Do not go to Suffolk University. I went to Boston hearing it was an amazing college experience with amazing oppurtunity. What do I find when I arrive? Nothing but rude staff that do not care about you at all. It feels as though they are dragging themselves through every day, thinking of the students as mere obstacles in their path. When registering with my advisor, he would not let me pick any lesson I wanted to do. I had no clue why, but because I was new to the American education system I didn't want to question him. I kept trying to explain to him that there is no point in me doing "philosophy" when I want to do film because I'm not interested in it, so I'm going to fail! He looked at me straight in the eyes and said, "WELL! IF YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT HERE, THEN YOUR GOING TO BE HERE FOR 6 YEARS! I KNOW IM BEING AN ASS, BUT THATS THE WAY IT IS." I swear to God, on my life, that honestly is the truth. I was shocked and felt so lost and really hated Suffolk from that point on. Because of him, I was stuck with 8am classes every day.
As for school spirit, Suffolk has NONE. Suffolk's sports teams are herrendous, with no acknowledgement from anyone in Boston. Second of all, the university will give you a few 'fun' events for your first week but will kill them off completely after that. I do not consider watching "Grey's Anatomy" in an RA's bedroom an event. Come on, Suffolk. Every single person I have spoken to at Suffolk completely agrees that Suffolk has no school spirit at all.
As for the professors, it can really depend. There is a website where you can rate professors, google it. Make sure you check your professors before you join the class because they are very mixed at Suffolk. My maths professor could not speak English well at all, and it came to no surprise that out of a class of 30 only 5 remained. I do not know how she has been teaching math for 24 years, because her teaching method is so confusing and unclear, I had to drop out of Maths 101 which is frustrating because now I have to do it all over again.
As for the people, the people you meet there are friendly, no matter who you are, you'll find cool friends there.
For the organizations, do not even think about it. Organizations? What organizations! Oh yes! They DO have a big list of activities etc. but these clubs are run so badly you might as well not be in them. I signed up to 3 clubs on the 'Activities Sign-Up Day' and none messaged my email. Same goes for my brother and other friends. We decided to just show up to a film club, and to our surprise, it was completely empty, with the club leader claiming they shut it down because no one showed up for one week.
Suffolk University do have a very strong police squad that roll around the streets of Boston in Dodge Chargers (they really out-do Boston Police on image!) and you can call them at late hours to escort you to your dorms if you are at other Suffolk buildings as Boston can become quite dangerous at night (3 students got held at gun-point in the space of 2 weeks). However, one time I was walking past a dorm building, where Suffolk Police normally hang out. Two officers were outside and were offering two girls (I was not sure if they were Suffolk Students) to go buy drugs with them later, which I found so grossly corrupt...but you see, they even hire the university students to be Suffolk cops, so that explains that then. I found that to be a bit stupid.
The dorm buildings are great and are in the top for the whole of the USA. The university did have extra housing in the Hyatt hotel, however I heard they are going to end their contract with Suffolk - their first and last year, apparently too many disturbances.
Anyways, on a final note, a lot of international as well as American students there and in my dorm building want to transfer to a different university. Yeah, suffolks OK, but you just feel as though they really just don't care about you or who you are or what you want to do with your life, its almost as if they're saying "just give us your money, do your thing and get the hell out of here". Consider others, first.
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