Manhattan College

Date: Feb 09 2018
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
Academically it's a solid school. There is definitely a priority on the engineers, so the career fair is pretty stark if you're not in engineering, but you're not hung out to dry either. The only departments at this school that I'd say are poor are the foreign language department and the business department. The former is really disorganized, some of the teachers can't even speak English, and the priority on homework grades (50% of your final grade by a department wide syllabus) is ridiculous considering the homework is absolutely menial. The business department suffers the same problem, though homework is not that highly prioritized.

That is where my praise ends for Manhattan College, though that is the most important aspect of college. The facilities here suck. Save for Lee Hall and Overlook Manor, the latter of which you can only get into your junior year and beyond, none of the dorms are nice. Chrysostom is so unsanitary they had to shut an entire floor down once due to a syphilis outbreak, Horan Hall's elevators frequently break down and the building looks like it's crumbling apart on the inside. They also get mice regularly. Jasper Hall has communal bathrooms that become absolutely horrifying by semester's end, and the rooms look like jail cells with thick slabs of ugly concrete bricks lining the interior. The gym has about half of the workout equipment needed for the thousand or so kids that visit it weekly, yet it probably has double the treadmills necessary. Locke's Loft, the main dining area, is a complete trainwreck. The food is horrible, makes people sick regularly, and oftentimes you just end up going to a neighboring deli for food because it's just that inedible. They'll burn main entrees to a crisp, bugs will be in them from time to time, basically if the food requires any actual preparation or skill to make (read: if it's remotely healthy), they mess it up. The library is actually pretty nice, with a ton of diverse books inside. The wifi is the absolute low point of the school however, it is never consistent and is always crapping out on students. Ask anyone who goes here, whether they love this place or loathe it, they will all agree the wifi sucks.

Insofar as nightlife, if you have a lot of money and are willing to take a pretty long train ride downtown every weekend to spend it, you will never have a dull moment. It's New York City. But for most of us, we don't have the time or money to consistently do this, so we need something to do around campus. Unfortunately, there's simply nothing to do. I've been here for four years, I'm active around campus and know a lot of people. If there's a party, 90% of the time I know about it. They are terrible and get shut down almost immediately. If they don't, they're so disorganized that you can't fundamentally enjoy yourself. I went to a sport house party in the Fall of my senior year and there was no music playing and no outdoor lighting. The entire party was held outside. It was so awkward and boring that I left after 20 minutes. A complete waste of time. There's one local bar everyone goes to, you'll know it when you find it. It sucks, there's no seating, and when 300 people are in a 100 max capacity bar, you really can't stand it. Plus, the jukebox is how music is selected, so whoever gets in first to get over to the jukebox effectively calls the shots for the music all night long. If you're not a partying type, it's still pretty bad. Clubs meet like monthly (I've been a revolving member of nine clubs on campus so I'm speaking from experience) for the most part, and most of them revolve around engineering. The campus has few events where kids can socialize with others, especially between departments. The musical guests we get are very boring and outdated. Just this year, our spring concert performer will be Jesse McCartney. They're also downsizing the intramural sports here. I find that kids who don't like partying actually are less happy here than those who do because when you couple that most kids here are looking to party and the non-partying events around campus are weak, they usually just stay in their dorms.

Speaking of the kids, they are mostly pretty rude. At first, they're pretty easygoing and approachable. They're also not, for the most part, inherently unfriendly. However, this school is very cliquey, and goes along with a group-think mentality. You have to do as the group does, and if you don't, you're gradually phased out from the group. It's not necessarily done in a personal way, they may still like you, but you don't fit their image, so you can no longer be in their group. A lot of gossip and animosity exists between friend groups as well, very much like high school. It makes for socializing at this college a very tedious process. It's all about keeping up appearances and showing off rather than really getting comfortable with a good group of people. A lot of kids are seemingly always miserable about the social life here as a result, so much so that a record amount of kids went to counseling this year for that exact problem. The school didn't leak that information, one of the sports teams told us about it because a lot of athletes feel overworked, lonely, and bored here, and from my personal interactions, so do the other students.

On a more important note, employment. You came here to get money and an education. I told you about learning, and the learning here is pretty cool and all, but when you're learning for a quarter million dollars, you're gonna want to know what you're spending that money for. I have good and bad news: if you're in STEM or certain business fields, you'll find a job in no time. If you're anything else, it will be a struggle. The school will mostly hook you up with pretty low wage jobs when you get out that don't pay much better than full-time employment at a department store at the entry level. Sure, some kids find a way around the system, but a lot of them had connections from affluent family. And good for them! But for the rest of us, it's a real big challenge. It's not impossible to land a solid job (figure 50-60k out of school) a few months after college, but it's very hard if you're not from wealth or majoring in a highly demanded field here. Note however that part of this does fall on you, and you need to prepare yourself with internship experience and a solid GPA. The former can be tricky because it's as hard finding a good internship here as the average student as it is finding a good job, but the latter is up to you. It's cliche, but if you do go here, work hard. It's probably the best shot you have at getting something out of your degree here.

Finally, I guess if you're an incoming college kid like I was a few years ago, you're gonna probably want to know about dating life here. It's very hard. This school has a rap for immature students, so much so that they have this thing called the "Arches Program" which mostly serves as a way to get kids who weren't ready to go away to college to dorm here. A lot of them are really nice kids who just happen to be shy, I certainly wouldn't want to be bashful towards quieter kids. But a good lot of them are very mean-spirited and juvenile, and remain so until they graduate. This translates into the dating scene here seamlessly. A lot of cheating going on, weird in-between relationships that end up with someone usually being very confused and hurt, and so many people are so insecure here they can't really open up to each other enough to make a relationship work. Like it or not, when you're at a school for four years, you're gonna want to find a partner eventually, and this is not the place to do that. Most people are just looking to have fun or self-medicate, which really doesn't set a good foundation to build a relationship worth having from.

Overall, if you're going to commute here, this school is perfectly fine. The facilities aren't dilapidated or anything, they just need a good polish. The wifi is unforgivable, but nowhere is perfect, and you don't have to worry about the food because odds are you won't have a meal plan. If you're going to dorm here however, you pretty much have to not care about socializing at all and could care less about the food quality. Or have a lot of money so you can just run away to the city any time you're not in class. If these things don't apply to you, I really recommend you pick a different school. Academically speaking I wouldn't change where I went, but lifestyle wise, if it wasn't for the money, I would have left after my freshman year.