Students participating in Stern joint or combined degree programs with other universities can apply for housing in university dormitories as of Fall 2013 (three semesters ago). Stern offers Joint Programs with ten graduate schools, including NYU Nursing School, Columbia School for Engineering, Azrieli Graduate School for Jewish Education, and Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies. Last spring, seven students participating in the joint degree programs chose to remain in Stern housing while attending classes elsewhere.
For students undergoing the already-tumultuous transition into graduate school, especially those beginning graduate classes in the spring, the option to continue living at Stern can prove to be advantageous.
“It was really stressful,” Kimmy Samet, a student enrolled in the joint Stern-NYU nursing program as of Spring 2014, said of her transition. “I was going to [graduate] school earlier than all my friends, a semester early, because I was starting in the spring. I didn’t even have time to figure out my roommates [at NYU] and all the apartments were already taken up.” She continued on to explain that not having to move out of Stern dormitories “[released] so much stress.”
The option for students participating in joint programs to live in university housing was preceded by another exception to standard housing policies, university housing for part-time students, in Fall 2012. Part-time students are those with only a few credits left to complete before graduation that will do so within a semester.
“As a general rule, we don’t like to make exceptions,” said Rachel Kraut, Housing Director. “It just isn’t fair…The overarching rule [when it comes to housing] is that you must be a full-time student.” She explained, however, that when “one or two students” were asking every year about housing options for part-time and joint programs, it made sense to incorporate these options into official housing policy—albeit requiring a separate application.
This past fall, three students participating in joint programs resided in University Housing. By spring, the number had grown to seven. Most of the increase was due to students in the NYU Nursing Program, which begins in the spring and is located just a mile away, Kraut explained. In Spring 2014, three students in joint programs were enrolled in NYU Nursing, one in Azrieli School for Jewish Education, one in Bernard Revel School for Jewish Studies, and one in Columbia School for Engineering.
While Kraut does not think the new housing option will directly impact a student’s decision to participate in the joint programs (as she put it, “Academics come first. Housing comes next”), Michelle Levine, a senior majoring in Physics hoping to attend the joint Columbia Engineering program, articulated the advantages of being able to live at Stern while beginning another graduate program.
“One hesitation I had in considering the Columbia joint program after these past two years in Stern was that I was not ready to leave the community that I had formed within this school. I really enjoy living in the heart of midtown with incredible roommates, in a frum environment with the opportunity of constantly meeting new people in the elevators, hallways, and classrooms.”
For many of us, leaving the comforts of Stern is a semi-frightening reality. Samet spoke of what is for many of us an uncomfortable truth: “Moving from Stern to somewhere else is scary. It just is.” She said that dorming in Stern while attending graduate school was “a good stepping stone,” and emphasized that “Stern was very accommodating.”
“There are so many reasons to stay in Housing,” said Kraut, ranging from security guards (“you won’t find those in the Heights”) to social comforts. Students who remain in dorms usually do so partly because their friends are still there, especially students beginning graduate school in the spring.
When asked where students who participate in joint programs usually choose to dorm around the Beren Campus, Kraut answered, “all over,” depending on individual preferences like wanting a quiet versus social atmosphere. “It’s not Brookdale,” she qualified, however. Kraut doesn’t expect the number of joint program students housing in Stern to rise significantly and stated, “We’re just starting off. It’s an experimental initiative, and we expect it to continue.”
If you feel uninformed about housing policies in Stern, check your sstuds! University housing for those participating in the joint or combined degree programs may prove to be useful to you, or one of your friends, in the future.