By: Anna Thompson
Student life at New York University
Life at New York University is synonymous with life in New York City. It truly is a university in and of the city.
Situated in Greenwich Village, NYU students have access to all of what the city has to offer museums, sporting events, concerts, and the best restaurants.
As a first year student, I was confronted with the impossibility of taking full advantage of everything within the university and the city. The "bubble" that seems to exist at most other colleges does not exist at NYU where there is no traditional campus and student life is city life. The dorms are spread about downtown Manhattan. My first year dorm is situated at 3rd Avenue just south of Union Square. You walk to class alongside professionals going to work, artists, restaurateurs, etc. The school is so large (20,000 undergrad and 20,000 grad) it is hard to tell who are the students and who just lives in the neighborhood. As a student about to end my first year at NYU, I was met with a lot of surprises. I was not expecting it to be difficult to make friends, for I consider myself a somewhat likeable person. But, it's hard. Because NYU is so big and so spread out, it is up to the student to put herself "out there" and keep making an effort to get involved. There is not much social structuring or prodding that take place at other smaller schools (like I hear from my friends at Cornell and Northwestern) so a student has to be assertive in meeting people and getting out. And it is hard to do that because in the beginning of the year I could meet someone and then never see them again. It can be overwhelming and exhausting, but once I had made a few friends we hung out regularly and NYU's massiveness became less daunting.
As for academics, I could not be happier. Some of the core classes are large as are your standard lecture courses, but my other classes in languages and writing have been very small and run by engaging, brilliant professors. I plan to major in Spanish and I am looking forward to studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina next year, one of NYU's nine study abroad sites. Again, because NYU is such a big school, the student has to look out for himself. You have an advisor, but your advisor has many other students, and no one is going to be checking up on you to make sure you are doing what you need to do. You have to know what you want and be assertive in getting what you want. I know I had to call the Spanish department several times to make sure I could declare my major. In light of the dozens
