Seton Hall University

Date: Jan 22 2013
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
I don't think Seton Hall is a bad school, it's just not the school for me. I will try to be as un-bias as possible when explaining the pros and cons to the school.

Pros:

It costs a mere $13.50 for a round-trip train ticket to NYC and only takes 30 minutes to get there.

If you did well in high school Seton Hall will give you a good amount of scholarship money (I pay as much to attend SHU as I would to attend my in-state university).

Seton Hall's campus is fairly small so it takes, at most, 10 minutes to walk to classes.

The campus is also gated which allows students to safely move throughout campus at any time during the day or night.

Seton Hall is one of safest schools in the country in terms of fire safety.

Seton Hall's school of Business and Diplomacy are some of the best in the country.

Very few of my classes have been based solely on exams; therefore, if you're not good at testing you should still be able to get by.

I've had some really wonderful professors who I loved and who I would feel comfortable speaking with outside of class (I've also had some not so great professors, but no one AWFUL)

Cons:

South Orange is not a college town and is close to East Orange and Newark which are very unsafe areas. As incoming freshmen, you are essentially told to not step foot off campus.

The freshmen dorms kind of blow. They're not only ugly but many of the room set ups are awkward and the walls are paper thin. The heating/air conditioning systems suck too. You can only use the AC during the first/last few months and it only comes out as ice cold. You can only use the heat during the winter and it turns your room into a sauna.

Seton Hall takes fire safety very seriously (which is a good thing), but at the same time it is very frustrating. There are so many rules about things you can/can't have in your dorm rooms. Also, doors can't be left open or bolted which makes it hard to meet people. The biggest thing I dislike about fire safety is that there are no ovens/stoves on campus that students can use; therefore, if you want to eat anything other than take-out or cafe food, you have to microwave it which is gross.

The food is nice at first, but after the first two months it gets sickening. There aren't many places to eat on campus (there's the cafe, the cove, and Dunkin Donuts) and the food is pretty bland and unappealing. Everything is generic.

Almost everyone is from New Jersey. You will meet some people from other places in the USA, but for the most part, everyone seems the same. Plus, a lot of students go home on the weekends. The campus is literally a ghost town on the weekends.

There are A LOT of commuters which also makes it hard to meet people.

There is nothing to do on the weekends. Seton Hall will lure you in talking about our D1 athletic teams, but no one really goes to the games. The only parties are off campus in sketchy, unsafe areas.

Seton Hall is most people's fall back school. It really isn't very prestigious to go here. If you're from NJ, you're better off going to Rutgers in terms of prestige.

No classes, no passes. You will hear this A LOT. If you are planning on staying on campus during a vacation/break, you can NOT have guests which is ridiculous. Although you can get around some of the rules, you will most likely come to hate the guest policy here.

Barely anyone does the intramurals and there aren't many clubs that are popular.

Seton Hall gives you laptops and make it appear that they're free, but THEY'RE NOT. You pay way too much for them in your tuition. Also, the laptops are just downright awful.

I plan to transfer for the Fall of 2013 back to my state university. Although I wanted a smaller school I've come to realize that the opportunities at a larger, state school outweigh those here at Seton Hall. Some people absolutely love Seton Hall (it's usually the students that are huge partiers though), but most of the students I've met don't.