<p>I take issue with some of the things said.</p>
<p>Sure, we don't all get together once a year and sing kumbaya around a bonfire in Washington Square Park, but people here don't hang out together just 'cause they're in NYU. I find that people tend to group themselves by interests. I have my friends in Chinese class, where we all roll our eyes and stifle snickers when the teacher launches off on another "In Red China, life was so much better because..." tirade. I have my friends on my department, who I've come up with during the last four years by struggling through homework, studying for exams, and sweating/swearing our way through labs. I have my friends who I met as roommates - we eat together, complain about our research, and chat about the latest episode of "House" or whatever. You can see NYU as one giant community, but it's a lot easier to deal with all the smaller communities that comprise the school.</p>
<p>The MAP courses are stupid to a certain extent. (Since I'm a chem major, I didn't have to take math or the science components.) I didn't get one useful thing out of Writing the Essay, but I still think about things I learned/read in my Con. West, World Cultures, Expressive Cultures, and Societies and the Social Sciences courses. You get what you put into those classes - if you think understanding the foundations of Western culture or the basics of science are stupid, I weep for the future, because the last thing we need is more ignorant yokels who think global warming is a sham or don't know how Christianity underlies much of modern American culture.</p>
<p>If you think there are few activities on campus, you either never check your email, never leave your dorm room, or are a commuter who ignores all the commuter resources. There are a crapload of activities offered, whether that's seminars/talks held by the academic departments, events from the offices under the Student Life umbrella, or the social or cultural programming done by the residence halls. If you're a commuter, there are special spaces and events reserved only for them. In short, there's no reason to complain about a lack of activities sponsored by the university.</p>
<p>As for the red tape administration, I find that it varies. When I was trying to get my paperwork together for Study Abroad, I didn't know when this form was due, so I called the office three times, talked to three different people, and got three different answers. Sometimes people are so obtuse when you speak with them that it becomes excruciating to sort out what exactly it is you need to do to solve whatever problem. However, when I petitioned CAS to allow to me raise my outside-CAS- credit limit to 18, it was an absolute breeze. In general, the admin here is a crapshoot, but if you're polite and do as much research as you can before you start asking questions, then your results generally are a lot better.</p>
<p>I can't really talk about Careernet, since I never used it, but based on the experience of my Sternie roommates, the fact that every job gets a bazillion apps is not a problem of Careernet. Employers post jobs and internships on there, and if they don't want to take sophomores or post more positions for people to apply for, tough luck. Also, everyone applies to like 30+ jobs each, so of course there are a lot of applicants for each one. Business is competitive - if you can't handle it now, the real world's even harsher.</p>