually a more positive point of the school. My parents are pretty worried about that point.</p>
<p>I asked my S who is overseas for the summer. He is extremely happy at Fordham and here are his comments:
Pros: He has been happy with most of his teachers and enjoys the smaller classes. He has made a ton of great friends at Fordham. My S is a non-drinker and felt that having the chance to live in wellness environment (Queens Court freshman year and a wellness floor sophomore year) was a huge benefit (although not everyone would make this choice, it is available). He loves the location in the Bronx and the easy access to Manhattan. And the campus is gorgeous (I added that).
Cons: Yes, he did say food – he said that the food is OK but he is a fussy eater and only likes a limited amount of things at the caf – he’s glad to have a kitchen in his dorm next year and will get a smaller meal plan. He finds some ResLife rules annoying and feels that administrative issues can be frustrating to deal with.
Overall my son’s experience at Fordham has been great!
PS as a parent I was also intially concerned with the location in the Bronx but as long as you exercise good judgement (ex. don’t walk around alone at 2AM) it is a positive. The campus itself is gated and very secure.
Good luck!</p>
<p>As a Dad of a recent graduate, I would say the pros are the excellent education (including opportunities for study abroad and internships), the beautiful campus (Rose Hill), and the Bronx-especially Arthur Ave. As a parent, I was somewhat concerned about the location-but as long as one uses reasonable judgment, it’s a great place.
I don’t have much to say on the negative side. I think the food quality issue is a little overblown; after all, it’s standard institutional food. No regrets here as a parent.</p>
<p>Pros:
-Knowlegeable professors
Caveat:Most Core classes (which take will up most of your Fresh/Soph year are taught by Grad students with questionable teaching ability. While most grad student profs I had were good, several were not!
-Location…NYC
-Gated, pleasing campus (Unlike NYU type schools).
-Walsh Library and Duane Library
-Financial AID. 90% of incoming students receive some form of AID. </p>
<p>Cons:
-Apathetic student body. This is especially true in core classes where half the class actually does the readings. For the other half, getting an A is all that matters.
-Poor Athletic facilities. To be honest, the facilities would be acceptable for a small LAC. Not a large U. with 6k+ students. To make matters worse, they have cut the weight machine room in half to make room for…SQUASH courts!
-Poor sports teams and, consequently, generally low school spirit.
-Poor school Community. 1/4 of the school is commuters, with residents and commuters generally interacting very infrequently. Many residents in my dorm floor also opted to leave campus for home over the weekends.
-Very Poor food considering the price we pay for our mealplans is higher than schools with MUCH better food.
-Outside of Walsh Library and Duane, our facilities could use updating (My HS classrooms were nicer). Faculty Memorial Hall and our science buildings, which they dont show on the tour, need the most updating.
-Red Tape. Particualarly ResLife, which is terribly run.<br>
-Monotonous weekends. Most of my hallmates last year wanted to go out drinking to nearby house parties or hit the tri-bars every weekend, which is a shame considering Manhattan is a train ride away.</p>
<p>the above is for Rose Hill, i’m assuming.</p>
<p>for lincoln center:</p>
<p>Pros:
- seriously the best location! smack dab in the middle of manhatatn with walking distance to midtown, hell’s kitchen, and the upper west side and with columbus circle a block away with the subways that are able to take you anywhere you want to go, you couldn’t ask for a better place to live in manhattan.
- small class sizes, where you’re not allowed to get away with just coasting by and where the classes thrive on discussion and input between the professor and students. and most of our classes are taught by the professors, the only time there is a grad student involved is when they lead smaller discussion groups for some of the bigger core classes like faith and critical reason or philosophy of human nature.
- flexible core, meaning for some of it you can fulfill it and also start on your major requirements for the same class (for example my social science core requirement is being fulfilled by intro to communications, which is also the intro for my major).
- professors actually care about the students, and want to know us personally- every professor i had last semester requested we all do office hours at least once, just to get to know each other, and it was immensely beneficial in feeling comfortable in their classroom.
- personal relationship with the faculty and higher administration- the dean of the college lived on my floor last year, and had pizza parties every so often in our lounge so he could hang out and get to know his floormates better, which was pretty cool. our dean of students is the nicest guy ever, and the dean of my department always says hi to me in the hall, despite the fact that i have yet to take a class with him.
- i personally find our small campus to be a pro, i could never survive in a campus where it took me longer than 1 minute to get from my apartment to my classroom in the morning, and i love our underground walkway for when it’s freezing and nasty outside.
- i also love that all the residents live in one dorm, it just makes it easier to go to friends rooms and hang out when you don’t have to trampse across campus or worry about having to leave at a certain time because you don’t live at that dorm like at RH.
- the student programming community is really welcoming; if you wish to get involved in a club or anything, the kids involved are the nicest and truly let you in to do whatever it is you want to do to make their club, the campus, or the community better.
- we have a super awesome first year resident director, who makes all the reslife stress a hundred times better.
- everyone chose fordham lincoln center for the same reasons: namely, because we are creative, passionate people who want to learn and live in the city, so it’s pretty easy to find common ground and feel comfortable with basically anyone.</p>
<p>cons:
- student apathy is a problem, in terms of getting involved on campus. because we are in the middle of the city, most of the students would rather go out when they’re not in class instead of work towards building a better community on campus, whether that be joining clubs or attending our on campus events and programs, which are usually pretty cool.
- another problem i’ve found is that students don’t appreciate the school that they go to; they are quick to bash fordham because apparently the cool thing to do is to pretend to be all “whatever” about the school you go to, so they have very little fordham pride, and don’t seem to appreciate just how great of a school -and of an education- they are getting. they don’t understand just how much they are able to get out of it, or are getting out of it due to it’s rigorous academics and jesuit values. they just want to go here for the location, so that’s frustrating.
- similarly, students don’t know just how much fordham has to offer, so a lot of great resources are going unused and are thus getting little funding.
- being considered secondary to rose hill, when we are our own college and just very different than rose hill that it is almost impossible to compare the two.
- also, our health center is one of the worst things about being a resident if you don’t belong to a doctor in the city. that’s the only logistical thing i can think of as a con.</p>
<p>Rose Hill/Bronx:</p>
<p>Pros:
-Location
-Jesuit School
-Honors Program
-Transportation</p>
<p>Cons: </p>
<p>-Anti-Intellectual campus atmosphere.
-Facilities
-3/4 of the Student Body
-Commuter/Resident dynamic
-Drinking culture</p>
<p>Very few of my classmates (outside honors program) inspire me and I recall a lot of middle-schoolish grunts and sighs when I would give an opinion or ask questions. I think a lot of that had to do with Fordham’s “campus culture”. From athletics, to the bookstore, to the poor facilities and the “don’t give a damn” administration - Fordham often reeks of mediocrity - and I feel students and athletics teams thus act accordingly.</p>