<p>do you love it or hate it?♥♥♥♥</p>
<p>I live in it. I LOVE IT!!!</p>
<p>A thousand times better than Oregon</p>
<p>Yes this is a really great city. You’ll meet great people wherever you go. The parks are great and clean, and you literally have life in the palm of your hands with museums, and exhibits. You’ll never get bored, everything you want/need is very accessible with the convenience of subways or buses that run 24 hours. Hope you enjoy your 4 years here, and plan to spend more =)</p>
<p>nyc is incredible. hands down the best place to go to college. it is just such a vibrant and diverse place, and the only city in the US that can truly be considered globally oriented, or another term for it being cosmopolitan. having visited and now living in the second city, i can say without fail, that whereas there are cool parts to these other places, there is no other place in the united states that gives you the sense you are part of something bigger.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in New York City for eighteen years. Queens throughout my childhood and early adolescence. Spent my young adulthood in Manhattan.</p>
<p>Overrated.</p>
<p>The best place to be if you’re from a godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere. </p>
<p>You can soak in the enormity of the environment and all the weird-looking people gathered in one place.</p>
<p>It’ll be hard to enjoy the restaurants, the museums, the theaters when you don’t even got a dime in your pocket.</p>
<p>If you’re loaded… then, lucky you, you’ll have a great time…</p>
<p>Though, even then, if you’re serious about your studies, you’ll have less time than you think to fool around during the academic year.</p>
<p>each his own kwu, but you sound like a real debbie downer. i’m sorry for your experience. but it is just your experience. </p>
<p>i grew up in a bigger city than nyc, and also in a small town. and i think the electricity of a city grabs me. it is where i feel at home. even in various outposts of queens (though if you live beyond the van wyck i get that life becomes more suburban).</p>
<p>if you’re serious about life, you’ll find time to do your studies and explore the city (for internships, culture, life). </p>
<p>and coming from someone who isn’t loaded, you can do everything and anything you want at a low cost. it might not mean going out to eat every night or wasting money on things, but if you budget yourself well you can have a fantastic experience and use columbia to get you free to cheap rates at tons of cultural activities.</p>
<p>i’ll be the first to say that nyc has some downsides, things that come with the good. but on par, i’d rather study in the chaos of the city than the isolation of nowhere.</p>
<p>an education is about more than the classroom experience, it is about learning how to interact with other people, how to navigate difficult terrain, and how to figure out how to stand out in a mass. i believe this best happens in a place like nyc and certainly in a school that helps students transition and develop skills to deal with the multiplicity. i think what columbia/nyc gave me was this feeling that there was a future i could have that i never anticipated. and that is something special. it sort of lifted the ceiling from my original goals and gave me the sense that i will be able to do something. and that is a great feeling.</p>
<p>Noooooooo…
NYC IS awesome. Period. I LOVE IT!!! I go to art museums, cafe’s, and gallery openings all the time!</p>
<p>You would visit before deciding, right? Have you been before?</p>
<p>When I was about 20, I thought I wanted nothing more than to live on the California coast. I finally got there, hated it, and came home. I NEVER thought I’d want to live in NYC. But after a couple of visits - I REALLY REALLY wanted to. I never felt I had the finances to do it. And after one gets a “decent” job (and kid!) it’s hard to make the break. So I’m stuck in the midwest.</p>
<p>Moral - you can tell a lot by going if you haven’t gone already. But one visit doesn’t show you everything (by a long shot!). You’d be recruited by NYC firms in your profession, but I imagine large nation-wide and world-wide firms would also recruit from Columbia in engineering, right? Any interest in living there, or just wondering to help with your 4 year stint decision?</p>
<p>Oh, my answer…LOVE IT more than anywhere except maybe London. Maybe a tie.</p>
<p>Everyone’s opinion will probably differ depending on where they are. I live in a boring suburb of NYC. IMO NYC is a pretty interesting place, and the public transportation is much better than in my town, but it does drain your money. I can see why some one who lives in a rural area would love the city, and why people who grew up in the city may not like it too much.</p>
<p>Just remember that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.</p>
<p>To clarify, I think OP did mean Manhattan, not a burb. And, yes…grass IS greener for many. I personally woudn’t want to raise a kid there. And I’d crave “nature”…but I could go get that when I wanted. The parks are enough of a “fix” when I needed it. My neice lives there now (after graduating Columbia Law), loves it. Her Mom/my sister are thinking of getting an apartment they’re there so much. My is dying to go to college in NYC (we go a lot). Living and visiting ARE different! But my vote remains the same…LOVE it (ha-ha…I got two votes this way!). I LOVE the bustle, I LOVE to walk everywhere, I LOVE public transportation (both of these = no car), I LOVE the culture (this is probably WHY I love it so much - I’d see a theatrical performance every single solitary night of my life if I could). And Columbia campus is so gorgeous!</p>
<p>I have a similar background as Adgeek, growing up in a city bigger than NYC and currently living in a suburb. Which is part of why this thread is making Columbia even more appealing to me right now :)</p>