<p>I'm mainly interested in the social aspect and the people at the moment since I'm having a hard time socially in high school. I got accepted to SUNY Plattsburgh and hopefully I'll be accepted to suny oneonta. Does anyone have any experiences on the two? What are the people like? </p>
I attend plattsburgh and plan on staying for the entire 4 years as of now, so I’ll give you some honest student insight.
Im from Westchester and my major is computer related and im a freshman. the winters tend to be brutal(from what ive heard) but they are very good at plowing pathways and such minutes after the snow starts falling. I’d say it’s average/slightly above average, my gpa was like an 82 in high school and my SAT was a 1650 and I got in (but they asked me to send in my midterm grades…so I’d say in GENERAL the requirements to get in are a little above those scores, and I also had strong volunteer/extracurriculars).
Plattsburgh City Wise - It’s a nice town/city (kind of a mix, a small city imo) with big box stores and smaller ones too. theres a walmart, sams, bed bath & beyond, all those places pretty close, along with tons of chain fast food places/restaurants like buffalo wild wings and pizza hut. Downtown has the independent places which tends to be nicer.
Campus wise, the school is not too big, not too small. The campus has an “open” feeling as public streets run through the campus and it’s easy to walk to downtown or to the nearby neighborhoods. At most private schools it’s hard to get off campus and awkward without a car, at plattsburgh its nothing like that. The walks can get far for Ausable Hall and Hawkins Hall, but by far, I mean like 5 minutes from the furthest freshmen dorm. There’s art scattered around the campus and the campus is rarely dead (except at like 3 am on a weekday and 8 am on a sunday). Huge dorming school. About 98 percent dorm, at least for freshmen. Upperclassmen either dorm or live off campus (but they arent local). This is good because you still live plattsburgh but kids are mostly from the albany area/nyc/long island from what I’ve seen. Albany area as in, like 3 hours south of plattsburgh. But of course there are plenty of people from western ny too. There are few out of staters, mostly from the northeast as well.
Education wise, I feel the school is somewhat intellectually stimulating. Obviously…harder classes will be challenging, easy classes will be a piece of cake. It’s certainly worth what you pay for it (I mean that in a good way), and majors with more time consuming classes will certainly need to spend more time studying. The library is huge and open 24/7 during midterm/finals week, and there’s even a free learning (tutoring) center with 1 on 1 tutors in the library which is really nice. If you’re dorming without a scholarship/financial aid, you should expect to pay between 17k-20k a year which is NOT bad. It’s one of the cheapest sunys yet it has the best to offer (I applied to cobleskill, morrisville, and canton, and they were all more expensive and those are terrible campuses). also, i disagree with the above poster. there are education majors but they dont dominate the campus.
Dorm wise, the dorms are pretty nice. The housing options for freshmen are freshmen only dorms, all year dorms, or suite style dorms. There are 2 freshmen only dorms, which are highrises (9 floors), and a handful of all year dorms. There are 2 suite style buildings which each have 3-4 double dorms in them(These bedrooms are slightly smaller than the regular dorms), a living room/common area, and a bathroom. All locked off in its own suite. It’s nice, but if you’re a freshmen, I totally recommend freshmen only dorms. Ive seen a LOT of people in suite style who have trouble making friends cause theyre a freshmen in a random suite with sophmores/juniors who decided to dorm together. Not fun! The freshmen dorms are fun as everyone is in the same situation as you and roughly the same age. They’re in the process of renovating one dorm building at a time. Next year they’re renovating the older freshmen dorm (Wilson Hall), so im not sure where they would put the freshmen besides whiteface. Probably Mason Hall as that will be brand spanking new next year and open for students (it was renovated this year), so that should be super nice. All dorms have common areas on each floor (high rise) and each section (low rise), as well as study rooms, recreational stuff (the newer buildings have ping pong tables and really nice lounges, the old ones have pool tables and tv rooms but theyre not as nice. Still great though!). RA’s vary, some are really strict, some are cool but I havent seen one that just lets kids do whatever they want in the open. Usually if they’re cool they wont write you up first but they’ll try to sort it out between you and the RA which I feel is a more mature way to handle situations (but there are rarely situations). Dorms do get cold sometimes though, maybe its because im in the oldest building that hasnt been renovated and the windows are drafty, but I recommend at least you or your roommate bring a space heater in case you need to use it, I dont think they allow the red heating coil type as its a fire hazard though. The rooms are average size but I feel they could be slightly bigger in the freshmen high rises, and the closets aren’t spacey either, but it’s easy to make space (TV on top of fridge, dresser in the closet, raise your bed slightly so you can put boxes and stuff under there), but you shouldnt be bringing that much stuff to college anyway.
Diversity- Upstate ny is a white area. that’s the truth and there’s nothing wrong with that obviously, but for some people they would prefer a different environment. Most of the black people are from the city (I dont mean black people in a derogatory way) and are quite friendly, but they don’t make up a large population of the school, i’d say, 15 percent? Maybe more. There are a significant amount of international students (Asian mostly, from Kazakhstan, Thailand, etc) but I’ve met people here from Brazil, Burundi, Norway, and other places. Plattsburgh state has a large percentage of white students, im not white and I dont really have an issue with that. Most people are open minded (If I said all, I’d be lying. But really, there are closed minded people everywhere), and I’m brown and it doesn’t bother me at all.
Food- The meal plans are slightly pricey but with the unlimited everything plan it’s very convenient and helps freshmen transition properly (if youre a freshman you dont want to worry about managing meal swipes and dining dollars on top of adjusting to college, so thats why you have to get the unlimited plan your first year here). It gives you unlimited access swipes to the 2 dining halls (the main one being clinton which is open every day from like 7 am to 8 pm, algonquin has slightly healthier/better food but its only open 11am-3pm on weekdays). You also get like $100 dining dollars which you can spend at subway, griddles (a breakfast all day place), and the sundowner (food court with chinese, smoothies, italian, american food, and a sandwich place similar to subway) which is nice. also every night from 8pm-closing(usually 1 am) you get 1 free $8 swipe at subway/griddles/the sundowner. if it goes over $8 (like $9 if you wanted something else) you can use your dining dollars for that $1. I like to eat and I still have like $60 dining dollars left for next semester (and they carry over, so they will add on another $100 when I start at the end of this month again). you also get express dollars which you can spend at the “Campus express” store which is basically a convenience store thats really nice. Lots of snacks/food/ice cream (packaged), toiletries, newspapers, magazines, gum, school supplies, all that fun stuff. Those carry over semester to semester as well. Meal swipes for other dining plans dont though, so keep that in mind. The actual food from the retail places is “ok”, it’s retail food and gets tiring after a while. The dining hall food in clinton is pretty unhealthy. there are healthy choices, but let’s face it, it just doesnt taste as good as the unhealthy stuff. algonquin is better but not open as often. it’s great for college food imo but not the best. Also, off campus choices are limited. Not to be racist, but plattsburgh is just a white area. Compared to westchester, we have a lot more ethnic food choices as westchester/nyc is very diverse. You cant come to plattsburgh and say, “im feeling indian food tonight”, because there isn’t a restaurant for that here for example. There’s 1 apparently “authentic” mexican place downtown i havent tried yet (its expensive), other choices are college-style taco places and american pizza places which arent great. Mostly fast food places on the main strip in plattsburgh. but if you dont mind that then thats great!
Partying/alcohol/drugs -There is definitely a party scene like the poster above me mentioned. however it isn’t super crazy. i never really partied in high school and assumed that would carry over to college…i was wrong lol. So if you go looking for a party you can find it but it wont be up in your face 24/7. Theres sports team parties (big), frat parties, and just get togethers off campus. Also, there are parties in the freshmen dorms (not “parties” all the time, but people still stay in and have a ton of fun, sober or not sober and Ive had the best times here so far doing just that with friends and meeting new people). Lots of people drink - but that’s college, and the people aren’t boring here. Of course, if you dont drink (I respect that and there’s nothing wrong with that) people dont exclude you usually and theres usually other things to do as everyones usually super friendly. People are less stuck up upstate from what ive seen compared to downstate in westchester. Drugs like weed are relatively easy to get if you have friends, but pots pretty harmless. Lots of people smoke as well. The scene for harder drugs like cocaine/heroin/whatever is pretty non existent (I havent seen it once) but im sure it does happen (after all, it is a college campus). theres a police station on campus (SUNY University Police) and they have actual cops. Ones who can arrest you. But they aren’t nazis and dont patrol everywhere so if you slip up once or twice you wont get arrested lol, but if you need help they are available 24/7. It’s a safe campus mostly, i never feel unsafe walking alone in plattsburgh or at night on campus. The one thing i cant really stress enough is to make friends…college isn’t very fun without friends, no matter where you go. you can survive in plattsburgh being a loner but your experience will be 100x better with friends, so try to make some friends! i knew no one coming to this school, and im not that outgoing so its possible!
plattsburgh is a great school. The springs/summers are awesome (nice and hot but not too hot like downstate). its a nice change from westchester and its much more relaxed/personal/laid back. I really like it. the funny thing is, i only applied to plattsburgh because it was one of the few SUNYs that had the major i wanted, I literally just picked it out of the suny list when i was applying to colleges based on the fact that it had my major. didnt even know where i wanted to go until i finally visited in april (i couldnt make my decision, i applied to 3 other sunys and 2 privates in nyc) and i knew that was it. Theyre renovating the campus now(they should be done by the end of this summer) so it’s a great time period to attend.
social aspect is fun. Trust me, you’ll fit in somewhere if you’re open minded, as long as you’re friendly and try!
Thanks for the responses!
I know this is much later,but did you end up picking plattsburgh?