Hofstra for Drama

lovetoact
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 12:36:13 +0000

I attended Hofstra in the late 80s (not as an acting major) and I still live on Long Island, so I can talk about the area. Hofstra’s campus is insular. If you’re on the campus (which is lovely–it has arboretum status or something like that), you feel safe. The way it’s set up is that one side of Hempstead Turnpike (a busy, several-lane road) is the residential side and the other side is the academic side. You get from one side to the other via the Unispan (enclosed bridge) so you’re not crossing the busy road. If you walk off campus, there are some very bad neighborhoods very close by. Very bad. If you don’t go to those, you’re okay. Some of the surrounding area is okay but not much to do directly off campus, like to walk to. It’s not a campus that is integrated into the community. That being said, I never felt unsafe on campus (and even stayed for grad school and lived for a year in a campus-owned apartment that was in the bad area but never personally encountered trouble). Campus life was fun and I was in a great sorority. I met my husband there and we’re still very close with many of the friends we made in college.
I don’t know about shuttles (more schools have those now than when I was in school) but I had a car or took a cab a short distance to a great mall that’s still there and even nicer than it was before. I grew up in a rural area and picked Hofstra (‘escaped’ the rural area) for its proximity to NYC–it’s a short drive to the train that takes you to NYC–so that’s a perk as well. Currently, Hofstra has a nice local reputation for its theater program. My kids wouldn’t apply because we live about 1/2 hour away and they want to ‘escape’ Long Island