#nyush

okay, so here are some facts about the school that are important to consider:

1. it’s a small, developing school with NYU tuition 

2. it’s in china 

3. it’s a small school

and here’s why they’re important.

1. a lot of things like majors and requirements keep shifting around. some of the more popular ones, like ima (what i’m taking) and business are more stable, but something like the science majors are rougher. on the plus side, if enough people want majors, people can make it happen! that’s what happened with social science 

but also, you’ll be paying nyu’s first-world level tuition for something that isn’t stable yet, in china. a lot of americans come over complaining about how low our pay for student jobs are when it has to comply with chinese laws. and another example, the most recent thing that upset people was how the administration suddenly decided to cut the study away semesters to two, which impacted a lot of people who had already planned out those things. if you can’t get a good financial aid package, it’s not worth the financial stress (aka you’ll be where i am now)

2. so it’s good that you’ve been to shanghai and loved it! the first year being away from home can be really rough, and shanghai is also such a crazy city, so if you liked shanghai, that’s even better.

that said, the fact that we’re in china affects a lot of things. for example, our dorms are a 15-minute shuttle ride (provided by the school) because there was no way to get a closer building. even more annoyingly, we’re required to buy every single textbook because of copyright respect and how hard it is to get books into china. most of the time, we get ebooks, which are hard to study with, and if i do get a print book, it’s expensive and i would have been fine just borrowing a copy from the library from three hours 

3. it’s a small school, and you’re going to know everything about people and be invested in what’s happening in the school. it can get really stressful knowing who’s gotten some amazing internship or high-paying job, or knowing who’s rich. my mental health is constantly going up and down here, and i wish i can say that being surrounded by people all over the world makes up for it, but then i remember how much less financial aid each new batch is getting, and that has definitely made every incoming student population whiter/upper-class, and the diversity and the tone of the school isn’t what it used to be. it’s still, but it’s not as dominant anymore. 

another good thing about being in a small school: you get to interact with a lot of people. i’m horrible at making friends, and seeing the same people over and over again definitely helped. you get closer access to faculty. you also know what’s happening around the school, and since it’s small, the student body can actually affect how things happen, so that’s why this whole answer is long as it is. i know all of our shortcomings because i know that they can possibly be changed, versus knowing that no matter how much i care about an issue, nothing will change   

hmmm idk why this is not showing up in my inbox :/