Student Profile
irina
- Class: Junior
- Major: Psychology
- Gender: F
- High School: midwood highschool
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
The best and worst thing about it is the size, its huge and overwhelming but at the same time provides a huge amount of resources and room to explore because of that. Reactions to "hunter" differ. Some people consider it a dumb school, some are impressed, most people outside of NYC have no idea what you're talking about. "Hunter Honors" usually brings about a positive reaction when people have heard about the program. If they haven't, you have to start explaining how super-special you are, which gets reaaallly awkward. Most honors students will just say they're from hunter and leave it at that. Hunter is not really a campus school, which is one of it's biggest issue (hence, very little extracirricular involvement and no school pride or support). administration, controversy and student complaints can all be addressed with one word- beauracracy. Lots of admin layers, red tape to cut through and people behind large desks who have no idea what's going on. Hunter's location and super-diverse population make it unusual. There was an old couple in my freshman human sexuality class and my night classes are full of really inspirational people who hold down jobs and take on my courseload.
Academic Life
Professors will know your name in smaller, upper-level classes. In intros and lectures you're just another face. Most favorite classes are usually upper level challenging psych classes taught by adjuncts from all over (columbia, weill-cornell, the proffesional sector). I had a media class taught by an NY Times editor who had different NYT writers come in to speak with us every week, amazing experience. Studiousness depends on your major and level of your classes. competition is the same way, it's chill in my department, but i hear the sciences have some issues. Intellectual conversation can be found if you want it. Department is huge but no complaints. It's up to students to find mentors, get involved in research projects, keep themselves updated etc etc. Core requirements are huge and super-complicated. They're trying to change that now, but a lot of students get messed up by the GERs (general edu requirements) and you hear about people who stay an extra semester or scramble to take credits the summer after their grad date. Edu seems geared toward learning for its own sake, or prep for post-college education, but there are some exceptions.
Student Body
very very very diverse, everyone is here. Most students are middle-class, a lot of immigrants and 1st gen college students, it's a city school, hugely commuter and tuition is low. Interaction occurs in classrooms, not so much outside. classrooms are diverse but major-dependent. No one uses the dining hall. Very left (for the most part), there's a lot of political activity and activism on one end and a lot of apathy on the other. Most people come from backgrounds that emphasize the link btwn edu and $, so money matters, but the pre-meds and pre-laws probably care more about it than the film majors.
