Fordham University

Date: May 12 2009
Major: PreDent and Dentistry (This Major's Salary over time)
At first, I was so excited for Fordham. I couldn't wait to get to Rose Hill and start taking classes and making friends. The Bronx was close enough to the city, and I would have a countless number of things to do on the weekends or at night. However, I wouldn't get this fairytale college experience.

Upon stepping on the campus on move-in day, I realized that the student body consisted of snooty rich girls who took daddy's credit card whenever they wanted and looked exactly like every other girl on campus or boys who believed that they could escape from their loser pasts in high school. I actually heard one guy express his excitement about the fact that the campus was 55% women or whatever which meant that he "had a better chance"…so not the case. No one wanted to talk to each other even during orientation. People kept to themselves unless they already had friends there. Luckily, I got an amazing roommate, and we hit it off incredibly. Also, many people who are residents end up leaving campus on the weekends to go home and have mommy do their laundry and cook for them. It becomes difficult to find people to hang out with who are still on campus during the weekends. It was astonishing to see how big of a suitcase school Fordham was.

The night life blows. It's as simple as that. Unless you have money to blow trying to get into Manhattan every night during the weekend, you're going to be stuck going to an area known as the "tri-bar", Tinkers(another bar), any of the athletic houses, or an off-campus apartment. It's a pain to get alcohol on campus so your best bet would be to leave campus. All of the bars get beyond crowded nightly where you'll have tons of people in your space, drunk girls puking and falling on you, or a countless number of guys scanning the crowd looking for an easy target. They reek of spilled beer, puke, sweat, and shame. When the athletic houses or any off-campus house have parties, they get insanely crowded because everyone gets bored of the bars. You have people bum-rushing you trying to get to the keg, and all the kegs are killed and the jungle juice is gone by about one. If you don't want to drink, your option is to stay around campus and be bored. Nothing happens at night besides the hordes of people making their pilgrimage to the shitty bars.

The area around Fordham could be a lot worse. You have the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Gardens directly off campus, but you can only frequent these so many times before you get really bored. Fordham Road is a big shopping area with many stores, pharmacies, and shops. There is always a lot of people around during the day; however, it is a scary place at night. I would advise anyone to never leave campus alone at night. Across from campus, there is the Little Italy area of the Bronx, Arthur Avenue. Tons of fabulous Italian restaurants, butcher shops, pastry shops, and markets flank the bustling street. This is a fantastic place to go, but once again, you can only go there so many times. The train station right next to the campus is very convenient, and the D and 4 trains are right up Fordham Road.

Security is pretty tight at Fordham. At every pedestrian entrance, there is a security checking for Fordham IDs of the people entering campus 24/7. Between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM, there is a security guard at the entrance to every residence hall. There was only one big security issue on campus during my year at Fordham, but the security system sent out alerts via text message, e-mail, and voicemail. Everyone knew where the event was occurring and to stay away from the area. The NYPD responded quickly to the situation. Many times, there are instances off-campus where a student is robbed or assaulted by someone armed or unarmed. Some occurred during broad daylight; however, many of them happened where one person was walking back to campus alone at four in the morning. This also means that the person was most likely intoxicated and made him or herself an easy target. The security cars are always driving around campus day and night. The emergency blue boxes are all around campus, and I have never felt totally unsafe or scared on campus. But that doesn't mean I would walk back from the library or something alone at two in the morning. The buddy system works wonders :)

There is no school spirit. You get the occasional drunk seniors at the football games, but besides that, there is a student section of about thirty to forty students at the basketball games. No one is excited, organized, or enthused about being alive. Only alumni frequent the sporting events.

The academics are satisfactory. The core is so big to the point where many people don't start any of their major courses until their junior year. As a pre-dental student, I need to load up on science classes and labs; however, with the giant core, I am now 3 semesters behind on my pre-dental courses that need to be completed by my junior year. Many students have no choice but to take summer courses, but these are very costly and take up time that one can use at a summer job or just relaxing. The language department is very strong, and the business school is top-notch. Although, students in the business school also experience difficulties fitting in all of their necessary courses. Moreover, the faculty is actually really talented. Most of my professors were very friendly and seemed to care about their students. Many of them have PhDs, are authors, or are high-ups in their fields. A few professors that I have had or have heard of are not very proficient in English, and this leads to many misunderstandings and annoyances. You may get an occasional TA teaching, but that is very rare.

In late February of my freshman year, I decided that I wanted to transfer out of Fordham. I had given it a semester and a half, and nothing improved. I was friendly, worked hard in class, tried to be involved, but could not find my niche. No one was very friendly or seemed to give a rats ass about anyone else than him or herself. If I stayed at Fordham, I would have no choice but to graduate in five years. On top of my pre-dental courses(as it is not an actual major at Fordham), I would need to complete both the core requirements and my major requirements. It would just be too much. Fordham was definitely not the school for me. Maybe the people or the environment at Lincoln Center are different, but I can't stay here.