Stony Brook University Top Questions

The school is pretty large, but not too much so. Many students go home on the weekends, since most of us live within an hour of our college. There isn't too much school pride although they try to facillitate it with slogans like Stony Brook "Red Hot," but it doesn't really work. Many of us didn't think too highly of Stony Brook when we first got here, but now, our opinion of it has significantly improved.

Stony Brook fulfilles its promise to provide an excellent well-rounded education.

The best thing about Stony Brook is the marine science department. the teachers are wonderful, the staff is wonderful, the mini campus is wonderful. I love taking marine, and environmental classes because i really feel like i'm part of something. however, i'm also a commuter student which just makes life so much more difficult. commuters are not treated with consideration at all. the school is never shut when it snows, even though that means risking our lives to make it to class, the parking situation is horrible, there's usually not enough buses on cold, rainy, or snowy days, and there's no heating bus stops on the campus. Many times, students are left outside huddled together like pigeons, to keep warm. Also the class schedules are horrible. Usually classes that are needed for a particular major are offered at the same time, or at the most distant time periods. every year there is frustration in making the schedule. and with breaks, it's even worse as a commuter student. unless u want to study or eat, there is no place to go. if u want to a nap between classes, u can't go anywhere that is halfway quiet, and once i even got told by a police officer that i couldnt sleep in my car, although i was in the south p, and in my own car. what's unusual about stony brook is the huge campus, with classes in the most desolate, creepy areas, and only 10 minutes inbetween, so if your two classes are on opposite sides of the campus, be prepared to run.

Improve the campus recreation and accessibility around the neighborhood for the students. The administration can be quite painful at times with the imbued bureaucracy, however, President Kenny has made quite some improvements. Frequent complaints were that the campus is extremely depressing and there's nothing to do for students who are here during the weekends, but that is also changing over time. Having been focused in a science major, I had no life whatsoever, thanks to all the intense workload, but it was good overall.

Stony Brook is too large! For people who dont have cars the smallest tasks could be the biggest pain in the ass. For example, buying a pack of cigarettes or going grocery shopping. It seems like Stony Brook should be its own little self sufficient community where the college students can walk to wherever they need to go. The campus bar is a complete failure- no one goes and most people don't even know about it. Another thing- the food here consists of really these choices: really bad pizza, prepackaged sandwiches, overpriced salad, stale fried food, tacos, or asian cuisine. There is no dining hall which you pay a price and eat whatever you want to except for weekend brunch at the residential dining halls which isn't too great. Sometimes the maintenance people come to fix problems right away, and sometimes you have to wait a long time. The residential buildings can be good as long as you get in with the right people- and terrible if you get stuck in a bad building. It seems like most of the problems I hear about come from the Kelly Quad, which has balconies that people apparently break in from, and steal. The time I've been here I have not noticed school pride, but the people who play sports seem to stick together and there's gotta be some pride within those groups. There are a billion sororities and fraternities but most of them seem like ethnic group organizations. So, if you are a middle class caucasian person not from long island or NYC, you might feel a little lost here... not really during the day when all the commuters are here... but living on campus and on weekends sure thing.

Really diverse, parking situation is horrible, they try do have a lot going on on campus but it doesn't always work out, and I wish the sports teams were better.

Best: Our School is pretty. The New buildings are beautiful snd the landscaping is always to perfection. Things to change: Puddles!!! The Puddles around campus are horrendous. We walk into lakes, out of control. Staff. People who work in the Adminsitration Building or any building where they think they have power they have some sort of Attitude. We are paying students and do not need rudeness when we need help. Housing, if we can't house the students already going to our school or who want to be residents they should have more senority over Freshmen. More security. In South P, peoples cars get broken into, windows smashed and tires slashed! Spend most of my time in the library. There is one time which I will never forget. I was a rainy day. The water was falling from the sky in buckets. I was waiting with my friend for the South P bus, a bus that takes you to your car for commuters. The bus took about 10 minutes. By that time me and my friend were soaked it looked like we just stepped out of the pool. We run on the bus to sit in a puddle of water that had dripped off our clothes to the seat. As we drive into the South P parking lot we see that half of South P was a lake. And cars were actually partially under water!! Me and my friends car thankfully only had water up to the bottom of the car door so we were able to get into the car without tracking too much water. After that I vowed never to park in South P, bought a Stadium Parking pass and never returned!!!

I LOVE THE SIZE OF STONYBROOK. EVEN THOUGH THE INSTITUTION MAY BE CONSIDERED LARGE, DURING THE YEARS I HAVE STUDIED AND WHEN I HAVE NEEDED ADVICE OR HAD QUESTIONS, THE STAFF CONSIDERED MY REQUESTS OR NEEDS ON A ONE-TO-ONE BASIS AND THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. I HAVE NEVER FELT JUST LIKE A "NUMBER" BUT THEN, AGAIN, BECAUSE OF MY AGE I DON'T HESITATE TO HAVE A FRIENDLY TONE TO INICIATE A POSITIVE REPONSE. I KNOW WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I WAS MUCH MORE ON THE SHY SIDE. THE POSITIVES - THE PEOPLE, THE FOUNTAINS - ESPECIALLY - AND ALSO THE BEAUTIFUL PLANTINGS AND THE INCORPORATION OF WILDLIFE INTERWOVEN COMPLIMENT THE ESTHETICS OF A STUDYING ENVIRONMENT. ALSO, I LOVE THE CLOCK THAT CHIMES FROM THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. STUDENT COMPLAINTS - FROM WHAT I HAVE HEARD THEY ARE JUST JUVENILE SUCH AS TO "WHY AM I GOING INTO TEACHING WHEN I CAN'T STAND KIDS"...IT MAKES MY HAIR STAND ON EDGE. WE SHOULD EMPHASIZE VOCATION AS TO HAVING THE SUMMERS OFF. IT FRIGHTENS ME THAT SOME OF THESE "KIDS" MAY TEACH MY OWN CHILD SOMEDAY. I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT ALL OF THE PROFESSORS IN THE SPANISH DEPT ARE GRADE A...I HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH AND HAVE BEEN TOTALLY INSPIRED BY THEIR INSIGHT AND ENTHUSIASM WITH RESPECT TO THEIR SPECIALTY OF STUDY. THEY ARE TO BE HIGHLY COMMENDED AND CERTAINLY MERIT THE SAME ACADEMIC CONSIDERATIONS AS DO THE SCIENCE DEPT AT STONYBROOK. I AM 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} BEHIND STONYBROOK, THEIR ACADEMICS AND ADMINISTRATION!

The campus is large and has different places where you can eat and have fun. The administration people were very nice...without generalizing..because some others can be nasty...

"What college town" The parking sucks SBU admin sucks, they really don;t know how to handle money and all they really want is our money and not give us value for our $