<p>It's crazy how much NYU has been in the media concerning its ( lack of) financial aid. In my opinion students like Cortney Munna shouldn't have been allowed to take on that type of debt from the beginning. She is probably going to be stuck in debt her whole life. </p>
<p>From the article: "Ms. Munna understands this tough love, buck up, buckle-down advice. But she also badly wants to call a do-over on the last decade. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back," she said. "It feels wrong to me."</p>
<p>She majored in “women’s studies” which is as likely to lead to a job as “men’s studies”. It is a perfectly good major for people who are not dealing with financial hardship. But don’t expect it easy to find a good paying career.</p>
<p>Yeah you know this is what I don’t understand…</p>
<p>It’s kind of a total waste to go into majors like that where all you can really do is sit around in Starbucks with a latte to discuss your beliefs. It’s kind of ridiculous. </p>
<p>I feel like she would be in that situation (probably not to that extreme since she does need to pay for living costs in nyc) regardless of what college she went to.</p>
<p>It’s time to be practical…we live in rough economic times. It’s one thing to believe in something like that, but paying $60,000 a year to go into a major for women’s studies??? The lady is crazy, and I’m sorry to say, but she made bad choices herself and got herself into the mess.</p>
<p>First off: it shouldn’t even be called WOMEN’S studies. Now it’s GENDER STUDIES. I’m not going to get into an argument with a bunch of guys about the validity of my minor or gender studies as a major because it’s a red herring for the real problem here. Although THIS:</p>
<p>
is just ridiculous. </p>
<p>The real issue here is the debt, and I don’t know why the OTHER most expensive college in the US (Sarah Lawrence) isn’t nearly catching as much flack as NYU is. We’re beating a dead horse here, guys. Yes, we know our financial aid is awful. Yes, we know the economy is bad. But there’s no reason to sit around bashing majors or (gasp) what people believe in. </p>
<p>I know that it probably isn’t worth it to go into that much debt for a liberal arts degree, I probably would have also minored in something more practical. Then again, all of my friends all majored in something most people call “impractical” (Communications) and they’re all sitting pretty with jobs at tech companies and video game companies. Why? Because they also learned how to code, write programs and create content. </p>
<p>The bottom line here, and I’m writing this for the freshman who wants to major in something some people might call “pointless”, is to HAVE A BACK UP PLAN. Learn how to code. Take pre-law classes. Major or minor in accounting or econ, I don’t care. Just have some sort of plan B. And then go on and major/minor in what you want. That’s why for me, Gender Studies is only the minor, not the major. I’m practical about it. But to go off on someone’s major is just taking cheap shots when it’s obscuring the real issue.</p>
That’s what I say. I’m all about doing what you love in life, but I don’t understand not being somewhat practical. Let me reiterate: HAVE A BACK UP PLAN.</p>
Hmm not really, I’m no steinhardt student but I think NYU is well respected for our journalism/communications stuff? the journalism folks all seem to have internships at the NYT and other media-related firms, I can’t imagine communications is much different. </p>
<p>Anyway I’m in CAS (NYU’s liberal arts school) and one of the benefits imo is our majors leave many career plans open - I’m a science major and it’s common for sci majors to get jobs in unrelated fields - similarly, it’s not like most art history majors end up working in museums, most people in arts/science seem to end up in the corporate sector if anything. But some people don’t take advantage of NYC and don’t even get internships or work experience so they graduate with a degree and 0 experience. (I’m not speaking about this woman specifically, but generalizing).
From our pov it all sounds so irrational but some people get carried away in the moment by factors such as perceived college prestige. My parents would’ve never co-signed that many loans - they’ve always taught me to buy what I can afford. At least these 2 aren’t really blaming NYU, they realize in retrospect it was a…poor decision to say the least.</p>
<p>The vast majority of high school seniors do not have a clear idea of what they want to major in before they step foot on campus. Even then, there are lots of people who take at least a year or even two years before settling on a major. </p>
<p>So there is the potential that some students may spend $100,000 over two years in college in general ed courses before even figuring out what major they will end up graduating with. That, to me, represents another area in which higher education has generally failed students. High school seniors should have a much clearer picture of what they want to focus on in college even before their freshmen year. Unfortunately, I think the common rhetoric is still that you do not even need to have a clue as to what you will study before enrolling. Just enroll, take a few generic ed courses, and figure it out along the way. </p>
<p>I think if this NYU student had known that she would end up in a Gender Studies/Religion major, she would have probably thought twice before going to NYU in the first place. We should encourage high school seniors to do extensive research on common majors offered by universities, the expectations and requirements of those majors, and a realistic assessment of the sort of careers many students graduating within those majors achieve following graduation.</p>
<p>You have NO idea how many people think that I’m trying to be like Samantha from SATC or Whitney Whatserface from The City because I’m in “communications”, which some people assume means “public relations”. Then I tell them I’m studying video games, technology and sexuality and they back off. Haha. Some people don’t make the connection that “communications” can mean a lot of things.</p>
<p>^Samantha is my favorite from SATC, no doubt lol! </p>
<p>On a more serious note, I think that what’s really preventing NYU from becoming a top 25 university is it’s lack of student funding. I can understand that NYU is trying its best to provide financial aid to those who dearly need it, but I cannot understand why they don’t just make sure the budget provides more financial aid? </p>
<p>I think Sexton should stop his plans for world domination ( Abu Dhabi) and just focus on forwarding the money to the students’ pockets. lol</p>
<p>When I read student’s entries where they put down various majors and are sure their (practical) major will lead to sucessful careers while the others won’t, I have to laugh.</p>
<p>Trust me, life is not that black and white. Gather any group of adults who have been in the work force for a while and you will be amazed at what twists and turns their careers have taken and who is sucessful and who is not. It is not as correlated to school, major, GPA or any of those factors that seem so important now to current students.</p>
<p>I graduated as an English major and 8 years later was an AVP in marketing communications–never having taken a marketing, graphics arts or print production class. My husband started as a MT major at Carnegie Mellon and ended up graduating as an economics major. He is successful in the field of real estate. (The only classes he took in that were to obtain a brokers license and some mandated professional classes for licensing.)</p>
<p>Knowing that, I am fine that my daughter is studying vocal performance at NYU. She is bright, ambitious and has both talent and brains. She has had great internships in public relations, the music industry, and currently for a film/broadway producer and as a press intern. Somehow I know this will lead to a career. In what specifically, who knows?</p>
<p>Success comes with hard work, seizing opportunities and luck. My advice is to take advantage of whatever comes your way, even if it is not in your “plan.”</p>
<p>uskoolfish, you graduated as an English major and you became an AVP marketing communication after how many years? EIGHT years. Even worse, you went to into a lowly manager position instead of a higher management position (such as vice-president) - which would have been very likely had you majored in a more practical field related to that expertise, had entered that field right away and worked your way up for those 8 years. Don’t make it sound like your English major was of any use - it was useless, you could have taken a faster route to your current state instead of taking 8 long years.</p>
<p>FYI, frankly the only person proud of your daughter studying vocal performance and being “bright, ambitious and has both talent and brains” is you. Any non-stupid person knows that in terms of employment and earning money, a more practical field such as economics or engineering is much better and will lead to much better opportunities than “AVP marking communications” in EIGHT years. The only exception applies to ivy leagues and schools at that level, which NYU CAS is not a part of.</p>
<p>So please don’t give the impression that majoring in english in NYU leads to same job opportunities as someone majoring in economics or engineering - it’s not the same, and it will never be.</p>
<p>Honestly, why don’t you just sit down, nalakc? I don’t know where a high school senior gets off on mouthing off to both college upperclassmen and adults, let alone using phrases such as “non-stupid”. So what if it isn’t PRACTICAL? If someone is happy studying what they want, is not in debt, and isn’t blabbing to CNN about how NYU ruined their life, WHO REALLY CARES?</p>
<p>@MAP: Thank you! The sheer hubris of some of the students who post here is astonishing. That an 18-22 year old student would presume to make pronouncements about what employers are looking for, what majors will and will not result in jobs, and what the “real world” is like is frankly laughable. And if some of you don’t learn to communicate in a more socially acceptable way I have a feeling that two words you will hear often in your life after college are “YOU’RE FIRED”. Because in the “real world” employers and adults will not tolerate your mouth and your attitude. You are creating a very poor impression of NYU students.</p>
This is something I’ve never understood myself - it seems to be commonly known that NYU is one of the most expensive universities in the US, except that Sarah Lawrence is the most expensive university and I’ve never heard it catch flack at all for this…I grew up near NYU and SL and the stereotype about NYU is we’re a “rich kids school” and don’t bother applying if you need financial aid, whereas no one says this about SLU. </p>
<p>I can only conclude that either SLU has amazing financial aid despite their heavy sticker price, or that they attract a more well-to-do student body than NYU who have no need to go into serious debt. Also possibly because NYU is consistently ranked as a top 5 “Dream School” or whatever so maybe people are more willing to go into debt for NYU.</p>
In theory this sounds nice but in reality it’s much harder to do. In HS, our classes are assigned for us. Every year from 8th - 12th grade we took Math, English, a Science class (NY State decided Earth Sci, Bio, Chem, and Physics in that order), and a Social Science (History/Govt/Econ). In my HS we were also mandated to pick an arts course (Music/Choir/Studio Arts), Gym, Health, etc…</p>
<p>Then some of us come to college with no clue of what we want to study. My freshmen year at NYU I took MAP classes and random courses like Politics, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Art history, South Asian Studies, English Literature, etc. Then soph year I was still undecided and took more MAP classes and some more random classes before finally settling on a major. I had to sample 9 introductory classes for many Humanities, Social Science and Science majors before finally picking a major. I am SO behind and need to take summer classes to catch up. In retrospect I should have taken a gap year and volunteered while doing 2-3 classes at Community College and figuring things out. But everyone tells you a gap year is stupid and to go to a good college (like NYU). </p>
<p>I’m not blaming NYU here, I’m saying it’s not realistic to expect HS will give people a real idea of what they want to study in college.</p>