The City University of New York Brooklyn College

Date: Mar 03 2005
Major: Journalism (This Major's Salary over time)
I'd hate to give this college a negative review, because academically it's superb, but there are too many other factors that bog it down and make going here rather unpleasant.

For one, the campus is in the middle of nowhere. Flatbush is not a cultural hot spot by any means, and the long commute it takes to get here from Manhattan or any other borough is mindnumbing and seems unjustifiable.

You won't make friends at this school if you're from out of state. Most of the students are from New York - I would say 70% of kids are from NYC, with another 15% to 20% made up of international students. It really feels like going to a community college. That's fine if you're going with kids you know from high school. If you're a fish out of water, you'll remain one.

It's not that the kids are mean, because they're not. In fact, they're really nice, and you'll meet a wide spectrum of personalities at BC. But it's almost impossible to hang out with people outside of class, and that's discouraging. There are no dorms, except for expensive third party student housing (it costs more a semester to live there than it does to go to the school), and this school has absolutely no social life. The student center is dead; hardly anyone even knows it exists.

I'm focusing on this because, for the out of state student, it's important to have an enjoyable college experience, and BC does not offer that. If you're from New York, or were at one time, and have friends out here, by all means. Other than that, you're going to find yourself wandering the campus aimless and bitter.