I was checking out the bulletin boards and all of the sheets were about refugees and one crisis after another. Please don’t misunderstand - my daughter does not want a party school and we are politically aware and socially conscious but couldn’t one poster be about free pizza or a movie?
She’s a reliably liberal tree-hugging feminist who seems a natural candidate for a NY LAC but I’d like her to enjoy herself a bit.
It’s NYC. No one needs to look at a bulletin board to figure out what to do for entertainment.
Yes. In NYC you walk on the street for 3 minutes and you’re entertained. Seriously though, she will have no lack of things to do for relaxation and it may surprise you, since it is in NYC, that there are many free or low-cost events.
This list updates daily–
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/free-things-to-do-today
In addition, having a CU/Barnard ID will get her into many of the museums for free. Also CU has a program that makes available to students arts and educational opportunities within the city for free or reduced cost–
http://artsinitiative.columbia.edu/
Many museums are pay as you wish or have free nights, some with special events on those nights, like musical groups
The U itself has more events that she would be able to ever attend, from theater to speakers from all over the world and from every field, to sports, etc.
There is a social life on the campuses too that takes them out into the city.
Just getting on a train and going out to some of the ethnic neighborhoods for food or down to Coney Island or walking out her dorm and 2 blocks to the park, paths that lead through the woods to the shoreline, or getting up early and going down to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise; there’s a bike path that circles the island of Manhattan and CU has a bike share; free kayaking; there’s plenty to do.
One thing in NYC is that you are never ever bored.
I wasn’t clear. I lived in Manhattan for 15 years, both as a poor first-jobber, and later a fairly prosperous DINK. (We may empty nest there) I was thinking about the atmosphere on campus; are the young adults in a perpetual state of serious minded purpose, or do they sometimes relax, kick back, and be college kids?
The students are human, like college students everywhere. Sometimes they relax by doing things they might mention to a parent – for example, my DD mentioned to me when she went baseball games or the ballet
Much of the things they do to relax they don’t tell their parents. They ingest substances their parents don’t want hem ingesting. They have sex. Sometimes they just goof off for hours on end, doing things like binge watching netflix, or watching youtube videos… or just hanging out with friends and doing not much of anything. Sometimes they sleep when they really shouldn’t be sleeping, like when it is 10 am on a day when they have a 9am class. (And I am honestly reporting on the lifestyle of a daughter who graduated with a GPA above 3.9, and worked up to 5 part-time jobs at a time outside of class,… some of her friends who didn’t share her opinion that getting an A- was a disaster probably had room for even more down time in their lives).
But no, they do not put notices of this stuff up on campus bulletin boards. No one uses paper to communicate about social events any more. (That’s lame & it kills trees; plus when my D. was at Barnard, there was a page limit as to how much free printing they were allowed). They post events on social media, or they send out group texts to their friends.
You might get a better sense of things from reading campus media like The Spectator - http://columbiaspectator.com/arts-and-entertainment/ - or BWOG – http://bwog.com/
@calmom - thanks for slapping some sense into me. Going away to school is largely about doing stuff that you really don’t want mom and dad to know! I want them at 3 hours away for that very reason.
I do think that because of the very small size of the physical campuses, a lot of the outdoor socializing and relaxing takes place at off-campus venues – often only a few blocks away, but the point is that you are less likely to see students engaged in fun stuff when there isn’t all that much space for that, but plenty of space only steps away.
My D only lived in the quad dorms for the first year – after that, her living space was never connected to the campus – so naturally she usually came to campus for classes or to use the library (serious stuff) - and rarely would come to campus just to hang out. But that’s a function of the physical facilities --if you visit a suburban or rural LAC with a large campus, you would see all sorts of activity around you – but many students in those settings complain of boredom or a sense of being constrained to their campuses. Their campuses often are the centers of arts and entertainment for the surrounding communities.
Of course some students like that sort of environment… but most people coming to Barnard or Columbia are there because they want NYC and all that it offers. So when they go out to have fun, they are very likely to want to be out on the town.
I’d note that unfortunately my D. was at Barnard during the construction of the Diana Center - which pretty much meant that half the physical Barnard campus was walled off and inaccessible for 2 years, and she wasn’t there long enough to develop any habits or routines around whatever amenities are available there – it’s quite likely that by now it has become more of a regular hangout space for many students. But still not the main attraction for students who are in love with NYC and the idea of being there.
Barnard’s now building a ginormous library space. so the campus isn’t a good hang out place.
There are plenty of other hang out places nearby–CU campus, Riverside Park, and several other places.
@Dustyfeathers In the nice weather, my D. and her friends would take to the roof of the Diana Center. But that said, they all seemed to spend much of their time hanging out around Butler.
As for unwinding, the world really is their oyster and the city affords almost unlimited opportunities.