Seton Hall University

Date: Dec 21 2016
Major: Accounting (This Major's Salary over time)
Seton Hall wasn't my first choice, actually, it wasn't my second, third or fourth either. I came to SHU because I made the mistake of only applying to private universities and praying for a scholarship. Seton Hall was the only school on my list I could afford so I sucked it up and went here knowing I could transfer if it got bad. Lo and behold, I will be transferring to an NJ state university as of Fall 2017.—ACADEMICS: Besides the coursework being somewhat unchallenging, I can't complain about my department. I have heard horror stories from CompSci, IT Management, Math, and Engineering that a lot of the teachers do not speak English and use outdated methods. You have to take a lot of BS religion based credits but you should expect that coming into a Catholic school.

A word of advice: SHU is, for the most part, a hard sciences/pre-med school. The Stillman School of Business (my school) is up-and-coming but isn't rated highly by outside sources. The school DOES seem somewhat diploma mill-ish but a lot of well-known universities seem like that nowadays so take that as you may.—CAMPUS SERVICES: Professors are accessible but this varies from professor to professor. Freshmen advisers rock but upperclassmen advisers suck. Career services here are better compared to other universities. Always have Uber as a backup plan because the university shuttles have no problem leaving you stranded occasionally. The campus food services aren't bad and you can work with it.—STUDENT BODY: The student body is mostly from New Jersey but there are the occasional Californians that just came here to be close to New York City. Students are kind of approachable but there are several cliques among each class. The student body has a slightly liberal majority but the liberal students are quite militant about their beliefs and it is not uncommon for conservative students to form their own "cliques" of sorts due to social ostracization.—SOCIAL LIFE:

1. PARTY SCENE - Join Greek Life if you want to party. After the first 2 weeks of the semester, most frats close their doors to non-affiliated students (except for some girls) and you're left with three independent houses that do not throw parties often. There is a lot of coke, weed, and pills flowing through campus and a lot of kids start smoking cigarettes, weed, or doing drugs their freshman year. During your freshman year, expect a lot of weekends just drinking with friends in your rooms or smoking. Anywhere from 20-30% of the dorming students go home on the weekends so there is no campus sponsored events besides sports games on Saturday and Sunday.

2. CLUBS - As I said, because no one's here on the weekends there are no club activities on the weekends. The Student Government Assoc. often penalizes clubs by taking away their budget for not obeying their ridiculous rules and regulations.

3. SURROUNDING AREA - Besides the main strip of road known as the South Orange Village and the residential area across the street from the main gate, South Orange is a crime ridden dump. Kids get held up a lot, stabbings and shootings occur within blocks of campus often, but the South Orange PD are somewhat reasonable of your situation and won't bother you unless you bother them. The residents, on the other hand, are quite hostile to you and the food is decent but pricey so don't expect to go into South Orange a lot. New York City is accessible by train and the station is only ~10 blocks from campus in a safe area of South Orange but that is very expensive and I don't like NYC all that much.—CONCLUSION: Come to Seton Hall for what it is, a tiny but decent private school in a bad area of North Jersey with a good basketball team.

I am trying to transfer because I only applied to small private schools and Seton Hall was basically my only choice. I'm currently looking at large state schools that are within my range of affordability.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helped!