The Small Apple?

Introduction
I chose BU because I was actually deciding between BU and NYU and I sort of liked the social scene at BU better. I wanted to get away for a couple of years because I knew that most likely I’d end up back in New York, most likely for grad school so I chose Boston because it seemed like the next best thing that was close to home. The city is pretty European as far as things to do- shopping, going out at night. It seemed to be the closest match to New York, even though it’s not quite the same.

Campus Life and Social Life
The school of management is pretty intense. I think we’re in the top 30 now in the country. Basically, your freshman year you go through a core-type program where everything is incorporated, and get a taste of everything the school has to offer. Sophomore year is broken down into more specifics. Accounting, organizational behavior and managerial statistics. And then Junior year is known as “boot camp” where you’re basically divided into teams of 9-11 people and you eat, sleep and breathe together in the school of management and you’re all in the same classes and by the end of Junior year that semester, you come up with a very extensive business plan of a product that you actually came up with. And it encompasses everything that a real life business plan would have. Senior year and part of Junior year, you work on your concentration or your major—your requirements for that. And then hopefully you graduate in 4 years. Advertisement
Academics
As far as prestige, this school has received a lot of attention lately. Some of the kids on campus have sort of an animosity toward us because we do have the nicest building on campus. I believe it cost about $100 million to make. It’s one of the newer buildings. We have our own Starbucks and Bread Winners on the 2nd floor. We get a lot of perks being in the school of management. Sometimes, first dibs on concerts, and you can tell if a kid is in the school of management because they’re usually more dressed up for class because when giving presentations, we have to dress either business casual or in formal business suits. So the school is very prestigious, and people on campus know that you are in the school of management just by sort of looking at you and seeing how you act. The school of management has a wireless system that you can access as long as you’re a student here at Boston University. All students are open to this system, however students at the school of management have a special web page that they can log onto that’s specified toward whatever classes they’re enrolled in. But you could basically go online anywhere in the building. You can in the bathroom, if you really want to. As long as you have the account, you’re pretty much set.

Student Body
The party scene at BU is pretty much split into 2 categories. There are the kids who go to a lot of the parties at the houses down at what we call the BU Ghetto. It’s behind West Campus where all the frat houses are. It’s kind of gross, the cops usually break those parties up. Those are your standard, college parties. Beer from a keg, or what have you. And then you have another group of kids at BU that do more clubs and lounges in Downtown Boston. Recently ID’s have been an issue, but kids find a way to get around all those things. But the more upscale places, where you’re paying $10-12 dollars a drink, that’s the other side where it’s more a scene to be seen at, rather than a party where you just go and there’s 200 people in a house and you just have fun. Club Mantra is like a lot of the other places in Boston to go to. It’s sort of like a lounge. You can eat dinner there before the club scene starts later in the night. But basically, you have people from all over the place, every single college in Boston and it’s usually the same people every week because they all do the same scene. Very well-dressed, a lot of money being thrown around. It’s basically sitting at tables, buying bottles, buying drinks and it’s sort of a fun thing to do but it can get old after awhile. It seems like underage drinking is getting a lot harder. Juniors in the school of Management really have a hard time going out at all because of our workload. As a freshman, you’re going out almost every night of the week. You learn the hard way whether you can deal with that or not, but things sort of get old very fast because you’re doing the same thing all the time, especially if you’re in that club/lounge circuit.