Give students a beautiful campus, a 13:1 student-faculty ratio and free access to the games of 17 Division I sports teams, and they will hate it… apparently. We at Hofstra University love to call our school a disaster. Sure, even though we have distinguished and well-recognized faculty, people love to complain about our expensive tuition. Hofstra generously gives the Student Government Association (SGA) over $200,000 to allocate to student-run clubs each year, yet we hear all too often how student living spaces are leaky and dated.
When you think about transportation, we have a convenient night shuttle, colloquially referred to as the “drunk bus” that runs between between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., but we don’t have enough parking on South campus. Does it sound like the cons outweigh the pros? Because I don’t think they do. We often present our university as terrible, awful and apathetic to our needs when that is just not true.
To start, our academics are great. Hofstra consistently ranks among the top 200 schools in the nation. This becomes more impressive when considering there are around 4,000 universities in the country. This puts Hofstra somewhere in the 95th percentile of American universities.
Hofstra’s dedication to career readiness is also a huge plus. From partnering with The Washington Center to get students internships in Washington D.C. to co-ops for engineering and computer science students, Hofstra does plenty to give us career-relevant experience before we graduate. Not to mention our career center, whose resources far exceed those of other universities. Seriously, ask your friends from other schools if their career center comes close – if they even have one.
Beyond academics and career readiness, just walking around Hofstra’s campus is a blast. If you are like me, you often forget how gorgeous our campus is. Seeing something every day certainly makes it mundane, but Hofstra is a clear exception. Our quads are beautifully groomed; there are plants and trees all over and who can forget the tulips? Making a green paradise on Hempstead Turnpike is not easy, and even though it feels like this point has been Pride-Guided to death, we did not gain our arboretum status for no reason.
Another claim made is that nothing ever happens on Hofstra’s campus, but I disagree. Administration, the Office of Student Leadership & Engagement, SGA, the Office of Residence Life and so many other organizations host hundreds of events each semester. Granted, you cannot be blamed for missing some of them as our advertising can use some work, but, when you figure out where to find them, the quality and abundance of events we get is outstanding. Sure, sometimes an event is as underwhelming as watching a movie with your Resident Assistant, but sometimes they are as extravagant as the late-night breakfast we get during finals week. Our programming is certainly not rare, and it is definitely not bad; it is just hard to keep track of.
Even services outside of the classroom are nothing short of extraordinary. Do you need tutoring for a class? Check out the Center for Academic Excellence. Do you need mental health services? Go to Student Counseling Services, TimelyCare or even Dean Christy. Hell, we even have a campus dietitian whose job is to ensure campus dining – however flawed it may be – works better for you and your dietary restrictions. If you need help, Hofstra is here for you, and, although some services are better than others, you would be hard-pressed to say so about other universities.
This is not to say that Hofstra is perfect, and it is definitely not to say that you should stop complaining. If we stopped complaining, nothing would change and nothing would get better. Every time a “fixed” leak in your dorm was not fixed or a faculty member ghosted your emails is a time when you did not receive what you were promised. At this price, you should stand up for yourself and your peers when that happens. I do not want you to stop asking what more Hofstra can do for you, but I would like you to hesitate the next time you call this school awful because, honestly, it is not.
