The State University of New York Purchase College

SOCIALLY - a heterosexual male PMS-fest

An anecdote: I met a fellow during my freshman year at Purchase in Fall 2003. He is SuperSuperSuper Senior, going on his SuperSuperSuperSuper Senior year next year. He told me that "oh back then it was awesome, man! people stumbled around on the mall drunk with bottles in their hands, smoking pot right out the windows in plain sight man! there used to be puke outside the dorm windows every night, man! but now it sucks dude! sucks!"

I don't know what Purchase all these pre-2000 kids write about, but the school sucks now. I had heard that the hippies lounge about all over campus. No hippies whatsoever. We do have fake punks that dress the role pretty well (and probably too expensively to be true 'punks'). Around the year 2000, a student died at Purchase…I don't know how. But since then, University Police has been on a "let's clean this campus up" trip. And that means no more tripping at all to you prospective hippies. In fact, if you thought you could spark that J in peace in your room, forget about it. The last of the smoking-approved rooms has been made smoke-free. When (not if) you set off that fire alarm, the cops are going to know exactly what you did to set it off now, whereas before you could say it was "an innocent cigarette" and spray a lot of Febreeze. If you try to drink underage, beware. The freshmen Resident Assistants are out to get you. They are not your friends, and they will call the police on you if they suspect you're drinking underage (and the reason for suspicion can get highly arbitrary).

If you are stupid enough to not transfer out, you'll be promoted from the dorms to the on campus apartments. There are no frats on campus, probably because they might representando too much fun. So the parties are all in the on campus apartments. And they are typically invite-list only. At any other school you could crash a big party and nobody cares. Here, expect all eyes on you, and not in a good way unless you're a hot chick. That's because there aren't any hot chicks on campus, and you'll be in…demand. This is, perhaps, the reason why about half of all the freshmen never leave their rooms…too busy playing CounterStrike on their computer.

There is not a lot of heterosexuality on campus. If you're a straight male willing to lower his standards because the school has ugly girls, you won't have too many lonely nights. If you're a straight female, you won't get laid much at all. If you're gay, however, you're in homo-heaven. Which brings me to my next point.

Because this school sucks so much, there is little to no preppyish racism, upperclassism, homophobia, anti-Semitism. There is more than a little funk of the anti-whitemale, but you won't get your ass kicked over it (probably cause muscles don't exist on this campus). In other words, everybody is either a freak or a pretend-freak or they are psychologically normal and wish to transfer out. Because of this, one of the good things about this campus is that you can be whoever you want/need to be, nobody gives a crap. I mean it. If you got your ass kicked for being gay since kindergarten and now you want to go to a place where not only you feel safe…but about 60% of the campus can relate to your story, come here. Although this year's freshmen have gotten a little preppy and a little homophobic, for the most part it's like an uglier version of Chelsea.

Ugly, yes. This school was built by a prison architect. I can't begin to describe how ugly it is. By the way, the food sucks.

Think I'm bitter. Fine. But the numbers don't lie. Why do only 25% of Purchaseites make it to graduation? Why is is that, on Friday night at Purchase College, the hottest spot on campus (the scene to be seen at) is the free shuttle bus to go home to New York City/Long Island? THIS CAMPUS IS DEAD ON THE WEEKENDS.

ACADEMICALLY

There are three schools here, for the most part. "Humanities" and its many offered majors. "Natural and Social Sciences"…they used to be separate, but Purchase got cheap and combined them under one dean. And lastly "The Conservatories plus the Art+Design school".

With the exception of "Art History" and "Creative Writing", do not come to Purchase unless you screwed high school up so bad that it's Purchase or nothing. The other programs are chronically underfunded and wack. The only good thing is that it's pretty much an easy-A deal, looking good for when, not if, you transfer.

Natural and Social sciences…WTF?! Also chronically underfunded and easy A. Get decent grades and transfer out ASAP, because the programs are terrible.

This is the sad part. The conservatories and the art school are awesome. Really. I was a music major myself, and it was nothing short of excellent. It's a tragedy that the school sucked so much that I had to transfer away from it. But there are kids who are "so into their art" that they can concentrate ONLY ON THEIR ART, therefore ignoring their social needs (if they even have social needs). If you have no social life and don't give a poo, then and only then would I actually recommend Purchase.

Yes, the arts here are really good. But be prepared for some elitism if you're not in the conservatories. "Dance majors only party", "actors bash, no non-actors allowed", and "liberal arts kids are retarded..", these are commonplace ways of life.

Purchase sucks. Unless you're gay.