Binghamton University — Local services in Town of Vestal

Excellent value. Many opportunities on campus. Professors are decent overall, but still read reviews and learn about what that professor is like, it will help you a lot. If they seem to get poor reviews, avoid them - students here judge professors relatively fairly. Library hours could be greatly improved, and bus system is... improving. Food is mediocre, recommend cooking. Having a car is highly recommended. Though parking passes are way overpriced. Much party life exists, but also many serious students. Much greek life & hillel. (large Jewish population - breaks are focused on Jewish holidays) Way too cloudy. 7th cloudiest place in the US (cloudy 312 days per year), 10th Rainiest. as a result, it just looks gray all the time. gray and dirty when it eventually snows. some local things to do, but stay in Vestal. Binghamton/Johnson City area is largely very unsafe with a very high degree of crime. (listed as safer than 4% of cities) There's not really a "good neighbourhood" just, less bad neighbourhoods. Decent places are more likely in student-dense places or professor-dense places. Basically, just live in Vestal - it's 100s of times safer and free of headaches. you can not worry about the slum a block over. Stick together with other college students. Definitely don't plan to stay in Binghamton post-graduation, move to some third-world country instead. You'll thank yourself. All the bad things aside, one has to recommend seeing any of the carousels in various parks while they're open around the summer months. The reminder that Binghamton had an economy once that wasn't based on hardcore drugs and theft. Not all townies are scary, but the numbers are not favourable and many of them seem to hold animosity towards students. That said University is litterally the only thing keeping money in Binghamton. If you want outdoorsy stuff, there is a large nature preserve as part of campus. Otherwise, you probably need a car; it's too urban to get to many open places, but too run-down a town to offer any real conveniences of city-life. There are some ways to get to the rivers, but the rivers are reportedly not very clean in this area. There is also a bike-rental/bike-share on campus (no mention of a car rental at this stage). Gym is by fee only (unlike many univeristies), though I think the pool is open free of charge. Gym is limitted but adequate. I.E. no rockwall, no ice-rink - but not everyone is looking for that. Many kids from Downstate/NJ (who's impression of Upstate will be based upon solely Binghamton) Good place to do research, get involved in that. Many opportunities for networking and career advancement exist, but do extra research regarding this and your specific major. Advising is poor; however offices are generally friendly/helpful. Business school (SOM) is well-ranked; but expect many business business majors to have a strange superiority complex. Also, the sun is a lie here. Students around campus are generally friendly and open/supportive, but can be very caught up in studying or with many of the things on campus. Expect New York/downstate-ish interaction styles. Dorms are decent, but costly for their value. However, most are new and sizable for dorms. All in all, Binghamton University is a business. It does it's job decently, and the campus is pretty safe (unless you're one of the students drinking until you pass out at 4pm and the ambulance comes from you... but that's from your own stupidity... ) Speaking of drinking, there are quite a few bars downtown that students flock to. Campus is overall decent, but a bit isolated on the weekends, do to bus schedules. Campus is well-maintained and pleasant to walk around. Comfortable atmosphere, could use more quiet areas during the...

This school has problems. It's crooked in many ways, as far as I'm concerned. They like to advertise themselves as low cost, but sneak payments into other things to make up for it.

The meal plans operate by weight; your food is weighed at the register, and that dictates how much you pay for it. The default meal plan starts you around $900 per semester, which seems like a good amount, but if you have an above average appetite (or want to eat anything other than salad) you'll be running out of meal plan money as early as a month before the semester is over. And so, you pay to add more to it.

The gym. For most schools, you don't have to pay for access to the school's exercise facilities. Not the case here. You have to pay around $100 per semester to use the gym.

The area around the school isn't the best. With plenty of sketchy locations, your best bet is staying on campus.

Recreation. One of the main criticisms i heard before going to Binghamton was how boring it was. And wow, should I have listened. There is very little to do on campus. There's a couple bowling lanes, ping pong tables, and billiards tables in the University Union's basement, but you have to pay to play each time, from the same pool of money as your meal plan. But paying aside, the same three activities can become boring quite quickly. This is why (in my opinion) Binghamton is often referred to as a party school, as well as a school where drug use is a bit more common. There's nothing else to do majority of the time.

And finally, the Conduct System is very bad. And by bad, I mean horrible. They go on an "innocent until likely guilty" base. However, they are not above REMOVING A STUDENT FROM CAMPUS HOUSING before their case has even begun, and giving the student the numbers to homeless shelters in the nearby area. They pursue maximum punishments, and if the student does not point out why the punishment is excessive, they stay at the maximum. They share personal information with other students in their investigations. And to top it all off, race plays a large factor. I've seen two students do the same thing, and in the end, the student of color was set to receive a four semester suspension while the other student received two. It was only after the student of color spoke up that the conduct board lowered his.

This school is not good. You're far better off going to...

Overall you will get an excellent education among other students who have done well in their secondary schools, or have brought up their grades in Community Colleges and transferred. You will be prepared to enter a graduate school upon your 4 years at Binghamton to get some sort of professional skill. Binghamton does not prepare you to enter the job market. Also you will find yourselves competing against other students, who have been "recruited" from prestigious universities. Binghamton is the highest ranked of the state schools but it is still a state school and you might want to consider whether if you are accepted to Cornell and Binghamton it is worth the Loans to go to Cornell.

The major negative I encountered was that I received next to no academic guidance from any faculty member in how I could either pursue a career or further my education with an advanced degree. I entered and completed my degree in the History Dept. which boasted brilliant scholars who despite their expertise and charisma in lecture halls, had no interest in guiding a student or mentoring anyone. When I inquired about having an "academic advisor", I was told choose any faculty/professor you like - gee thanks. I made the worst decision by choosing a professor, who made zero effort to speak with or advise me. She was only interested in pursuing her own research, and cared nothing about the students within her department. As someone who came to University interested in pursuing history as a major and writing as a minor, I was never told, that in order to pursue history on a master or Ph.D. level one needed to become fluent in at least 2 foreign languages. I am sure that I like many other Liberal Arts majors at Binghamton left me unprepared to do anything but apply to graduate school - and even then I did not have the proper foundation on which to pursue further studies.

As this happened 35+ years ago, I can only hope the Liberal Arts school has changed and adapted to the real world needs of its students. Knowing what I know now, I would never have spent 3 years at Binghamton, but sought out a college or university where the student receives guidance, mentoring, internships and a practicable knowledge so one may graduate with the tools needed to...