I was admitted into NYU for fall 2018 and had some questions. Would anyone be willing to answer some of them?
Here they are:
What is it like not having a campus?
Are the people very cold toward each other / are the people on each residence hall close?
Generally what are the students there like?
How often do people get put into the fun residential life experiences they want and how often do people not get into any of the ones they want?
Does the $15 ticket thing apply for concerts?
Do TAs teach a lot of the classes?
Is it ever bad having such a large school?
How easy is it to take classes from other schools within NYU?
What is your general experience?
How easy is it to access university resources?
General pros/cons?
I’m a current Freshman and I love talking about NYU so I’ll definitely give all your questions a try!
I don't really feel like we don't have a campus. It's not walled in, for sure, but all the main academic buildings (and Freshman dorms) are mostly centered around Washington Square. When I say "I gotta run across campus," everyone knows what I mean. We have our "quad," it just happens to be Washington Square Park. Some people may disagree with me on this but I feel like it's well enough contained. Also, on a wider scale, your campus is in the middle of Manhattan. Like, right in the middle of it. Blocks away from Union Square. That's pretty awesome.
Everyone here is so inviting, in my experience! There's also so many people here you're bound to find people who like the same stuff you do. A bunch of people on my floor are super close--I have my friends outside the hall, so I'm not really in that group, but still. Some floors are closer than others. Applying for an exploration floor will help.
There's no way to generalize an NYU student because there's 25,000 undergrads and it's so diverse. I mean that in every sense of the word. A general Stern kid is so different from a general Tisch kid, and even within schools, everyone is different. I mean, we have over 100 student clubs, so. I will say that everyone here is interesting, passionate, and wants to do great things.
"Fun residential life experience" is a broad thing. All freshman get put in a FYRE (first year residential experience) hall, and all halls offer trips and events and activities all the time, it's up to you to take advantage of it. Not everyone gets their first choice hall, but I've never heard of someone getting below their top 3. Same for exploration/special interest housing (which will also give you more fun experiences)--I've never heard of someone who applied to more than 1 not getting into /any/. The ones in Lipton are supposedly more competitive because everyone applies to have a better chance at Lipton, but. Lipton is a little overrated imo.
Depends. A lot of the stuff at our own performing arts center is $15, but tickets sell fast. Discounted Broadway/opera/concert tickets can be 50+% off, but never as low as $15. Honestly, I was a little surprised at how few concerts we actually have a Skirball...we did have John Krasinski though, which was cool.
Depends on the school. The big lectures (I'd say 50+ people) also always have a recitation, or smaller break out class. A professor always teaches the lecture, the TA goes over what the professor taught and answers individual questions in the recitations (20-30 people). Lectures that size are a small percentage, anyway.
Nope! You don't really get the same tradition and family feeling of a LAC, but I love just how many people there are. Big city, big school. I love always meeting new people. Also, once you get into clubs and into majors, the school will feel smaller. Each school (CAS, Stern, etc) also feels kinda separate, which makes it feel smaller as well.
All I can say is from my CAS experience. We can take up to 4 classes from another school (enough for a cross-school minor) and have it count towards our degree. For those, you just register. Anything more than that you have to petition, which I've never done, but I've heard it be successful before.
I love it. It's my favorite city, I've met amazing friends, and I'm satisfied with the academic quality.
Pretty easy. Most things are done by appointments online. Sometimes you have to wait a bit, or schedule really far in advance, just based on volume of students, but I haven't had many problems.
Pros: New York City!!! Hear me out: People say that you shouldn't just go to NYU for NYC and that's true, but I can tell you 100% that I've had opportunities here and grown as a person in ways I wouldn't have anywhere else. The size also means it has some really amazing resources to take advantage of, the academics are great, the people are awesome, I love the open and accepting atmosphere, and we get free access to MoMA. Cons: The size, lack of campus, and lack of strong sports means there isn't a ton of school spirit or community feeling. This can make it a little hard to make friends--you gotta really put yourself out there. This is my main con and the only thing I don't love about NYU.
I love the school and talking about it, and I’d be happy to answer any other questions you have (:
@wonderlanddd Thank you SO much for these responses. Your responses were very thorough and clear, which I appreciate so much and am so grateful for.
That being said, I do have a couple more questions (I’m in CAS btw, if that helps with answers. I might be interested in a Tisch minor though!):
How often is a class a 50+ person lecture?
What is course registration/selection like?
Do people often not get the classes they want because they fill up too quickly?
What research opportunities are there for a non-science person?
How easy is it for a student to build a relationship with a professor?
How likely is it that someone can get an internship in the media/entertainment business?
Are NYU students lonely, considering the lack of campus? (I keep seeing articles about lonely NYU students)
Since you say all freshmen get put into a FYRE, how often do those events/activities actually happen? Do most people not take advantage of those activities?
What kind of support does NYU offer in terms of emotional, academic, or course/major selection help?
Personally, why do you think there’s an 8% transfer out rate?
The core classes and intro level classes are the big ones, mostly. Any class that has recitation sections (which you'll see when you try to register). Statistically, it's only a very small percentage of classes, but you need to get through them to get to the better ones, so. Intro to macro and micro have 400 people each, the intro chem and bio classes are also huge. It's unavoidable when there's 25k undergrads who all have to take the core, and when you have thousands of people needing to take intro level classes every semester.
We have an online registration tool called Albert. You can search for all classes by subject and school and add them to a "shopping cart" before your registration time, then when registration opens for you (it's done by credits and then randomly selected within credit group) you can just select them and click "register." Albert is slow and can crash but it gets the job done.
I'd say fairly often, but not any more often than other schools. It's hard to register as a freshman or sophomore--but mostly the core classes, since there's so many seniors panicking to take them. That being said, NYU does this thing where they close and reopen classes periodically during the registration week to reserve spots in it for kids registering later. I've never heard of someone getting absolutely nothing they want, and non-core classes are significantly easier to get into.
Plenty. I'm not doing research so I can't provide specifics, but there's a ton of research outside of the hard sciences (psych, anthropology, linguistics, etc). I'm not 100% sure how much research there is into English but most professors have a thing they're working on, and many will be happy to let you help out if you ask.
Again, not harder than any other school. Even with our lecture classes, if you go to office hours a lot you can build relationships. Also, your first year in CAS I would recommend building connections with your Writing the Essay and Freshman Seminar professors because those are both small class environments and the professors teaching them are often important in other areas. For example, my Freshman Seminar professor is also the head of NYU's department of Anthropology.
If you want a media industry internship, New York is the place to go--think about how many network headquarters are in NYC and how many shows film here. It's not easy, per se, as in you'll still have to work hard and have a good resume and nobody is going to give you anything just because you're from NYU, but you're in the right place, going to NYU will look good, and NYU has a great job center that can help with your resume and give you advice, as well as help you find the right internships to apply for.
It can get lonely, but I don't think it's because of the campus, I think it's because of the size. Everyone in NYC feels lonely sometimes, just because the city is so huge. However, once you find your smaller community, you'll be fine. The good thing about 25k undergrads is that's 25k chances to make the best friend of your life (:
I don't really participate in hall activities just because I don't have a ton of friends who live with me and my friends outside the hall are always doing things (but all my roommates are super close, so I'm not saying that you won't be friends with people on your floor). There's a few activities every week or so, and they usually get at least a few people for all the events. This will change on your hall and the people who live in it. This year, they've offered anywhere from karaoke to going to the Met to just exploring NYC.
Our wellness center has a crisis hotline and drop-in hours for anyone who needs any sort of emotional support. Additionally, RAs are always there to talk for (most) things. I personally suffer from an anxiety disorder and I've never been to the wellness center, but I've also never felt unsupported or like I didn't have the option. Academic we have the University Learning Center which offers free peer tutoring (but the tutors have to apply and get hired) as well as a writing center where actual professors can help work on your essays. My essays are always better after a writing center appointment. Everyone also has an academic advisor who can help plan your four year plan and give you course advice. Honestly, academic advisors are hit and miss--once you declare a major you get assigned a major counselor, and those are (supposedly) much more helpful.
I have a friend who is transferring out because the CAS core is too strict and all she wants to do is study physics, not any humanities. I think this is a pretty common reason. Also, and I hate to say it, the cost. People who are paying for it with full loans get to the end of the year, look at going another 70k in debt, and decide it isn't worth it. Also, I know people who realized that NYC is huge and scary and are moving to a smaller city/closer to home.
If you’re interested in chatting with a current student, I heard about this site called degreescoop.com. They have several NYU students in all different majors.