Did you go to NYU, or are you just out to insult those who did?

I went to NYU. I credit it with developing a lot of the skills that have gotten me to where I am today. This comes with a very clear understanding that my degree, while not directly related to what I do for a living, is still hugely useful in my day-to-day life.

I have a substantial amount of debt; most college kids do, anyhow. I credit NYU with giving me the opportunity to leave rural Pennsylvania and helping me into a salary bracket five times higher than my parents ever were in. For me, the cost of 3 years (after scholarships) bought this opportunity.

NYU isn't a "luxurious four year vacation." It's one of the higher ranked schools in America. It has professors who are leaders in their fields. It is rigorous and challenging.

> "If you're a liberal arts student you can probably take advantage of all the events, museums, intellectual stuff surrounding you, but there's no way I would want to study pre-med or engineering or the like there (even if disregarding the costs)."

As someone who went to college in a small college town (a 3-college town, even) with no semblance of events, museums, and non-academic "intellectual stuff" to be found anywhere... Wut.

I'd have killed, even as an engineering major, to have access to all of the above. I'd have killed to balance out 4 years of mindlessly pounding of head against books with some semblance of creativity and culture.

I left college culturally stunted and have spent a lot of time crawling out of that dark hole, I wish it upon no one else. It's an endemic problem in our field to belittle the arts, or to regard the total abandonment of the arts as some sort of ascetic virtue. To be clear, there should be no pride in spending 4 years of your life in an academic dungeon and eschewing museums, music, and "intellectual stuff".

Throwing would-be engineers into an arena where there are constantly exposed to non-engineering things and non-engineering people is probably the best thing you can do to engineering education.

You'd kill for one but would you go into $200,000+ more debt for it? That's kind of a ridiculous notion. Study in a cheap small town at an excellent public university for $35k vs NYU at $250k+? No thanks, I could just fly first-class up to New York once a month and stay at the Waldorf Astoria and still come out ahead.

You don't need to live in a city to have access to a city. Got a CS degree from a liberal arts collage in a nice small town near DC. So while it was easy enough to go to DC my rent was 1/4 of what it cost to live there.

Mary Washington? That's about an hour outside DC, but the only place I can think of in VA that fits. I don't know the MD side very well, though.

I went to NYU, and I disagree.

I am not from a rich family. No one in my family earned a college degree before me and they immigrated to the States with little to nothing. They were smart enough to start saving early for my education so I wouldn't have to pay a dime, but despite that, I still have loans. Thankfully I'm well on my way to paying them off, and early, because of the skills and the network I think I could have only built at NYU and NYC at large. I have the job I have because I went to NYU.

It's true that this is not the ideal place to become a hermit and focus on maximizing your GPA. I argue that higher education is far more involved than your studies - it's about exposing yourself to new experiences, honing your social senses and building a strong network, among other soft skills that are not summarized by your transcript. There are few better places in the world to do so than in NYC and specifically within NYU as a college student.

Lastly, going through NYU was not a vacation. I was very aware - as well as everyone else I knew was as well - that NYU was a ridiculously expensive place to be going to: nearly a quarter of a million dollars for an education with everything accounted for. If I screwed this up, all that money would be wasted, so study up. Not only that, study up, but resist the weakness to indulge in the "distractions" of the city and let your grades suffer.

In short, to say that NYU students are all rich kids is overgeneralizing, to think that studying in college is your one priority is myopic, and to call an NYU experience a "vacation" is just insulting. Have a little faith.

I never said NYU is all rich kids. That's obviously not the case given so many are going into debt to attend. What I'm trying to say is it's "intended for rich kids." People who have to borrow $200k just for tuition and books to attend should NOT GO. Period! Go to the best public school in your state. NYU is not superior to UCLA, UT, Berkeley, etc for undergrad.

You are still overgeneralizing. I went to NYU over UC Berkeley and don't regret it one bit. Sure, if you are premed or prelaw and have the intention of going straight to grad school after finishing undergrad, your argument holds great weight. But that's not everyone; people have different goals. Some people want to go into finance and work on Wall Street, others want to act on broadway, etc. And for people with these types of ambitions, NYU is hands down the better option. Nowhere else can you have the opportunity to intern at pretty much any type of company imaginable, network, and have such rich cultural experiences all while being a college student (well, other than Columbia). Sure, NYU is more expensive, but it's an investment that can yield higher dividends. Case in point, NYU was substantially more expensive for me to attend than UC Berkeley; however, I will be starting work at a major Wall Street investment bank in the fall. Berkeley's placement onto Wall Street is nowhere near comparable, so the likelihood of me landing such a job had I went to Berkeley would have been pretty much nonexistent. So, while the cost of attending NYU was higher, the future cash flows I am generating as a result of attending NYU are much higher than what Berkeley would have generated, justifying the cost. And that doesn't even take into account intangible assets, like my overall happiness and how much I've grown from living in NYC. At the end of the day, you can't generalize; it comes down to the individual, his/her goals, and whether he/she takes full advantage of the opportunities presented to them.

This comment is terrible. For one, it's purely anecdotal with no evidence to support the statement "NYU is a school for rich kids". Have you really seen the wealth distribution of these individuals? Second, that very same statement is an attacking one, attempting to paint all "rich kids" with one brush as people who like "luxurious four year vacations." Do all "rich kids" not like to work hard? And finally, is there any proof that NYU is really anything like a "luxurious four year vacation?" - at least as it compares to any other university?

You are speaking out of your ass, and it's really damn irritating to see the rest of you upvote this trash given people who've actually studied there responding in disagreement.

My younger brother just graduated from NYU Stern undergraduate and he says the experiences he's had were invaluable. School was not easy by any means, he was encouraged to travel and experience business in other parts of the world, was heavily involved in student government and the community, and is going to start a job here in NYC. He might not have been able to have such a rewarding 4 years had he gone elsewhere.

He pulled loans and will be paying them back, too. And he thinks it's still worth it. And I agree.

>NYU is a school for rich kids

Eh... Maybe at the undergraduate level. NYU has some extremely strong graduate programs and surely most grad students there are not rich vacationers.

I'm clearly referring to undergraduate education. People with solid state school options shouldn't choose NYU unless they are rich. You'd be a fool to give up in-state @ Univ of Texas undergrad for NYU, for example.

Only the rich can afford solid state school options. The rest of us have to make do with traditional spinning-magnetized-rust schools.

> there's no way I would want to study pre-med or engineering or the like there (even if disregarding the costs).

NYU's Courant Institute is the top ranked applied math program in the States...

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

You are correct about people that don't correctly judge what the tuition and loans will cost them at the end of their four years, but saying it is a school "for rich kids" is very far off.

I happened to receive a very generous grant to attend to offset my tuition. So do many others.

I hear you on distractions... Who would want to study accounting or read long books when you live in the Village? But NYU is one of the best schools in the US for getting to Wall Street, so it's not a complete vacation for everyone. For some the student loans are a reasonable and sane investment.