NYU Shanghai Is NYU's "Bad School" Right?

iappreciatelife
Sun, 05 Apr 2015 13:02:20 +0000

Dear all, I am currently a student at NYU Shanghai. I just want to provide some more information. There is no need to argue which one is better, as nobody really knows what NYU Shanghai is now since it’s only almost two years old. And people may say that I come to a school to get good education, not to shape the school culture here, not to sacrifice themselves because the school has to balance students from different education backgrounds so that the curricular design may look not so satisfied for everybody, especially in the first few years. After all, perfectness doesn’t exist anywhere. I know this shouldn’t be used as an excuse. That’s why you will see students at NYU Shanghai pay more attention to their college life here. Take food as an example, the new cafeteria really didn’t know how to satisfy people with so many different tastes at the beginning of last semester. A lot of us gave countless suggestion to our school and now it has been improved a lot. Our school grows at an unbelievable rate everyday because our suggestion is heard. We are kind of both lucky and unlucky to be at a new school. Taking risk is inevitable now.

Also, I asked one of my professors that why did you choose to come here. She said, back in home, everything was stable and safe. She means that generally you have lower risks. But choosing to come here, nothing is set stone and you have to push yourself to shape and do something for this new born baby. I am not encouraging that everybody should take risks and use their 4-year college life to create a new world. I am just saying that the environment here would be more suitable for people who don’t want to only stay in a safety zone, something like good university, good diploma, good resume, good job, everything stable. It’s better for people who try to figure out the sense of their life and to push themselves to the extreme to find out how much potential they have. Of course you can do this anywhere in the world. It’s just NYU Shanghai’s DNA is more like that. I guess Abu Dhabi campus wants the same thing.

Last, I think it would be more objective to let students who have studied away in New York, Abu Dhabi and Shanghai to talk about these 3 campuses. They all have their own DNAs.
The only information I can provide now is what I heard from one of my professors who has taught in all these campuses. He thinks generally students at Shanghai campus work harder than Abu Dhabi. Besides, Shanghai has more resources outside of the campus. One example, you can go travelling around south east Asia, experience different cultures with your college friends.

Again, what I said was just providing some information. Good luck with your decision!