New York University

First of all, for those of you reading these reviews, keep in mind that most of the positive comments come from affluent white students whose parents obviously pay for their education and expenses.

I will start with the positive. I was a NYU Film Major and honestly the program was ABSOLUTELY amazing. I had to opportunity to do so many things that I would never have imagined. There are also thousands extra-curricular opportunities that allow you to better your craft. Excellent program, hands down.

But now for the bad...
As an African American female from a very diverse town and with limited, collborating within this school was veerrry difficult. The film school is comprised mainly of wealthy white males who come from art high school with plenty of resources and film opportunites. My high school could barely keep cameras because they were always stolen (you get the picture). Seeing eye-to-eye with this people was extremely challenging. Most of the projects this "blessed" kids wanted to produce dealt with either suicide, drugs, or ZOMBIES. The themes that I wanted to cover like inner city life, love, and happiness were never fully comprehended because so few of the students came from a background remotely similar to mine. This factor also resulted in a lot of racial tension within the program. Students and even teachers make jokes and comments about African Americans and other minorities that are blantantly racist yet they have no idea hopw offensive they are being.

My two years there let me so discouraged and afraid to speak up in class. Not only was a certain that my ideas would not be fully understood but because these kids were EXTREMELY COMPETITIVE. While I understand, as many of the previous commentors have stated, that NYU is the REAL WORLD, it is still a SCHOOL and we are all still STUDENTS. If that weren't the case, wouldn't we all be working professionals with high paying jobs? The students in the film program are often very snotty, pretentious, and obnoxious. They ruin movie plots regularly and refuse to acknowledge any film that has not won an Academy Award. These students made me HATE film most of the time because of their attitudes. I admit that I could have taken more initiative, but for a minority and female student, that initiative gets tiring after a while...

In addition, some of the classes are a bit....out there. It really seems like some of the teachers hot boxed their offices when they typed up the syllabus. For example, a class called Writing the Essay is like a psychedelic trip into the world of incohesive paragraphs. Teachers actually encourage students to counter the points they make within the essay (?). I was also surprised by how easy a lot of the classes were. Teachers were very lenient with due dates, structure, and tardiness.

NOW FOR THE SOCIAL LIFE!
wait...what social life? NYU is a perfect social setting for the rich and over 21 crowd who can afford to go out every weekend with a fake ID and buy drinks. Collective parties at NYU are very rare. Usually when a student association hosts a party, very few go because they fear it will be boring. Many of the dorm parties consist of people sitting around talking about how much life sucks rather than having a good time.

The minority social setting, in my opinion, is very cliquey and divided. My first year, I did not have many black friends but when I tried to reach out and attend more black student association meetings, the students spent more time being judgemental and figuring out why I wasn't around last year than getting to know me. Because there are so few of us, the social events outside of school grow boring a tiring after a while because you see the same faces. From my experience, the girls were very catty and the boys were often arrogant and rude. Again, maybe I should have taken more iniative, but it should never be a struggle to make friends.

In addition, the campus, while gorgeous and interesting, makes for a HORRIBLE way of meeting people. There's no quad, no student union, and because the campus stretches all over Manhattan, you never can tell who is ot is not a student. And it doesn't help that the students are generally unfriendly people. While it is true that partying and friends should not fully determine the status of a university, we must take into consideration that this is not just a school but a home for most of us, a place where we will be investing months of our time and THOUSANDS OF OUT DOLLARS (60,000 to be exact). All elements should not be perfect but at least manageable and I did not find myself able to deal with all of the negative elements despite its wonderful education.

The last topic I would like to discuss would be the faculty and financial department. While I did not experience many problems with the teachers -- in fact most of them were amazing -- the financial aid team, academic advisors, dorm leaders, and even the president are very condensing and unhelpful. The financial aid department gives no notice of upcoming due dates of major deposits (i.e. the $1000 nonrefundable housing DEPOSIT)and are very uncompromising to students with very grave financial ned, like myself. NYU failed to give me my first financial aid award letter until a month before I started school because they needed verification that my father was never present throughout my upbringing. I had 4 famly friends send detailed letters to the institution explaining my situation and each time the university claimed it was not good enough.

Getting loans is also a hassle. I am an independent student who is not able to pay for loans monthly and needed advice on which loans to apply for to avoid financial instability. The university refused to offer me any sort of assistance even after countless emails and phone calls. The financial aid office has even ignored request from my grandmother, who is my legal guardian, for additional financial aid assistance after who Social Security check was cut short.NYU is a perfect place if you are wealthy and and do not care about a school's social life. Excellent for arts but TERRIBLE for financial aid, which is one of the main reasons why I am leaving. If you are ready to take on New York and be overtly outgoing, by all means apply but if you're not quite sure you want to give up having a normal college experience, you may want to reconsider.

2nd Year Female -- Class 2014

Education Quality: A+, Individual Value: F