Fordham University

Date: Sep 08 2010
Major: Anthropology (This Major's Salary over time)

First of all, there's two colleges: CBA (the business school) and Fordham College (arts & sciences). Second of all, there are two honors programs: Global something for CBA and honors for Fordham College. Oh, and third of all, there are two groups on campus: commuters and residents. (but I'll get to that later).

The result is a mish-mash of unfortunately stratified students who have little academically in common with one another. I wish I could say this doesn't bother me, but it does; it disintegrates any kind of discussion around class, or maybe a text, because Fordham is bent on attracting top-flight students to the honors programs. No one's engaged; that they make an A is literally the only thing that matters.

Fordham is simply not an academic school. It's very much treated as a means to an end by most students, such ends being jobs or internships. I wasn't aware of this climate when I toured, which I something I kick myself a lot for now.

There too are other little things about academic life at Fordham that I found unfortunate?elitism among certain students with merit aid, the very existence of merit aid (I understand the logic?yes?but it's at the expense of deserving underprivileged students who are systemically denied housing?but more on that later), student apathy, the hollow image of Fordham as a "work hard, play hard" school, and finally the lie of "small class sizes." Do you remember the girl from Newsweek who was quoted as talking about her magical small class sizes. Well, that wasn't representative of Fordham; that was representative of the honors program. Class sizes increase as you progress through your major, not decrease.

The social scene is okay. It's very much centered around drinking, but Manhattan is?as much as it's said, it remains true?a nice excursion. Very little happens on campus. On weekends, with all the Long Island and New Jersey people gone, it's practically dead. School spirit comes in small and infrequent quantities.

The biggest problem, I feel, is the literal division between freshman who commute and freshman who live on campus, because it is often drawn along racial and socioeconomic boundaries. There are very few Hispanic residents; there's maybe five white people who commuted their freshman year. People who live off-campus, as a side note, are generally categorized differently from those who live at home.

All this leads to a lot of undiscussed tension, because being a resident?as I was?becomes a symbol of privilege (and, well, it is). Fordham should try to house every single freshman on campus, perhaps at the expense of upper-class housing. I can think of no other school in the same category as Fordham?Catholic, residential, urban?or what they call

peer and aspirant school

(being BC as much as NYU, Notre Dame and Georgetown as much as Columbia) that is unable to house all freshman on campus. It's a disgrace, because Fordham literally pays students a lump sum to live off campus, and when that person is from the Bronx, when that person is black or hispanic, it can't help but feel a little exploitive?Fordham prides itself on its ethnic diversity as a national university, but it certainly doesn't treat every student the same.

Security is fine. Really, it's fine. The food is pretty horrible