<p>I am from So CA and know nothing at all about New Jersey...How safe is this college and the surrounding area?</p>
<p>I am from NJ how safe are the colleges in So CA?</p>
<p>UCI super safe, one of the safest city/colleges in the country… Pepperdine and LMU also very safe cities and colleges. UCLA also set in a safe area…Westwood, Bel Air. UCSB great area… If you have a specific college you are wondering about I can help out. :)</p>
<p>Rutgers is reasonably safe. It is in a small city however, and normal precautions should be taken. Don’t walk alone at 11 pm, etc. It’s not a particularly attractive campus. You would choose it for their excellent program and not because the area is so lovely. It’s not. There is train access to NYC which is a nice feature.</p>
<p>I actually didn’t think the campus was all that ugly-- maybe because I’d heard that it <em>was</em> ugly, so its relative nonugliness was a pleasant surprise. And it’s close to the NJ Turnpike. </p>
<p>That said, normal precautions should be taken anywhere. Bad things happen on college campuses in the “safest” areas.</p>
<p>The only So Cal campus I can think of that gets a bad rap for location is USC. It’s in an urban part of basically downtown LA. But it’s awesome!</p>
<p>Mason Gross, which is the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick and houses the theatre and other performing arts programs, seems to be fairly contained and reasonably insulated in that it has a suburban feeling and is not a super-urban campus. There is campus bus service from the dorms to the campus buildings, though I have read on CC that there is often a wait. The freshman dorms are not a/c if that matters at all, although by October it should not be much of an issue. The theatre program is top notch and very well respected, at least on the east coast. Also, it is less than an hour on the train to NYC. The theatre program is also somewhat separate from the rest of the university from the standpoint that it is a conservatory and nearly all of your classes are taught by theatre faculty. That is a big plus for some students, and not so much for others. A fantastic year in London for all theatre students is a big part of the curriculum. This is definitely a program for students who are totally committed and passionate about their craft.</p>
<p>Douglas campus where Mason Gross is located is a pretty campus.</p>
<p>Safety on campuses is a very interesting issue and I think the approach parents need to take is by checking with the actual campus, dorm building, classroom buildings, security, what is being done on the campus of a school that has a great fit program to support the safety of the students. With all the rash of school shootings, and incidents like the Boston Marathon bombing where otherwise perfectly safe students from Emerson and BU were in harms way, there is no way to ensure safety. Rather by 18, we need to hope that we’ve instilled enough street smarts and common sense in out kids that they can take the precautions to be as safe as possible under most circumstances whether the college is in NYC, NJ, FL or Beverly Hills.</p>
<p>I think you will find students who are totally committed and passionate about their craft in all sorts of college programs not only conservatory styles like Rutgers. You even find actors who are committed and passionate about their craft who never went to college.</p>