Stony Brook University

Date: Aug 13 2006
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
Only go to Stony Brook if you are definitely interested in the health professions. If you are coming in as an undecided major or have even a slight doubt on what you want to do, you will end up deciding to be pre-med, or go for nursing or health science. This is because 75% of the student population is pre-med and your friends will indirectly influence you when you are uncertain about your future. I am speaking from personal experience. I have seen friends who never had an interest in science, decide to go for nursing, health science, or a bio minor. Stony Brook students are not risk takers. This might be because it is a SUNY and many students are there because they cannot afford a private school, thus they are only looking for jobs that have financial security.

Now for my personal experience, I came to Stony Brook as a premed and intending to pursue a double major in Health Science and Psychology. Naturally, I had doubts about being a doctor, and after one semester, I had to admit to myself that chemistry made me miserable. Chemistry makes a lot of students miserable at Stony Brook. It might be because of the teaching style (500 student lecture hall), the subject itself, or the lazy students themselves (typical college students who don't attend class because they are hungover from late night drinking). Health Science is the most popular major at Stony Brook, but it is also known as the bullsh** major. This is because the major is VERY open-ended. You can pretty much take whatever you want until senior year as long as you throw in 4 science classes (which can be any biology, chem, physics, GEOLOGY, ASTRONOMY, yes.. as long as they are natural sciences it is OK…)

I changed my major to Studio Art and lets just say, the art department gets VERY little funding. Not all the courses listed in the bulletin are offered and the major just can't compare to art departments of other universities. Most of the art majors are students like me, who changed their majors too late and are graduating Stony Brook only to go to other colleges to get another degree. Luckily, I realized this dead end in time and have transferred out after 2 years.

For the student clubs, I found that a majority was very ..racial. Everybody is in racial cliques. You have white, black, and asian sororities and fraternities. Clubs and organizations are segregrated by race. Diversity is a joke.

The reputation your college holds is very important when you go out in the working world. I never got as many callbacks for employers until I put my new college (FIT) on my resume. Stony Brook is good for the sciences. If you want business, you're better off at Baruch. If you want engineering, you're better off at Binghamton, RPI, RIT, or Polytech.