SUNY Stony Brook (Oneonta: house, live in, fences)

[dman72]

Originally Posted by seren77

I was a Grad Student during 00-06 period. And I visited the campus often until 08 for research. Granted my experience is very different from an undergrad, but here are my two cents:

Campus has been beautified and deforested in the last decade. You have more buildings, a lot of renovations already mentioned. Campus looks much better than six years ago. Wang center is nice but it is almost always empty.

From what I saw among undergrad students, you don't really get that "I belong" feeling. I guess it is because of being a commuter school. Once in a class I was teaching, a student asked a pen from me during an exam. I didn't have any on me, so I told him to ask from his friends. He said he doesn't have any friends. It was in a class of 70. I felt bad for him. Later on, I recognized that few knew each other. So it is really easy to get lost. Both academically and socially.

Also most of the classes are taught by grad students. You may stay four years and not even once take a class from a professor. Not that it is always a bad thing, but you are really on your own. Especially if you are planning to continue your education after college, it is really a big disadvantage. It is very difficult to get recommendation or find necessary contacts with minimal interaction with professors.

Also the food is really overpriced.

There really is a lack of camaraderie amongst commuters, which is probably why the kid didn't have friends. I was lucky that I seemed to know one person in almost every class I took, but there were a few occasions where I knew virtually no one, and the people who were there buddy up with people from their dorms or own ethnic group..so you seek out some person who looks like a commuter (someone who also appears to be alone, hopefully female ) and hope to strike up a conversation.

That's how I met my wife.

The Stony Brook experience is not like many other schools.

[amoret68]

Originally Posted by seren77

Also the food is really overpriced.

Just an FYI, the food prices have actually come down with the new food service provider. I hear the food is somewhat fresher, too. I cannot vouch for it myself because the Student Activities Center is too insanely crowded for me ever to venture over during the course of my workday.

[Coney]

SUNY Albany=Ugly

I thought that the food selection at SB wasn't bad. It has certainly improved over the past 30 years at least.

Someone here mentioned about the TAs. That is a good point and something a prospective student should check out. Who is actually teachng the class and who is grading the tests?

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by dman72

Ah, Albany, another brilliant design. Let's see, let's make the center of the campus a water fountain....in a climate where it's under 40 degrees for 6 months out of the year and hence the students see a dismal empty fountain for most of the academic year.

We have a ton of land, but hey, let's build 4 11 story towers as dorms!!! Seriously, what drugs were the people who designed Albany on? Another concrete nightmare.

The towers were 22 stories of living space, and another 2 of 'open' space.
Fire drills were a nightmare. I lived on the 10th floor of Mohawk, my friends were up in the 20's.

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

Duly noted and respected OBH .

Really, you heard nothing about rapes in the 80s and 90s?
Im surprised.

Heres one that made it past the department of equity protection.
Rape Charge Splits Stony Brook Campus - The New York Times
Most of the stuff was kept out of the papers back then but there was plenty of buzz in the neighborhoods nearby.

Im glad theyve got it under wraps.

Peace

Crooks

PS
FWIW I tend to wax nostalgic for my school too.
Sounds like I was crashing dorm parties at G fest while you were there.

I miss Fall Fest, Station Pizza and the bridge to nowhere.

I was living elsewhere on LI (Rocky Point), getting on with the post collegiate part of my life, married, working....I didn't arrive back in Stony Brook until '96 and returned as an adult student in '97.

No where have I suggested rapes don't happen on campus, I feel that you're overexagerating the occurences, and that we don't know how many of these rapes were date rapes.

A case like the one you've posted I certainly would have remembered had I been there at the time.

Reading the article, it would appear the reason it made the news was the racial aspect of it. Tawana Brawley's name was raised, C. Vernon Mason was hired, black students blamed the victim, and the article cites a racial divide on campus. No matter what the circumstances, it was a very sad state of affairs.

As fate would have it, the charges against Troupe were dismissed.
Jet - Google Books

If this had been a white on white or black on black rape it would have flown under the radar -- which isn't right, but it is what would have happened.

Going back to my other post, all universities are required to file a Clery Report (links provided in other post) in order to make students aware of crimes on campus.

A little background on Jeanne Clery, for whom the act was named: The Jeanne Clery Act Story

And once again, a link for figures from the Clery report. Page 35 has SUSB figures for 2008.
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/Admin/HR...E/UPDD0008.pdf

IMHO the Clery reports are an excellent tool for a parent and their child to get a better idea as to what is happening on campus crime-wise.

FWIW:
Three Dead Trees, Primal Scream...a few things I miss from my Kelly days.
A few of us head over to the Roth Regatta every year, my oldest has been going to I-Con every year (except last when it was on campus) and if I catch him pulling a Crooks and crashing G-fest.....he's in trouble!

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by seren77

I was a Grad Student during 00-06 period. And I visited the campus often until 08 for research. Granted my experience is very different from an undergrad, but here are my two cents:

Campus has been beautified and deforested in the last decade. You have more buildings, a lot of renovations already mentioned. Campus looks much better than six years ago. Wang center is nice but it is almost always empty.

From what I saw among undergrad students, you don't really get that "I belong" feeling. I guess it is because of being a commuter school. Once in a class I was teaching, a student asked a pen from me during an exam. I didn't have any on me, so I told him to ask from his friends. He said he doesn't have any friends. It was in a class of 70. I felt bad for him. Later on, I recognized that few knew each other. So it is really easy to get lost. Both academically and socially.

Also most of the classes are taught by grad students. You may stay four years and not even once take a class from a professor. Not that it is always a bad thing, but you are really on your own. Especially if you are planning to continue your education after college, it is really a big disadvantage. It is very difficult to get recommendation or find necessary contacts with minimal interaction with professors.

Also the food is really overpriced.

With regard to classes and who is teaching them:
As a returning adult student I had to take the mandatory writing class. That was taught by a young Korean student who had majored in English lit. This teaching gig was his first time ever teaching in the US!
Biology and Chemistry classes were taught by professors (many of whom I know outside of school) and a number of my friends (PhDs) who are busy in the research labs are also expected to teach. TAs oversaw the labs.

With regard to disconnect:
When you have an LC with 200 students, you aren't going to have friends in class. In the labs we befriended one another, and tended to sit with near one another during lectures and exams. I will admit that as an adult student, I had more younger students come to me. Perhaps they saw an older sibling-substitute, a maternal substitute, a more responsible person. It wasn't as chummy when I was a 19, 20 year old student there.

[lifetimeliguy]

Originally Posted by dman72

Ah, Albany, another brilliant design. Let's see, let's make the center of the campus a water fountain....in a climate where it's under 40 degrees for 6 months out of the year and hence the students see a dismal empty fountain for most of the academic year.

We have a ton of land, but hey, let's build 4 11 story towers as dorms!!! Seriously, what drugs were the people who designed Albany on? Another concrete nightmare.

Yeah, we took our daughter (now a hs senior) there last summer while driving back from the adirondacks to see the campus . She wouldn't even get out of the car .. it was "too ugly" .. and the fountain was on !

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by OhBeeHave

I was living elsewhere on LI (Rocky Point), getting on with the post collegiate part of my life, married, working....I didn't arrive back in Stony Brook until '96 and returned as an adult student in '97.

No where have I suggested rapes don't happen on campus, I feel that you're overexagerating the occurences, and that we don't know how many of these rapes were date rapes.

A case like the one you've posted I certainly would have remembered had I been there at the time.

Reading the article, it would appear the reason it made the news was the racial aspect of it. Tawana Brawley's name was raised, C. Vernon Mason was hired, black students blamed the victim, and the article cites a racial divide on campus. No matter what the circumstances, it was a very sad state of affairs.

As fate would have it, the charges against Troupe were dismissed.
Jet - Google Books

If this had been a white on white or black on black rape it would have flown under the radar -- which isn't right, but it is what would have happened.

Going back to my other post, all universities are required to file a Clery Report (links provided in other post) in order to make students aware of crimes on campus.

A little background on Jeanne Clery, for whom the act was named: The Jeanne Clery Act Story

And once again, a link for figures from the Clery report. Page 35 has SUSB figures for 2008.
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/Admin/HR...E/UPDD0008.pdf

IMHO the Clery reports are an excellent tool for a parent and their child to get a better idea as to what is happening on campus crime-wise.

FWIW:
Three Dead Trees, Primal Scream...a few things I miss from my Kelly days.
A few of us head over to the Roth Regatta every year, my oldest has been going to I-Con every year (except last when it was on campus) and if I catch him pulling a Crooks and crashing G-fest.....he's in trouble!

Wait OBH

Youre a townie now .

You can crash G-Fest too, I wont tell.

Crooks

[rubygreta]

Originally Posted by seren77

From what I saw among undergrad students, you don't really get that "I belong" feeling. I guess it is because of being a commuter school. Once in a class I was teaching, a student asked a pen from me during an exam. I didn't have any on me, so I told him to ask from his friends. He said he doesn't have any friends. It was in a class of 70. I felt bad for him. Later on, I recognized that few knew each other. So it is really easy to get lost. Both academically and socially.

I think this is just the law of averages. At any large university, there is a very good chance that if you are in a class of 70, you won't have any friends. Nothing unusual here.

[dman72]

I didn't experience being taught by as many non-professors as others talk about here. Maybe it was my area of study (not science or engineering), but even in my 100 level classes, all lectures were professors. Only in Math recitations do I remember preponderance of TA's. That's where it got hairy...some of them really struggled with English. Thank goodness I was done with that after the first year.

I'd say about 80% of my classes were taught by professors, and honestly, some of the better class experiences were taught by grad students. My 100 level into to lit class, for example, that I too just to fill up credits.