Fordham University

Fordham is a good choice for wealthy irish-catholic students who came from private high schools. Drinking and drug use is heavy at the Lincoln Center campus, but there is a wellness floor full of students who've been sheltered most of their lives. The students here don't seem to have much substance except for the commuters who never talk to residents anyway. The residents are often unapproachable and indifferent towards people who don't have the same background as they do. If you don't want to deal with drama, you might not want to apply to Lincoln Center where about 50% of the students are theater majors or minors. The campus is so small that you'll feel constrained once you get to know nearly everyone in your year. The courses are sometimes challenging, but the ridiculous two-year core requirement makes you feel like you're in high school again - who wants to spend time with two religion courses, four language courses, and three english requirements? The university might as well send you back to high school. My first year all of my instructors were assistant professors, very young, and only one had been teaching at the university for over a year. This makes you feel like you were better off in high school. The good thing is that you'll do more essay tests than multiple choice tests. At most the assigned essays might be 10pgs for your first year. On a social note, the LC campus is a horrible school for females who still have blood running through thier veins: maybe about four males per year aren't gay. But the staff/faculty/administration is generally very friendly - so long as you don't provoke them, they won't have reason to be rude in return. It's hard to tell whether they really care about you, or if that's just part of their job. The absolute best part of the university is that the student/campus activities will almost always be accompanied by free food! Screenings usually every wednesday bring in pizza, while a holiday festival will give you lots of pastries, candies, drinks. The food here is supposed to be pretty bad, and it often is, but as long as you choose wisely you'll only yearn for more variety - which they seek to improve. Fordham always seems to be trying to improve one thing or another; the problem is that the students most likely just want to get drunk in New York and forget about their work. Of course the hustle of NYC drags many unsuspecting victims to Fordham, but the real reason you come to the school should definitely be the school first and foremost because once you realize all these experiences and events are only the accumulation of many monotonous thrills, you will have to retreat a bit into the university. But I still wouldn't recommend coming if you're not irish-catholic, financially well-off, or from a private school because diversity is certainly lagging. I plan on transfering to a school where students are working class, therefore appreciate pennies and don't rely on rich fathers, and have more culture than these students who seem to value the commercial over the filial. If you want to get very far away from home, this isn't the place to use up $40,000 tuition to do it. Fordham is a pretty good east-coast school, but should be better with over 200 years under its belt. You'll probably have more pride for your college at a big, public university.

1st Year Female -- Class 2008

Perceived Campus Safety: A+, Education Quality: D