University or College Review - New York

 The campus is very pleasant and the college town of Fredonia has a certain charm. The majority of professors are serious academicians who take time with the students. However, one problem is the high percentage of adjuncts that the university has been forced to hire because of the ever decreasing budget.  They are overworked and cannot be  committed to the students’ education because they know they will be gone soon.  There are large classes even in upper level divisions, so students don’t get the hands-on level of education they need to prepare them for the job market.  On the bright side, the School of Music is first class and puts on some excellent performances from full operas to musicals. The faculty is top quality but their knowledge is being lost on the vast number of students that perhaps should not be attending any institution of higher learning.  Universities are being driven by numbers and not quality.

Elmira College is a small private college in the city of Elmira, NY that started its history as an all-women's college, and gradually evolved into an accessible education institution granting Associate's, Bachelor's, and Master's Degrees, in a number of different disciplines. The college houses a number of dorms, has a beautiful campus, and heavily markets itself on the image of Mark Twain (who lived in Elmira). Purple and Gold are the school colors, and the octagon is apparently its shape; the school perhaps goes a bit overboard on its utilization of those colors and shape- you see them everywhere, down to the purple salt used to melt ice on sidewalks in the winter and purple handsoap in the restrooms. My exposure to Elmira College is purely from the continuing education and graduate studies side, and I feel there is certainly a whole other (and I believe good) story to tell about the undergraduate side of the house. Elmira offers a couple Masters Degrees, primarily in derivations of Education and Management. The graduate offerings are designed for the working individual, with classes offered on-line, evenings, and weekends. In-class meetings are typically only one day a week blocks of ~3 hours which meet weekly for the term (about 12 weeks). There exist other configurations, such as all day Saturday meetings, and two day a week 1.5 hour blocks. They've recruited some good people for their programs, many instructors appear to be part time, who also hold jobs related to their field in industry (IT Management courses are typically taught by people involved with IT/IT Management, Education by area teachers, etc.). Coursework is typically reasonable, and many learning opportunities exist to master one's chosen discipline. At times, some of the lower level graduate courses have the feel of unnecessarily busy undergraduate classes ("busywork"), but as you go up in the ranks of courses, this subsides and the work becomes somewhat more open ended and meaningful. If you are adept at writing, and can churn out pages of relevant prose in short order, the work component of the courses should pose no real challenge. This is good, as it leaves time to focus on the intellectual core of the knowledge to be learned, and there are often many opportunities to discuss concepts in class. If you're living in the area and are looking for a graduate degree, Elmira College offers a great value that is well worth investigating. As I said, their graduate studies are geared for the part-time working student, and the overall attention the college gives to their graduate program is perhaps second to their undergraduate offerings (to be fair, most graduate students do not actively participate in campus life activities), so it likely would not be a school one would relocate to enroll in (for an undergraduate degree, however, I think that would absolutely be the case).

If you love the idea of being in a big city with plenty of opportunities at hand, then you HAVE to go to the CUNY system. Although it's not part of SUNY, it gets so many resources and opportunities from the city; it's in that, it allows you to take classes in all five boroughs, gain access to countless internships, opportunities, resources, and such. Pretty much the entire NYC education system is throwing at you with various resources for your disposal. At Queens College, you are of course going to be in a bigger pool of students. However, that bigger pool is going to pay off, with more resources and more opportunities at your disposal - in the end of it all you're in NYC too, which just opens so many doors for you than any other school in the metro area.

New York University is a private research university in NYC in Manhattan. I currently attend NYU, and besides its hefty price tag, it’s pretty great. (Potential) Cons: NYU is notorious for being extremely expensive and having a poor financial aid, so you should make sure that the quality of education is worth it. Also, NYU lacks a campus and sports teams, which is different from most universities. I like that, though. It makes it less limiting, and there’s less school spirit. This is a good thing for those who aren't into communities much. Benefits: New York City is one of the biggest cities in the world. There are so many opportunities and places to visit. The location is great. NYU is world-renowned, and its philosophy, theatre, applied mathematics, and finance (what I’m doing) departments are consistently ranked among the top five in the U.S. Bobst Library is one of the biggest libraries in the country, and the facilities are great. Since NYU is so big, the students are very diverse. There are students from every state and many international students. There are very few liberal arts requirements, at least in my major, so there is more freedom in the electives you choose and it’s less like high school. Overall, NYU is a great school.

As someone who attended SUNY Geneseo (about 25 minutes south of Rochester off i390), I am both familiar with the school as well as its distinction from RIT. In fact, I have a few friends that went through the Brain & Cognitive Science program.

Regarding snow and tundras... yeah, if this is your first winter in upstate NY, barring any abnormalities, expect the season to start sometime in February or March, and run through early May.

I was always more of a small-town person, so Rochester to me is a big city. And it has its own unique little attributes (left-handed exits off i490 in the "inner loop" come to mind)... and a number of memorable attractions... Phillip's European being quite notable, and I always enjoy Highland Park.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or RPI, as is famously known here in the capital region is the oldest as well as a premier technological University. Located on a hillside overlooking the Hudson river and the city of Troy, the beautiful campus is a mix of old and modern buildings. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degrees through its five schools: Engineering, Science, Architecture, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Management & Technology. RPI also offers opportunities to do some of its graduate studies on the Hartford, Connecticut campus along with Troy main campus in New York. RPI is well-known for the transfer of technology from the laboratory to viable marketplace products keeping up with its founding philosophy “...the application of science to the common purposes of life.” So most of the funding and energy is devoted to technology related courses. I found that the Biology courses are not that much of interest to the management. Some of the undergraduate courses are taught by the graduate students of Albany Medical College. Since it is a private Institution, obviously the tuition fees are high. Although there are tuition aid available to the students, there has been recent dissatisfaction among the students that the management is not doing enough to help the students. Also, there is a widespread feeling among the students that the management is highly authoritative and does not facilitate open discussion with the student body and the faculty.

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM), Bronx NY is a beautiful campus at the Pelham area of the Bronx which has a high reputation for the research and science done there. I had the fortune to be associated with this Institution during my Post doc research fellowship. The campus is huge with the medical college and the cell and biology research campus in one part  and the neuroscience department on the other side next to the Jacobi Hospital. The college boasts few Nobel Laureates to its credit and they do very modern and cutting edge research. The student life (graduate) is very vibrant - they work and study hard and also play hard. The graduate students get not only exposed to leading edge research, latest techniques and equipments but also to the most famous names in the field as they visit the campus to give guest lectures. As for the private life, Manhatten is just an hour by train, so there is no limit to all the fun they have can in "The City" known as the Big Apple!