<p>I just wanted to update you with what is going on. So last night (Sunday 4/26/09), I got back from visiting NYU for 4 days. I stayed at the Washington Square Hotel and also took the tour, which mostly consisted of Juniors in High School. Coming from Thousand Oaks, California, the city was initially intimidating with all the people, noise and fast-paced lifestyle. However, after my 4th day, I really have to say I was getting used to it and could see myself going to school there. A few things I noticed:</p>
<li>The school is centered around Washington Square, which unfortunately is under construction.</li>
<li>Despite the lack of a typical “campus,” many students agree that is is very easy to make friends.</li>
<li>There is no transition from season to season; it was cold and windy on Thursday and Hot on Friday.</li>
<li>Apparently the summers are extremely hot and humid.</li>
<li>I saw “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” performed by Tisch Students</li>
<li>99% of the students are extremely liberal, which concerns me a little</li>
<li>“Cozy’s” is a 24hr diner w/great food located near campus</li>
<li>Central Park was absolutely beautiful and was packed with thousand of people.</li>
<li>The city offers many distractions, and many students end up partying too much and not studying enough.</li>
<li>The library is incredible; very high and enclosed in glass.</li>
<li>Many people listen to their ipod while on the subway or just walking down the street.</li>
<li>Manhattan is very easy to get around with all the subways, which are not too hard to figure out.</li>
</ol>
<p>1a) only the MIDDLE of the park is under construction. the chess tables on the west side and the playground and the benches on the east side (facing Silver/Steinhardt/Goddard/Bobst) are open and plenty of people sit there. i had recitation out there in the park a few days ago. i heard a rumor that the park might open within the year. it was slated to open for spring 2009, but. . .yeah.</p>
<p>3a) there IS a transition of seasons. we are going through a heatwave. the end of this week is going to be cooler. even the weathermen on the local news stations are saying this.</p>
<p>11a) most people in Manhattan do this. i do it so i don’t get accosted by tourists as i try to go to the subway. :-P</p>
<p>Heya, I’m not going to NYU till next year but I’ve lived in NYC all my life. </p>
<p>3) Like missamericanpie said, there is a transition from season to season. The weather just tends to get temperamental during the transition so that it fluctuates. By mid-may the weather will be pretty consistent. It’s really only in those in-between months like October or April that it goes up and down a lot. It snowed in March. It was the first day of spring actually. =P</p>
<p>4) Summers aren’t really hotter than summers anywhere else and it’s not too incredibly humid. </p>
<p>7) My favorite restaurant in the area is Thunder Jackson’s, which is a small pub/restaurant on Bleecker St a couple of blocks up from NYU. My friends and I go there all the time. It’s always empty early in the day (obviously), so we go there for lunch before the bar crowd gets in. The food’s really good and it’s actually not that expensive. </p>
<p>11) I listen to my ipod on the bus/subway all the time. If you’re by yourself its just nicer to listen to music than stare at the wall and listen to the subway car. And music always makes a walk seem shorter.</p>
<p>4) really? last summer in Manhattan, i felt like the humidity was killing my will to live very, very slowly. i grew up on Staten Island, so i wasn’t used to it. </p>
<p>11) music also helps you ignore a) creepy people b) people that try to give you flyers</p>
<p>4) There definitely is a transition of seasons. I assume you aren’t used to NY weather because it changes all the time. I live about halfway upstate, and it literally snowed 3 weeks ago and tomorrow it’s supposed to be 90 degrees. The same kind of thing happens in the city.</p>
<p>Thanks guys for all the clarifications/additions! The weather seems very tempermental and like you said " three weeks ago it was snowing and now it is 90 degrees," is what I meant by no transition, but I guess there is one, it is just very short. I have actually played chess with one of those african-american guys, it was great! I lost of course, those guys are really good.</p>
<p>Are the majority of people at NYU/Stern really outgoing, driven, and focused? Are there also a population of carefree/laid-back people? Mathy, why did you have that impression of Stern students?</p>
<p>i heard rumors about the Stern curve making people more driven and backstabbing to peers in class. after all, the fewer people that have a grade higher than you, the better chance you will get an A. i dont think the “deflating” curve will make you care-free or laid-back unless you want a C. but outside of academics, stern students appear outgoing. not much i can say, I do take a stern class for non-stern students but im a CAS student.</p>
<p>SamuelClemens, yes I went on the tour on Friday, I was with Cesar A. Francia, the guy from Venezuela. Stern students are apparently very aggressive; they will tell you the wrong answer even if you are friends.</p>
<p>a fire happened in Lafayette Street because some girl thought the broiler in the oven was a storage drawer and put tupperware in it. then someone turned the oven on. </p>
<p>fires can happen when people smoke cigs, too. i’ve never heard of that, but there’s always a fire every semester. a small one, but they evacuate the building and the fire trucks show up.</p>
<p>I was there this week too and stayed at the Washington Square Hotel. This was my second visit to NYU/Stern … the students I met there and spoke to were quite friendly and some of them were Stern students. I loved the diversity I saw … it is unfortunate if 99% of them are indeed super liberal (or super conservative for that matter). </p>
<p>PS - What scares me most is not the weed smoking students or the minor fires or the legendary cockroaches/mice in Hayden (or is it Goddard ?) or the alleged back stabbing or the Stern curve or the unpredictable weather … it is the HUGE debt I will accumulate by the end of the fourth year that is worrying me the most.</p>