Current Stern Sophomore: Ask Me

Colleges and Universities A-Z New York University
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>I know there's one of these floating around already, but I noticed it's a bit dated and there aren't that many current students replying. If there's anything you'd like to know about Stern in particular or NYU in general, feel more than free to ask. I'll do my absolute best to answer you (honestly, quickly, and directly), but please bear in mind that all of us are under a heavy workload. Word your questions directly and succinctly, and I'll help you out as well as I can.</p>

<p>About me:
Standing: Sophomore (Class of 2013)
Declarations: Finance, Marketing, Business of Entertainment, Media, & Technology (minor)
Profile: 4.0 high school GPA, 99th% SAT, Wharton accepted</p>

2

<p>Is Stern worth it? I’m applying there ED (idk whether I’ll get in, see my chance thread for :slight_smile: - shameless self promotion), but I’m having my doubts b/c I doubt I’ll get any financial aid and I don’t want my parents to pay 60k a year. </p>

<p>So in terms of is it worth it:
-How are the internships there, starting from your freshman year?<br>
-Prospective job opportunities?
-How’s the feel? Ppl. tell me it’s not a true campus feel, but how do you like it?
-Is it fun to go to college in NYC or just distracting?
-I hope this is not too personal, but what did you’re resume look like/did you apply there ed?
-Are you looking to be in massive debt when you graduate? lol</p>

<p>Anyways, let me know lol. Thanks.</p>

3

<p>Why did you choose Stern over Wharton?</p>

4

<p>Stern is worth it to me. That’s an incredibly subjective question, because every single person’s going to have a different method of evaluating that. I didn’t receive that attractive of an aid package (which hurts considering that I bear the full, sole financial responsibility for my $60k+ tuition), but in the end I look at it as an investment upon which I expect a significant return.</p>

<p>a) Internships as a freshman are incredibly hard to come by. Face it though, you have absolutely zero experience either work-wise or academically. Granted, it’s a bit of a catch-22 in that if you keep getting turned down for lacking experience, how will you ever get it . . . but the academics is the key reason. It isn’t hard to get something good for your sophomore summer if you work hard, do your research on your industry, and network to your fullest (a process I’m literally in the middle of right this minute). Most firms simply aren’t willing to bring someone on who has no education on anything related to the field they’re pursuing.</p>

<p>It’s fine to take a simple job, either on-campus through work-study or independently for an hourly wage. Firms don’t expect young kids to have tremendous finance or banking experience after one year of school. They do, however, want to see that you can balance a challenging academic workload as well as work besides that.</p>

<p>b) Prospective jobs? Elaborate more please. Full-time or internship opportunities?</p>

<p>c) You won’t have any such thing. There is absolutely minimal school spirit. We don’t have a campus; it’s an entirely different experience. You’re essentially living the lifestyle you’ll have forevermore as an independent adult on your own, responsible for yourself within a bustling city. Not everyone can cope with that, but it’s both an incredibly liberating and maturing experience for sure. Your only sense of belonging will be to Stern, and other NYU students won’t ever get that (they’ll either resent you for your focus and determination and ridicule you for it, or secretly admire and be jealous of you and mock you because of it).</p>

<p>d) Life here is amazing. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. I look at it not as being less or more distracting than a traditional campus experience, because the two aren’t comparable. It’s a matter of difference, not more-vs.-less. On a campus you’d have Greeklife, parties, huge sport games, and that sort. Here, you have clubs, bars, concerts, celebrities . . . there’s an entirely different set of challenges.</p>

<p>e) Coming here was kind of a fluke. This was my blind safety, in that I knew nothing about Stern other than it’s (then) 4th-place ranking. I was applying Wharton and a few others and Stern was barely a blip on my radar. I didn’t submit any kind of resume with any college application anywhere; I did the common app and each school’s supplement as they wanted it. In retrospect, I probably beasted the personal short-writing prompts NYU asked. Writing is far more of a strong point for me than any quantitative skill.</p>

<p>Answer your questions?</p>

5

<p>I’m from Pennsylvania. More specifically, the wrong part of Philadelphia. :slight_smile: It’s incredibly challenging to get into UPenn at all if you’re from PA, simply because (when I applied) 32% of their student body was from PA. I was waitlisted into Wharton, deferred to second waitlist, deferred to third with a likely letter, and at that point I committed to Stern. I knew nothing about it at all, so I attended the optional summer orientation they held in early June. I was immediately struck with how serious everything was, and how markedly different New York was from anything I’d ever experienced.</p>

<p>In the end, that was what convinced me that I wanted whatever-that-was over Wharton, regardless of how much research, energy, and thought I’d put into UPenn. Prior to that orientation, I simply figured I’d throw the deposit money at Stern and take Wharton when they accepted me. Wharton accepted me subsequently, yet I declined.</p>

<p>Freshman year I strongly regretted that, but I realized the discontent I felt stemmed more from faults native to my own mentality and personality rather than something specific to this school. This year has been incredibly different, and I’d like to believe that’s because of my change in mindset. I approach things differently, therefore I obtain different results. That has proven true with school (grades-wise), work (interviews, etc.), and a slew of social scenarios. I love it.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the lengthy response, I appreciate it lol. Always helps to know from someone who goes there. Both, for the prospective full-time and internships question. Another quick question, how are the dorms and how many do ppl. do you usually dorm with (in a room, in a building)?</p>

7

<p>According to a recent article from BusinessWeek another Sternie cited in another thread:
Of 2006 Job-seeking Graduates…
92% received their first job offer by graduation
7% received their first job offer within three months of graduation </p>

<p>It’s similar for '09 grads, I just won’t write something I can’t. I know I saw the updated figures, but I can’t find the article to link, I’m sorry.</p>

<p>As for internships, it depends on how hard you look, how well you network, and how well you interview. Earlier today I had three interviews: McGraw-Hill (parent company for Standard & Poors, the publisher of the S&P 500 index and 500,000 yearly publications), Royal Bank of Scotland, and Goldman Sachs. Earlier this week I went to four seminars: S&P, two for Goldman, and one for BarCap. These are all for the upcoming summer. The S&P one went well-ish, in the RBS one I knew nothing about the company so I had hardly anything to talk about, but the Goldman one went well enough that I got immediately bumped up to their second-tier interview directly following the first. I attribute that directly to the information I obtained from the seminars on Wednesday and the conversations during the networking session that followed.</p>

<p>All this happened during the heaviest midterm week. I had three exams, a team presentation, and another one this coming Tuesday to study for. No aims to brag whatsoever, but this is what Stern is like. If you can’t handle weeks with 30 hours of sleep combined every now and then during crunch periods, don’t apply. There’s this incredibly annoying tendency where everything starts ‘chunking,’ and you’ll get every possible academic and professional responsibility stacked on you over a period of 10 days or so. Then you’ll get a month or so without much at all, and then another hell week.</p>

<p>The hell weeks are basically preparation for real work though; my summer roommate worked 100 hours a week for 13 weeks in the summer at a hedge fund in Midtown. I guess he lucked out in a way, he got an internship as a freshman but it was incredibly demanding; 35 hours weekly in-semester over the spring and 85-minimum weekly over the summer.</p>

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<p>Hi hellodocks, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions!
There’s been a lot of different things said on this forum about being international and paying full and how that affects your chances. In your opinion how much of a difference does it make if you are willing to pay full tuition for Stern, assuming you’re a student within Stern’s average GPA and SAT scores.</p>

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<p>Hellodocks, I really appreciate this! As an EMT minor, are you looking to go into the entertainment industry? If so, are there a lot of media industry oppurtunities for EMT/Finance grads?</p>

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<p>interviews for GS, S&P and RBS in the fall? Aren’t those for full time positions only? I’m pretty sure summer internships are recruited during the spring, correct me if I’m wrong.</p>

<p>Anyways my questions:</p>

<ol>
<li>Did you intern during your freshmen year/ summer?</li>
<li>Did you take Calculus 2? If so, do you recommend any professors?</li>
<li>Any recommendations of professors for BIP?</li>
</ol>

<p>Thankss</p>

11

<p>@Ignite
I’m not sure I understand your question, but I’ll give it a try. The way one of the kids from Singapore in my OrgComm class explained it to me, to be accepted for a visa as a foreign student you have to prove your financial ability to stay in the States for all four years of school. Then once that’s done, your FAFSA screws you royally because you proved so much income, so you cannot get external aid. Since international kids get no aid from the University, you don’t get any internally either, forcing you to bear the entire burden yourself.</p>

<p>I don’t know what the difference you’re asking about is. If you get accepted, you have to decide whether or not to attend. The cost of your education is always a significant factor in that decision, regardless of how much you have to pay. And yes, I’m significantly above-average SAT Writing and Comp (800 each) and a bit below-average with math. Look at the ‘about me’ in my first post for that.</p>

<p>@justspice
I’m not planning to go specifically into the entertainment industry. If I had the chance to intern within it, I’d seriously consider it, however at this point I have neither researched nor applied for anything next summer that isn’t IBD, IMD, or AM. I do, however, want to say one thing. I have always hated the attitude here at Stern that all things quantitative are the only things worthwhile. For the overwhelming part, no one explores their creative qualities or expressive skills. It’s all math, science, stats, research, math, math, math.</p>

<p>I don’t appreciate that, nor do I consider it healthy. I kept Marketing as one of my majors simply because it was one of the classes I enjoyed most that I’d taken before I left for college. It’s more of a soft-skill, as the industry would term it, and I appreciate it for that. I chose BEMT because it’s something I’ve always found fascinating and loved to study. It’s proving a solid choice, as in my Goldman interview yesterday I was able to speak with the recruiter about my interests within the firm, IBD and IMD, and converse fluently about TMT (Technology, Media, Telecom) within the banking division.</p>

<p>I don’t think that Finance guarantees you good work in the entertainment world. It doesn’t hurt you, but most people who take it generally aren’t interested in EMT as a career and therefore the general impression is that finance kids aren’t good at or aren’t interested in entertainment since they never desire to pursue it.</p>

<p>Answer your questions?</p>

12

<p>@shuffle
No, not really. Recruiting for summer positions generally begins in October, with some deadlines in the middle (i.e. JPMorgan Launching Leaders was Oct. 15 this year). That’s for a normal track too, where you interview between Dec-Feb before rejection or receiving an offer. For kids studying abroad in the spring (like I am), the deadlines can be even earlier than that. It’s in their best interest to discover and evaluate the best candidates they can, and they make no qualms about admitting that fact. Whatever process they have to set up to achieve that, they will.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I’m in a specific recruiting initiative that Goldman sponsors on campus that aims at discovering and promoting the success of historically underrepresented demographics in the financial services industry. It’s a bunch of preprofessional training (resume and cover letter workshops, mock interviews, recruiter-in-residence sessions, and corporate information seminars etc.) all hosted by the campus recruiting reps (often NYU alum) of various bulge bracket and Fortune 500 firms. Being in that has gotten me in more doors in the month it’s been active than I ever dreamed possible.</p>

<p>In short, yes, you’re wrong. Most summer positions have been filled by the spring, because most offers are tendered in March. For your other questions:
(a) I did not intern my freshman year. As I’ve said earlier in the thread, it was ridiculously hard finding something, even harder to do well in an interview since I knew so little, and challenging to even balance my work-study positions with the academic load I took.</p>

<p>(b) I didn’t take Calc II; there’s only a requirement for one Calc class here so I took Calc I. Math has never been my strong point and even at that level I didn’t do well in the class. Everyone I know who’s taken, taught, or been involved with Calc II-III here says that III is easier than II, however. Calc II here is tangential to Calc I, exploring entirely new mathematical concepts while Calc III builds incrementally on Calc I. You can even see as much for yourself by Googling their respective syllabi. I have no idea why that is, but you’ll find that’s typical to NYU. You can’t explain the quirks they have.</p>

<p>(c) I’m assuming you know about our curriculum since you have such specific questions, so you must know that BIP is a three-part course (Plenary, Inquiry, and Discourse). Your I&D professors will be a team, so you can’t choose just one and not the other. The Discourse professor does all the grading, however. I took Leah Hanes and George Smith. I’ve been in contact with Leah since the class and I know she isn’t teaching this coming spring so you’re altogether out of luck on that score, but if you see George Smith listed anywhere take him most definitely. He’s a very wise, kind, thoughtful man. I didn’t realize the level of tenure he held within Stern until the semester was basically done, but it turns out he’s one of the Vice Deans (Academic Director of Langone [part-time] MBA program) in the graduate department. That’s typical of Stern though, their faculty is mindblowingly intelligent and you’ll never know who you’ll have the opportunity to learn from, even as a mere freshman.</p>

13

<p>@sasasa
“Another quick question, how are the dorms and how many do ppl. do you usually dorm with (in a room, in a building)?”</p>

<p>Sorry I missed this earlier, managed to overlook it. One thing you’ll learn about NYU is that we have everything. Everything. There are singles, doubles, triples, quads, five-, six-, seven-, and even eleven-person rooms across our twenty-something different residential halls. Some of them are studios, meaning your kitchen and bedroom and bathroom are all within the same room (bathroom off behind its own door, not exposed like a prison cell), some are suites, some have kitchens, multiple bathrooms, and touch-screen appliances, some don’t.</p>

<p>The only thing I’d say is average is to live with however many you want. It’s hard not to get something you’re satisfied with. First year I lived in a studio double with no kitchen (the complete norm for freshmen), and this year I live in a seven-person loft in Soho. We have five singles and one double bedroom, two full bathrooms, a complete kitchen (two fridges etc.), and a 65-foot-long furnished common room. The girls next to us, however, have two triple bedrooms, a kitchen, one single bath, and a much smaller common room. Simply goes to show how diverse the housing possibilities are here. Hope this helps.</p>

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<p>First of all, thanks so much for taking your time to answer our questions. Greatly appreciated!:)</p>

<p>How is the workload? Is the transition from being a high school senior to a college student really hard to manage? How are the classes / profs? How about the residents? Are they all fairly close to your classes and are they clean? More importantly, are they safe?</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

<p>If you have the time, please look at my “NYU College of Arts and Science” thread and comment on my likelihood of getting in!:)</p>

15

<p>Thank you for answering my question!
Sorry if it was convoluted, I was essentially asking if not applying for Financial Aid would increase your chances.</p>

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<p>@Ignite
See, wording things the way you actually mean them the first time is always better. =)</p>

<p>@cdnsenior
You’re welcome, I’m glad to help. </p>

<p>The workload in Stern is huge. It’s manageable if you’re used to effectively using your time and being proactive rather than procrastinating, but it’s very heavy throughout the entire semester in terms of reading and homework, then at exams it gets really hectic. You mention CAS so I can’t talk much about how that is because I’m not in it, but I imagine it isn’t as bad. Four of the six guys I live with are in CAS and none of them seem to have any academic stress. All of them party every single weekend, smoke, goof off, and have all kinds of time during the day. I can’t say the same about people I don’t live with, but from the proximity with these guys (their majors are: politics/philosophy, environmental studies/Romance languages, liberal studies, and undecided), I don’t get the impression that CAS is that challenging.</p>

<p>As for residences, all freshmen dorms are within blocks of ‘campus;’ none are more than a ten-minute walk from the central academic location. The upperclassmen ones range from a ten-minute walk to a twenty-five minute walk, but there’s university-run shuttles between almost all of them. You can always taxi/subway wherever you want to go too.</p>

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<p>Is Stern worth it? I applied to Gallatin, because Stern was a reach for me statistically. If I were to get accepted, is it worth it to transfer to Stern?</p>

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<p>Yes, if you read through the thread I think you’d get the impression that I definitely consider it worthwhile. I applied to Stern knowing nothing about the school, so I didn’t know whether it was a reach or not. I know Gallatin prizes individuality and self-expression over all, so if your application reflected those qualities you’ll probably fare well.</p>

<p>I only know one Gallatin kid who transferred to Stern, and he has absolutely failed to fit into the culture. He argued with his entire OrgComm group, caused them to fail the first presentation in that class, and got put under ‘probation’ by his prof. I don’t believe that’s representative of the entire Gallatin mindset, but I know it happened.</p>

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<p>Hi, Thanks so much for doing this. :)</p>

<p>Do you know anyone who’s majoring at Stern, but is also doing another major at a different school (CAS for example)? If you do, then can you share what you know about their work load? If you don’t, then do you think double majoring across schools will be extremely tiring??</p>

20

<p>Thanks for taking out time to answer questions.</p>

<p>My one question is: How’s the cafeteria food? I know that the places nearby can’t be terrible, and Chinatown is pretty close, if I’m not mistaken.</p>