Binghamton University--SUNY | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Richie

Class: Junior
Major: English
Gender: M

High School: Suffern High School
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

The best thing about Binghamton is the way the residence halls are all tightly knit. The closest community is a 2 minute walk at most which creates a very social atmosphere with the students. Student activity is really high and everyone interacts with eachother. One thing I'd change is adding a football team and stadium to our school. We need to expand not only our faculty, but our on-campus residence halls. Right now many students enjoy the tight knit set of communities, so adding more would be creating more of a social and enjoyable atmosphere. People are excited to come to Binghamton because they know the students are social and fun. I spend most of my time on campus. The town of Binghamton is sketchy because of the townies. The administration seems to be great for the most part, except sometimes they like to change things without discussing it with the Student Association. The biggest controvesy right now on campus is students being against cops equipped with tasers on campus. There is a lot of school pride, mostly with our basketball team, but would be a lot better with a football team. Nothing really unusual about Binghamton...We have a lot of deer. An experience I'll always remember is having my building win Dorm Wars & Hysteria, which are a week or weekend of games and competition between the buildings in the Hinman community. Everyone always has a lot of fun and it helps get people together at one time and participating in games with one another. Student complaints are the weather and the football team we don't have.

Academic Life

Only a few professors know my name. My favorite class is a humor studies class, where we present our opinions after viewing a media of humor. The teacher is great and hilarious. He memorized over 200 students names after just 1 weekend, so everyone feels close to him. My least favorite class was a geology class I had to take to fufill one of my general requirements. I don't enjoy science much. Students study often. Everyone knows that to pass any class, you'll need to read over the material for exams and papers. So students are putting in at the very least 5 hours a week in studying. Class participation is common and it sparks other people to raise points and add to discussions. Students do have intellecutal conversations outside of class, whether it be about class material, or politics, or student groups and their goals. It's normal to see everyday in conversation. There are competitive students who can make the class a bit more challenging, but it helps push the other students to do well, which is never a bad thing. Not all students are competitive though. Most unique class I've taken was creative writing. It had me explore different emotions and thoughts in my mind and helped put it into writing. The teacher was a little wacky, but all the more fun because of it. We shared and read our writing aloud and a lot of students had some interesting topics and styles. I'm an English major and it's mostly reading and writing. It can get a little overwhelming at times, but you get used to it. It's a great major, because you can explore all these different and interesting classes that help you fufill the major. I spend little time with professors outside of class, it's something I need to work on, but a lot of other people do it. The academic requirements are standard. Not too much to complain about. I think it's about the same for every SUNY school. Education here is geared toward learning for it's own sake. Some majors are more geared toward the job, but for the most part is all just learning.

Student Body

No racial experiences here on campus. Somtimes different groups go out and protest certain things in front of the water fountain, but I don't really think much of it. It's never really a big thing for anyone. The group does their thing, hopefully get some kind of response from someone, and the day carries on. The campus is pretty diverse so I don't think anyone would have a problem feeling out of place here. It's all just a matter of finding someone to connect with, which really isn't hard if you're looking in the first place. Most students wear jeans or sweats with a t-shirt or sweatshirt, depending on the weather. No article of clothing really stands out as being worn the most. All different kind of students interact with eachother. It's brought up upon by groups, dorms, classes, etc. The dining hall tables are usually filled with friends from the buildings. Usually it will be people who are friends on their floor or friends from another floor. Most students are from either the city or Long Island. Most prevelant financial backgrounds are parents with the money to pay for their students to goto school here. Most can afford it, so middle class to upper middle class. Most students are not politically aware or active. No one talks about how much they'll earn in a day.