The City University of New York Brooklyn College

Date: Jan 30 2010
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
This is the most miserable college I've ever been to. This is my first semester here and it will be my last. I am a transfer student (yes, because this place is so terrible, I have to transfer again!) and the school has done everything possible to make my life miserable. My experience is not unique - I have had several conversations with other transfer students who have ALL had equally nightmarish experiences. This is a warning to you. Do not even dare think

oh, well that won't happen to me

because it will. Not a single person I've spoken with has had things go better.

The administration is ridiculous. I had to send multiple copies of my transcripts because they kept losing them. When they finally acknowledged having my transcripts, they would NOT acknowledge that the transcripts said I have an associates degree when I knew for a fact that it said precisely that. The associates degree is important because it exempts a person from having to take lower tier courses. After sending 3 more copies of my transcripts, it still was not in the system that I have an associates. Being an out of state student, I could not simply visit the office to take care of the issue. When I finally moved (after weeks of attempting to take care of the issue from afar), they STILL didn't have it in the system, so I handed them a copy in person and finally got it taken care of.

The registration process is also a gigantic pain in the ass. Instead of allowing you to simply go register online, they require you to meet with an adviser in person. Sure, it doesn't sound so bad at first. But as an out of state student they would not accommodate me so I had to fly 1000 miles to have this meeting. And the meeting was absolute hell. How long would you guess it takes for a person to meet with an adviser to figure out what classes to take and register for them? 30 minutes? An hour? How about 6 hours. Yes! I was there for 6 hours! Other people I spoke with after the fact were really lucky—they were only there for 3 hours. The reason this 'meeting" took so long is because the so-called advisers have no idea what they're doing. The adviser I met with told me I needed to go around to all these different department heads and get permission to take classes, so I did just that. And as it turned out, I didn't have to do that! Then once you have a course form filled out with the classes you intend to take and have that signed by the adviser, you have to wait in line to meet with someone who will enter those classes into the computer. When I got to the computer person, I mentioned I wanted to add another class, but they told me I could not do that unless I got out of line, had the adviser write it in himself on the form, and get back in line again. When I said that I wasn't going to wait another thirty minutes to do that (yes, he told me that would take 30 extra minutes. And this was after already having to get out of line and back in again), I was told I could just register online. When I got home I wasn't able to register for anything online and I still am unable to.

This school will also do everything in its power to screw up your financial aid. They have students working the financial aid desk who are really poorly trained and have no idea what they're talking about. The information they tell you is almost always wrong (they told me I wouldn't be able to get enough money to go to school) and you have to end up calling someone else to get the correct information.

Once you have finished taking care of every possible problem they could possibly throw your way, you are now ready to go to attend classes. The school is located in a really terrible neighborhood. If you are female, prepare to hear every disgusting pick-up line from really gross creepy men on your walk from the train station to the school. Every entrance to the school also has a security guard sitting in a booth for added annoyance. They are very random about when they ask to see your ID, but then they act very moody when you just walk on without presenting the ID. Most of the guards are also really belligerent. One attempted to get into a screaming match over something incredibly stupid with me and I had to file a complaint about him.

Once you've managed to get past the guards (who also lurk in every single campus building. How dangerous is this school? Why is there an anti-rape essay in the back of the course catalog?) you can enter one of the cold looking buildings which are very depressing on the inside. The artwork hanging on the walls of the art department's floor is really bad, and the students are mediocre at best.

You will be lucky to find a teacher who hasn't just graduated from college or doesn't have a thick foreign accent. You also can't look up a lot of the teachers to see how they rate among students, because apparently no one reviews their professors. The classes I would rate as mediocre. I'm sure there are some gems out there, but I haven't found them.