Lieve – New York University, Post 1
Hi everyone!
I’m a third years student mechanical engineering at Delft University of technology and I’m spending the fall semester 2015 at NYU (New York University). I had the great oppurtunity to do a semester abroad in NYC by taking part in the GlobalE3 exchange program. I picked NYU as my first choice, because I’ve been to new york once and I LOVED the city and I definitely wanted to experience living in this city myself. Especially because Delft is a small city with a sort of ‘student campus community’ where everyone knows each other, it seemed really interesting to me to experience student life in a big city!
Exactly a month ago I left Schiphol airport to fly all the way to the big apple. The first couple of days I stayed in an airbnb in uptown manhattan, until I could move into my dorm. I’m spending my semester in an on-campus nyu dorm, called 2nd street. The dorm is located at the corner of 2nd street and bowery, which is in the lower east side. This is a wonderful, I would say the best, place to live in manhattan! It is a 2 minute walk to SOHO, a 5 minute walk to the campus and washington sqaure park, and is surrounded by adorable restaurants and cafés.
My arrival day at the dorm was kind of funny, because all students were bringing SO much stuff into their room, while I had only one big suitcase. My room is on the ninth floor and compared to the others, quite big. I share my room with my roommate Emily. Fortunately, she is from the U.S. so she brought a microwave (which didn’t fit into my suitcase…). I got really lucky with her being my roommate, because we are exactly the same kind of girls and we have become really good friends, spending a lot of time together!
My first day from the ‘NYU welcome week’ was impressive: people yelling and congratulating me with my acceptance at NYU when I entered the building. After picking up my NYU ID (you have to show this everywhere, usually 15 times a day, so you would be completely lost without it…), I went to the NYU bookstore. I expected a booksore, but it is actually more like an NYU fanshop. They sell literally everything, from sweaters to plates, with NYU on it! During the welcome week I noticed that the ‘free food events’ are very popular among nyu students, because food and grocery’s are incredibly expensive! Almost all grocery stores are more or less 3 times as expensive as in the Netherlands. My roommate taught me that there is only 1 grocery store in manhattan which is pretty cheap: Trader Joe’s. If you come there between 5 and 9, the line for the check-out will be outside the store 😉
After a couple of days exploring the city and the campus, my classes had begun. Although my major is mechanical engineering, I decided to take some completely different courses at NYU. I’m taking French, Psychology, Chemistry and Flight mechanics. I really like the variety among my classes! The first two are teached at the main campus, in very impressive buildings, all located around washington square park. On tuesdays and thursdays I have to go to the engineering campus, which is located in Brooklyn. Usually I take the subway to Brooklyn, but sometimes I walk (40 minutes) or bike there. People in the city walk everywhere, so my legs got really muscled! My French class is very small, only 14 students, and that is where I met 2 of my best friends. There is a remarkable difference between my classes here and at the TU Delft, I have LOTS of homework at NYU. So you have to keep up with everything, because you can earn a great deal of your final grade with quizzes, webassignments and midterm exams during the semester. The good news: if you do your homework it’s almost impossible to fail a class ;). I am lucky because I have no classes on Friday. I use my fridays to hang out with friends, explore the city, crash in central park or go to Coney Island beach. So far the weather has been incredible (average of 30 degrees celcius and lots of sun), so my visit to the wonderful coney island beach was great!!
Although living in NYC is extremely expensive (my room costs $2000 a month!!), the gym is free for NYU students, so I go there a lot, most of the times with Emily. Most of the NYU students are enrolled in a mealplan (americans never cook!), but Emily and I decided to take care of our own meals. We go to Trader Joe’s 2 times a week to buy lots of food and we cook and eat together almost everyday. During the weekends I go out with a group of girls to fancy nightclubs! You have to dress up completely and you have to be invited by a ‘promoter’ to be able to get in there. Being a girl in nyc is great, because you’ve got free entrance and drinks in all nightclubs! Going to those nightclubs was a real experience, completely different than going out in the Netherlands, but lots of fun!!
So far, this is a wonderful experience and I’m having a great time in the city. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the semester!
Lieve
Comments are closed.