I’m a New York resident so I would prefer to go to a SUNY and I got into both University at Buffalo and University at Albany. I plan to major in criminal justice but I’m not sure which school I should go to. I know University at Albany is one of the best schools in the nation for criminal justice but I don’t think it’s a good school. I think UB is a better school and if I do go there, I would major in their Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Legal Studies which is basically the same thing as criminal justice. So could you guys help me decide which school I should go to?
Regarding which SUNY school in – in aggregate – better, I’m not sure there’s is a meaningful difference. They both reside in the same grouping (>100, but <150) in U S News’ latest assessment (I’m not suggesting USN&WR is a panacea, but it is a reasonable source), the costs will be near identical, the overall course offerings will also be quite similar, etc. However, which “campus fit” most appeals to YOU, does one city have greater interest or attraction to YOU, is one more proximate to your family (if that’s an attribute you seek), do you have significantly more friends at either, and so forth? Such “non-academic, non-reputational, non-career” matters would be my decisive factors, simply because the inclusive academic, prestige, and professional elements seem to be essentially equal.
If Albany has one of the best criminal justice programs in the nation and if that is what you are interested in majoring in, then you should go there. Buffalo and Albany may be essentially equal in other respects, but not with respect to. criminal justice. If you were to say you were interested in computer science or engineering, I would say choose University at Buffalo instead of Albany, because those programs at Buffalo (and at Stony Brook) have great reputations and Buffalo and Stony Brook are considered very strong in those fields and in the sciences.
I wonder what percentage of freshmen matriculate with the intent of majoring in X, but by the time they graduate have changed their major once (or, frequently, many more times)?
between 70 and 80% freshman change their minds wrt majors, first between application time senior year and freshman year in college, then between freshman year and actual major declaration.
In addition, criminal justice is not a “very good” major, unless your goal is to work in law enforcement. If your goal is criminal psychology, you need to look for criminology; if your goal is law school, you need to look into history, classics, political science, and economics.
Dd went to buffalo from California. Graduated and got a good education in engineering.
Why would you not consider criminal justice a good major? I plan to work in a federal investigative organization when I graduate like the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and etc.
Criminal justice is highly regarded at Albany. Plus, Albany is the state capitol, which could be beneficial for your proposed major. It sounds like the better choice from what you’ve described.
Buffalo is somewhat larger. Therefore campus has more resources overall, with more depth historically in some of its departmental offerings, including the sciences. Comparative Literature and Poetics has had an interesting history at Buffalo, for example – see the Electronic Poetry Center. Great poets such as Charles Olson taught at Buffalo. Literary critic Leslie Fiedler also taught at Buffalo.