Photos By Ayva Strauss
By: Ayva Strauss
So far, the main difference between my freshman and sophomore years of college is that I never seem to pass by Alec Baldwin on my way to an 8 a.m. class anymore. Last fall semester, instead of Susquehanna, I attended New York University—a massive, private liberal arts college with almost 30,000 undergraduate students swarming its campus, in the heart of New York City. Specifically, NYU is located in a charming, exorbitantly wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, called Greenwich Village, where new cafes and old brownstones dot tree-lined streets.
Alec Baldwin just so happened to live on one of those streets, and in fact, it was the same street as my freshman year residence hall. Thus, about once a month I would spot him, getting into a Cadillac SUV, or strolling down East 10th Street in a black trench coat. He was part of the backdrop of my first year of college, after which I transferred to Susquehanna for a variety of reasons, some that are too boring, and others, too personal, to write here.
Thirty-two credits look and feel very different when they’re swirling amongst taxi cabs and skyscrapers than when they’re surrounded by Smith Lawn and red brick buildings. There are obvious contrasts between my experiences at the two institutions, but there are more nuanced ones too—aspects of your campus that you might not notice, but that jump out at me because they are so drastically different from my prior college experience.
Unlike at Susquehanna, where academic buildings and residence halls are clustered together and separated from the rest of Selinsgrove by miles of farmland and highway, NYU is extremely integrated within New York City. There is no one plot of land, owned by the school, where they’ve erected buildings. Instead, residence halls, libraries, and student centers are scattered across Greenwich Village, demarcated by giant, violet purple flags. The library was six blocks away from my residence hall, with privately owned galleries, grocery stores, and restaurants in between.
As a result, during most of my time there, I felt like I identified as an odd mixture between a temporary New Yorker and a college student. It could be fun to indulge in some parts of being a New Yorker. I was viciously loyal to the matcha lattes at The Bean on Broadway; my friends and I strutted through crosswalks in SoHo without regard for the glimmering orange palm. But it was exhausting too.
Sometimes, I just wanted a quiet park to read in, or a break from the constant overexposure, but that doesn’t exist when every square inch of a place must be monetized and maximized. When you are a tiny part of an immense and alive concrete jungle, a sense of community is hard to find too; everyone hurdles past each other like strangers with somewhere more instagram-worthy to be.
Susquehanna’s rural setting fosters quite the opposite. Nestled away into the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, with nothing but farmland for miles around, it’s silent at night, and if you look up, the stars twinkle back at you.
I’ve found this campus to be far more conducive to community as a result. It’s easier when there are so many spaces that are inherently shared between us, and everyone feels like a student, rather than an artist or an influencer working on their own separate project. I like sitting in the West Hall common room and seeing other students opening their Canvas; it feels like we’re all in the same boat, whereas last year often felt like floating out to sea.
There’s also a feeling when you live in New York while going to school that you’re not allowed to just be a student. It isn’t enough to have a 4.0 because you could do that anywhere. If you’re a journalism major, like me, you should be a staff writer for the school paper, sure, but you also need to have an internship at the Times lined up for this summer. If you’re a dance major, like one of my roommates was, you should definitely be performing in the spring showcase, but you should also be starring in your friend’s indie music video.
Students at Susquehanna, on the other hand, can dedicate themselves to their course load and the few on-campus organizations they care about and really become a part of those spaces. I like walking back to my residence hall and knowing that all of those buildings are homes for students, with no towering financial firms or glass-door tech companies separating them. I like looking to my left in Introduction to Journalism and not having to view that person as competition for the internship in Senator Shumer’s press office.
Susquehanna feels like a closed environment, committed to academics; you are encouraged to lead a life that is attached to this campus, rather than merely consider it a place to sleep. I have my whole life to live and work in New York City, and so do you, but there are only a few years left for us to live amongst people our own age, as we all trudge towards a similar end.
The student body size is also of notable difference, not just because of sheer numbers, but because of the way your classmates morph into an audience when you’re becoming someone new. There are many ugly missteps when a person is reinventing themselves, which can make existing in college humiliating in and of itself. There was a sense of anonymity that came with living in New York City that eased the embarrassment. I could wear whatever I wanted and rest assured that even if I looked ridiculous (which I often did), the people who crossed me and thought so would never see me again.
There was a period where I dressed like Jerry Seinfeld everyday for a month, convinced it was the peak of fashion, and another where I wore a different color of eyeshadow everyday, in an attempt to learn how to use make-up for the first time. And there was a real freedom in knowing that hundreds of my thirty thousand peers could see me this way, and it wouldn’t matter. That freedom doesn’t exist on a small campus, where I can hardly walk to Degenstein without waving to someone I met during Orientation Week.
But then, on the other hand, it does make the gossip ten times juicier; there is an automatic connection when my roommate and I can offer up different perspectives on the same campus celebrity. And it forces you to trust the people around you—to trust that they won’t judge you for your Jerry Seinfeld phase, and they’ll laugh about it with you when enough time has passed.
While at NYU, I often felt compelled to take pictures, like the ones I included here. Life in New York City has something of a cinematic quality to it; its flashing lights demand to be captured in all of their glory. And of course, even with my iPhone camera and lacking photography skills, the scenes are undeniably gorgeous. The morning view from the student center, when the orange sun just began to kiss the lower west side, the cherry blossoms in Washington Square Park on the first day of spring, the first snowfall dusting the townhouses on West 4th Street.
I haven’t often felt the urge to take pictures since coming to Susquehanna. But not because the campus isn’t beautiful, but rather because it’s the kind of beauty that you prefer to sit in rather than post. A sense of comfort and appreciation for nature washes over me as I stare at Smith Lawn on my walk back from Bento, and it’s a sight you just want to watch when the sun sets behind Apfelbaum. I feel like coming to Susquehanna has given me the traditional college experience I wanted, and my life finally feels better than it looks, although sometimes I miss Alec Baldwin.
