Rutgers University - New Brunswick

The only reason I came to this school was because A) I was desperate to get out of Florida, and B) They gave me money.

Let's start with academics: It's mostly hit or miss. If you're a student in the humanities, you'll be ridiculed and told by your professors to major in something else. English literature is treated like chemistry here: memorize facts and what your professor wants you to think the work is about, and you'll be fine. No room for creativity or thinking for yourself. The sciences departments are better and it's obvious the school pumps a lot more money into these. I actually quite enjoyed the physics courses I took. The school also expects you to take a lot of courses that you don't need that go beyond just GE courses. Expository writing is mandatory but it's a complete joke.

The campus is mostly butt-ugly and very confusing. There are five of them. College Avenue has somewhat nice buildings, but Livingston is like a state prison and Busch is huge with concrete block buildings from the 70s. The buses are usually packed, especially in the afternoons, and most times the bus drivers will just drive by a stop and leave you there.

I do have a story regarding something that happened to myself and about a dozen other students my second year. I lived on College Avenue and I had taken the bus to Busch for a class. The weather was getting bad (blizzard) and the buses stopped running without notifying anyone while I was in my class. I went to the student center and when trying to get information, I was told that emergency services would be picking up stranded students and taking them to their dorms on other campuses. I sat there with a handful of other students until after 9 PM, when the student center closed and guess what? We were throw out in the sub-zero, freezing ass dark and cold. Emergency services never came, and when myself and the other stranded students took it upon ourselves to call them, they told us that they had been informed that everyone had been picked up, and that no, they wouldn't be coming to get us. The only way we got back to College Avenue was because one of the students I was with ran out into the street and stopped a passing maintenance van, who after a lot of convincing, agreed to take us back to our dorms. It was a legitimately dangerous situation. We could have died.

New Brunswick itself is a dangerous town. There was actually a stabbing that occurred right across the street from my dorm on College Avenue. There are a lot of homeless people and gangs that hang out right off campus.

Staff is very unhelpful. If you need a class and it's closed, too bad for you. Getting an SPN is like pulling teeth. Advising is crap. They are very rude and will talk over you if you have a question. It seems like they want you to get out of their office as soon as possible, even though it's their JOB to advise you.

About 99% of the student body consists of drunk children. There are no engaging discussions in class despite some professors' efforts to facilitate them. No one is interested in talking about anything other than how wasted they got the night before, or how wasted they're going to get the next weekend.

The only redeeming qualities about this place are:

A) It's very diverse. You'll meet a lot of different people - Jews, Muslims, gays, Asians, etc.
B) It's quite liberal.
C) There's a train station within walking distance of campus where you can catch a train that will take you to Penn Station in under an hour.I've long since transferred out of this place (attended from fall 2009 - spring 2011). Don't go here, unless you just want to party away 4 (or more) years of your life.