Have you made any friends here as close as those old pals in high school? Do you feel satisfied about your school life?
@pergamum I have asked this same question basically. My son is a jr in high school and we are going to the open house on december 10th. Baruch is a commuter school. There is no getting around that fact. However, if you join clubs, and attend activities, you will most definitely make friends. Is it the same as going to a traditional campus? No. If you are looking for that traditional campus feel, then you must go to binghamton, or hofstra, albany, geneseo, boston college etc etc. I strongly believe you can make friends, however, it is a bit harder I would imagine.
Baruch has a dorm uptown which we will visit as well. It does not include a meal plan and costs $ 13,700.00 per year. I am not sure it is worth it to be honest. I believe there are approx 1500 students in the dorm which there are approx 350 baruch students. The other students are from the other cuny schools such as Hunter college.
If you ask the student ambassadors at Baruch they will tell you how you can make tons of friends. Lets be honest, that is what they are there for. To make everything seem great. I believe the best way is to somehow speak with students at Baruch that do not give tours etc.
Good Luck
I am currently a freshman Baruch student living in NYC off campus.
To answer your questions, yes I have made some good friends in the past couple of months. I’m sure if I had classes with the same people for two semesters we’d be amazing friends but the truth of the matter is that usually after each semester is over most of those friendships fade. I’ve made about 10 good friends, and I predict I’ll probably stay close with two of them. But, each semester you’ll meet new people.
Hate social life at Baruch. Everything is an effort. The only reason I made friends is because I’m very outgoing and will approach someone I don’t know just to make conversation. In almost every class nobody is chatting and there is a large number of students who come to class and go home with no social interaction. If you can’t see yourself approaching others to make friends then you’re going to have a hard time. Social settings at Baruch are not natural like that of a campus school with kids living on campus. No parties and no one is hanging out on campus after class unless you specifically make plans to do so. You might get to party if you have friends who go clubbing but there is no such thing as a frat party.
The only other REALISTIC way to make friends here besides approaching classmates is to join clubs. I joined a couple and they were badly organized so I decided against it but I have plenty of friends just from classes and mutual friends. I say realistic because you won’t just be running into people frequently and making new friends or meeting people at parties; just doesn’t happen here.
If you value a strong social life I would really think about choosing Baruch. I chose it because this is the greatest city in the world (yes, I’m biased) and would live here even if I only had 1 friend. It is a big trade off but you need to weigh the costs. And yes you will occasionally regret not getting the “full college experience” if you go here.