<p>@evolving
First off, thanks for the kind words, so appreciative to hear someone say something like that!</p>
<p>I’ll tell you literally from first-hand experience as a student – whenever there’s an overnight visit or a tour all the kids and RAs are notified in advance. The RAs will actually do their community walks, will shut things down before they get loud/noticeable, and in general police the dorm a bit stricter than normal. It’s an incredible liability bringing a minor or non-registered person into the residential buildings, so they tend to take precautions in advance and during.</p>
<p>The only floors in 3N that are safe (in the sense that you won’t find anything you wouldn’t want your mom to find out about) are the Explorations floors; it’s similar to the ResColl in that you have to complete a specific application to get in before the year starts. In non-exclusive housing (i.e. there are Explorations-themed and normal floors in the same building whereas Goddard’s entire building is devoted to themed housing, therefore ‘exclusive’), however, there is swipe-access in the elevators and stairwells. Basically, you can’t get to an Explorations floor if you don’t live there.</p>
<p>Also, the WSN is not university-licensed at all. It is an entirely independent source. From their own site, it: “is the free, award-winning student newspaper of New York University. All content is editorially independent from the university.” Therefore their figures, statistics, and any quantitative information or content happens to be off a bit; we as students, though we recognize the stellar job they do, tend to take their writing with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>@hayley
Yes and no. At least last year, it was incredibly exclusive. By that, I mean that probably 80-90% of kids in Goddard did not socialize outside of Goddard, creating and perpetuating the stigma the ResColl has of being the ‘nerdly’ dorm. I would bring friends in from my classes or other dorms and the reaction (from both parties) was invariably the same: the visitors would be shocked to see everyone’s door open and half the floor hanging out together in the hall regardless of the time of day, and the Goddardites had this almost laughable ‘omg an outsider among us’ look on their faces.</p>
<p>You’ll definitely experience an inimitably precious bond with your floor-mates. Almost everyone identified with their floor more than anything. Some floors tended to be really cliquey, i.e. my year the 3rd and 5th floors happened to get along <em>really</em> well, doing all kinds of stuff together. 6th and 7th in the same vein, but not to so great an extent. Almost everyone in Goddard will know everyone else in Goddard; out of the 200-ish kids, probably 20 (roughly your floor size) will be in your immediate friend circle that you’re completely comfortable with, 50 will be people you’re willing to do anything anytime with, 100 you’ll know well enough that conversing or interacting isn’t awkward whatsoever, and the rest you’ll know by sight or even name but not much else.</p>
<p>As for streams, I started the year in Global New York. I thought it would be perfect for me, since I’m multiracial, really interested in exploring the ideology of diversity, etc. It ended up not going well, however, because the FA (faculty associate) was a <em>real</em> witch (with a capital ‘b’). The whole point of the streams is to (a) unify the kids around a theme of mutual interest, (b) expose them to New York around said theme, (c) broaden their intellectual horizons, and (d) prod people out of their comfort zones from time to time. Half of the way that’s supposed to get done is through allowing kids to propose their own stream events. This woman not only refused to let student-led events take place, but also refused to schedule her own. It was like she was on a power-trip and then didn’t even use her own power.</p>
<p>I ended up switching to Power of Politics for the second semester, and that was fairly average in terms of programming content and regularity. Nothing super exciting, but not terribly boring either. If I had to recommend anything, it’d be to take the performance-oriented one. My year it was called ‘All the World’s a Stage,’ and it was brilliant – completely-subsidized Broadway shows, random indie concerts or performances, readings, concerts, plays, improv events, you name it, they had it. I ended up stream-hopping to almost all of their events, and I loved it so much that I chose Performance as my Broome stream.</p>
<p>Were you able to tour already? Did you like it? Would you like more info on it? I’m more than willing to help interested kids.</p>