<p>I'm thinking about applying to an explorations program in Brittany - from the descriptions on the NYU site they seem fun and interesting, but what are they really like? Do the students really come together, and are there a lot of activities? How excluded is it from the rest of NYU?</p>
<p>ResCollege > Explorations.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, Explorations is a very mixed bag. You don’t know who’ll you get, so while you may have a theme you’re really interested in, the kids and FA you get might be not so fun and you end up disliking it by the year’s end. You could also get a program you like less but love the people and end up having a blast.</p>
<p>In general, I think Special Interest Housing is a positive experience, but the one disadvantage is that you can’t get away from it (so to speak) if it’s not to your liking. If you lived on a normal floor and weren’t happy with the people around you, it wouldn’t be hard to meet other people, but with themed housing, you’re sort of stuck in a quasi-community.</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t you be able to meet other people just the same, except for the people on your floor since you already know all of them?</p>
<p>Honestly Explorations (and just generally any floor) depends hugely on your RA and you! If you have a great RA who is willing to plan events and floormmates who are willing to participate, you’ll have a great time. My floor from last year was and is my family. We did everything together and survived in this city together. There’s nothing better than a group of freshmen, all equally lost, but all passionate in something- it makes for conversation starters. I keep thinking if I never applied to be on Explorations, I probably would have never met my friends. These friends are some of my closest friends now. While everyone’s experience will be different, all I know is every night when I was going back to my floor, no matter how tired I was, how sad I was, or just how happy I was, I wasn’t just going back to another apartment where no one knew each other, I was going back to a home.</p>
<p>Explorations kind of sucks. If you’re going to sign up for it, do it based on the building the floor is in, so that you avoid the bad dorms. You won’t have to go to most of the activities anyway.</p>
<p>I’m actually in explorations in Brittany right now, and I have to say that it really is worth it. The explorations floors are a lot closer than the other floors in the building, and there are always people hanging out in the hallway and people’s doors are always open so you can just walk in and say hi. There are definitely a lot of activities, we got free passes to a big festival in NYC and we’ve gotten cheap tickets to see musicals and operas. We’ve also gone to other things, like museum exhibits and stuff like that.
I don’t really think its excluded at all from the rest of NYU, because you kind of choose your own involvement with the floor, but every one also has friends and does plenty of activities outside of the floor.</p>