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New York University (College of Dentistry)
- Thread starter phungy
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Find me a big school where the students like the administration. Really, do it. They don't exist.
Also, didnt know they had one.
Because college admins all suck. They aren't held accountable for anything and don't care about students. When is the last time any college administrator actually helped a student? I can't remember one time from my college years.
In Scotland, it happens all the time. Our administrative staff were always helpful throughout my time at University.
UK vs. US seems to be a BIG difference from what I understand (colleagues from other countries, primarily Europe).
Some of the best professors I ever had where English, Russian, and German. On the administrative side, let me think... none come to mind.
College admins help all the time at my school as well. Hell, the President of the University will help you if you ask him when he is walking about campus. But the college I go to only has about 3000 students, is smaller than my high school, and costs 3 times as much as a UC and 4 times as much as a Cal State, so I'd expect them to be pretty damn helpful.
I think of the Stern business school -- and more generally, I think of it as being pretty competitive in a small number of areas but also being in a lot of areas in which it isn't particularly competitive... I wouldn't put it generally in the class with... the better Ivy's, MIT, Michigan and NWU here in the Midwest, or UCLA, Berkeley, or Stanford out West.... but then there aren't many schools in the country like that.
Much like your avatar and my graduate school (Florida) -- great example. Very competitive in key areas but not an amazing overall institution.
Do have some excellent dental surgeons (Florida, that is), though, come to think of it. You could rotate with one of the best Craniofacial teams, too, if you'd work with kids.
Likewise, I'm sure I knew vaguely that there was a dental program at NYU but it isn't a school I think of when I think of dentistry...
YEah things are a little different at a school with 10 times the number of students as yours...
I had one help me when I was in college. Of course, it took an angry call from my mother to one of the VPs of the university to do it, but he did help.
The financial aid dept. at my university was widely known to be the one of the worst depts on campus. One semester, they completely lost my file with all my paperwork. I was in danger of losing my work study job, not having money for books, and more. I had been in the financial aid office every day, but nothing was happening. One day, I came into work, and one of my co-workers said this guy from the financial aid office had called looking for me, and said I needed to get over there ASAP. When I showed up there, I found out it was the head of the entire financial aid department, and he was falling over himself trying to help me. All the paperwork was done, and waiting on signatures.
Later that day, I found out the power of an angry and persistent parent. My mother called and asked if everything had been settled. It seems she had literally started at the top by calling the president's office. She finally talked to the VP of student affairs directly. As the saying goes, "it" rolled downhill from there. It's said that it took that much effort to get things done, though.
They were the worst. Financial Aid should be renamed "Financial Hate", they were awful.
Pretty much, but that's the point. You shouldn't go to a school with 30,000 students expecting good administration treatment. That's like going to a breakfast buffet for 1,000 people and expecting the eggs to be cooked perfectly. Different size schools have their own good points, at schools like NYU, Berkeley, or even the huge Cal States I could have gone to (and have taken a few classes at), you shouldn't be looking for great administration or even for a professor to ever know your name. But the advantages can be lower cost of attendance, diversity in campus life, and professors at the top of their field doing the best research. I get good professors, who know the material and know how to teach it, but they are by no means doing the best research in their field and without scholarships I'd be paying a hell of a lot more. The advantages are that my professors all know my name, all read my papers, my classes have from 6-15 students in them, and the administration is great. The both have their good points; I enjoy the small school atmosphere for my undergrad degree, my program has less that 80 people in it in total and its really allowed me to have personal attention and to do excellent in my class, but for my graduate degree the name makes a little more difference, so I'll be going on to a larger, more recognized school. Hopefully it will be a good experience, in different ways, as well.
At the big universities, it's pretty unreasonable to expect every professor to know your name, but if none of them know who you are by the time you finish, that's you and not the school, I think!
In any event, I had rapport with a number of professors both inside my core area and outside at Michigan. I sat in lecture halls of hundreds of people a few times, too, but people knew who I was even there sometimes.
And, ahem, in Calculus III my freshman year, I was the kid who fell asleep in the middle of class, got woken up to get called on to do a problem on the board, then did it correctly and therefore didn't get any flack for having fallen asleep.
But that's a side story... that ended with an A+! Oh I totally agree with you. I enjoyed going to a big school for the variety of different options and people.
No kidding. They seemed to have a special kind of hate for me. The year after all that happened with my physical file, the switched to an online system. They promptly "lost" my file again. It seems mine and a few hundred others "disappeared" from the new system.
At the big universities, it's pretty unreasonable to expect every professor to know your name, but if none of them know who you are by the time you finish, that's you and not the school, I think!
In any event, I had rapport with a number of professors both inside my core area and outside at Michigan. I sat in lecture halls of hundreds of people a few times, too, but people knew who I was even there sometimes.
And, ahem, in Calculus III my freshman year, I was the kid who fell asleep in the middle of class, got woken up to get called on to do a problem on the board, then did it correctly and therefore didn't get any flack for having fallen asleep.
I agree, no matter how large your school is, if you haven't gotten to know at least one professor that's all on you. I hear stories from one of my friends at Berkeley, he's talked to one of his professor 6 or 7 times and every time he does its a new introduction, I'd start to get a little peeved. For me, wanting to go to graduate school, the small school thing has been helpful. My professors really know who I am and can convey it in my recommendations (not so much on some of the form ones some schools are using now), its a little harder to accomplish at a larger university (certainly not impossible, but definitely a little more difficult).
An A in Calc III, very good, I'm struggling with Trig right now, but I'll make it. I get the concepts and how they relate, I just have trouble on the tests. I'd definitely get called on if I feel asleep in my classes, its pretty easy for a professor to notice when there's only 6 of you in class, haha.
Like I said, both have pluses, and I've taken classes at huge schools, if you're looking for good administration a smaller private school is probably the way to go (though some of their admins still suck).
That is definitely another advantage. There are like 1000 majors at Berkeley, I get a choice of like 50. Granted, its a pretty diverse 50, that fulfills most of the major areas, but its still a slight disadvantage. However, since I'm an accounting major it doesn't matter much where I go for my bachelors, all schools have pretty much the same curriculum with the same course titles and content.
And campus diversity is an issue, while we have some diversity (lots of foreign students especially), its nothing compared to a much larger school.
Back to the original topic though. NYU is a good school. Not sure about their dentistry school, but I can't imagine that its bad. I'd probably go, it would be a fun place to spend a few years and I'm sure you'd do pretty well with a degree from there.
Are you ready for this? One semester I'd had all my aid approved and it all seemed to be set. The financial aid office screwed something up and hadn't received the money yet. So they told me I had to drop out and pay them X amount of dollars for the classes I'd attended so far that semester. I just looked at them and told them no. I said, "You have two options, I either drop out and you get nothing, or I stay in and you get all your money. You guys know this stuff is all approved! You told me it was approved yourselves! It's not my fault you don't have the money in your hands yet." They hounded me for two more weeks about it, until the money finally got to them. I couldn't believe it.
I'm at NYU now -- I love it. I'm going into tremendous debt for NYU, but I do love it and for me, I think I made the right decision.
I would say, though, you should go to NYU only if:
1. You love New York City. NYU is built on NYC -- people say it's like living in New York and you just go to school on the side. If you don't love city life and don't want to embrace NYC -- NYU probably isn't the place for you. That might seem sort of obvious, but a lot of what makes NYU great is its location and its NYC resources.
2. You love your field of study and know why NYU is the best choice for YOU. Maybe this is just me, but I love NYU so much because I came here knowing pretty much what I wanted to learn and go with my field of study -- it made learning at NYU that much better. It's a hard school to just "fall into" because of its name or reputation -- you have to want to love it because otherwise you're paying NYC prices for nothing.
3. From what I've heard, the school of dentistry here is one of the best.
Edit: One more thing, I have had a great experience with my program. I'm unfamiliar with dentistry, but my undergraduate experience has been very few TAs (except a few required liberal arts classes) and class sizes generally under 20 in all my major classes. Great teachers, great programs, and the resources of NYC are unparalleled.
I would say, though, you should go to NYU only if:
1. You love New York City. NYU is built on NYC -- people say it's like living in New York and you just go to school on the side. If you don't love city life and don't want to embrace NYC -- NYU probably isn't the place for you. That might seem sort of obvious, but a lot of what makes NYU great is its location and its NYC resources.
2. You love your field of study and know why NYU is the best choice for YOU. Maybe this is just me, but I love NYU so much because I came here knowing pretty much what I wanted to learn and go with my field of study -- it made learning at NYU that much better. It's a hard school to just "fall into" because of its name or reputation -- you have to want to love it because otherwise you're paying NYC prices for nothing.
3. From what I've heard, the school of dentistry here is one of the best.
Edit: One more thing, I have had a great experience with my program. I'm unfamiliar with dentistry, but my undergraduate experience has been very few TAs (except a few required liberal arts classes) and class sizes generally under 20 in all my major classes. Great teachers, great programs, and the resources of NYC are unparalleled.
No kidding. I go to Arizona State (one of the largest universities in the US) and I've had professors semesters ago who still remember my name. You just have to work harder at building and keeping a good rapport with your professors at a larger school. Of course, it probably helps that I have a rather unique and recognizable last name. I was lucky that I knew I wanted to go to grad. school early in my undergrad "career", so I was able to find and get to know some of my better professors.