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Quality of Life Survey |
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Quality of life at the university are not as good as other prominent
institutions. Many students become disenchanted with the level of
cultural seperation and lack of community/student spirit. Students tend
to stick with "their own" and judge others using superficial criteria,
as does most of the faculty. Students who reside on campus, do have the
issues which regard their well being, acknowledged by a governing body.
As with any university, catering to these responses are a tedious and
require time. But the university housing specialists make a
concentrated effort in the ensurance of happiness, and the quality of
the UAlbany experience. Housing on campus is rather interesting. The
campus is rectangular in nature, with the housing being established on
the outskirt of the campus. The campus from here on will be referred to
as the "podium" where each of the academic buildings located on the main
campus reside. The campus is 100% symmetrical, down to the plant life
which is also on the podium. First time students will get lost since
everything is identical in shape, color and form. The only way to
distinguish the location is to memorize the names of the buildings and
know where each of them are in respect to the macro-view of the campus.
The buildings are quite tall, and the outside ceilings which cover the
walkway for the campus is a good 50 feet from top to bottom, providing
some intimidation for those who are not very tall. On the outside of
each corner of the rectangle, are the Quadrangles or "Quads" which house
the students. The main housing on each quad are provided by the tower,
which has about 20 floors to each of them and elevators for a required
convenience. surrounding the towers, which is centralized on the Quad
are low-rise buildings - about eight per quad, each being 3 stories high
and providing housing for those who are not located in the tower. The
tower houses students using suites, where there are 2 rooms and a common
area, each room houses 2 students. The R.A or resident assistant
receives his/her own room for the services they provide. The tower is a
bit cramped in size, I cannot provide dimensions, but it is not spacious
by any means, nor is it considered cramped. Quaint, comfortable and
cozy are adjectives that come to mind in my attempt at the description.
There are "gang" or hallway bathrooms located in the tower which is
cleaned daily by the custodial staff. On weekends, expect to find
unmentionable things going on (sometimes) and a respectful amount of
vomit from students who use their time for alchohol exhuberance. The
low-rises are essentially the same, but there are bathrooms located in
each of the "suite" rooms, eliminating the need for the gang bathroom
system. The dining experience is provided by Chartwells, which are
better than most of the other public university dining services, in my
opinion. On campus residents are required to fund a meal plan, which
can range anywhere from 500 to 1200 a semester, depending on how many
meals the students wishes to have during the semester. Podium and munch
money, allow for the purchase of small franchise style restaurants,
which are located in the student center. Burger King, Zepps(sandwich
eatery), Pizza Hut, and a few others are located here, and require
either currency, or the munch money which is part of the meal plan
package. Freshman are not allowed to have cars on campus, unless they
are sneaky. But all other under classmen and senior may have cars.
Parking is quite vast, if the student is willing to walk, but it can get
bone chilling cold during the winter, and the campus is designed as a
wind tunnel since the original engineers designed it to be placed in
Arizona. I recommend parking very, very close to the classes for which
you are attending. There is "Freedom Quad" which is provided generally
for graduate students, which is located on the outskirt of the campus,
opposite of the 3-mile road which is the central roadway surrounding the
campus. Here students have all the comforts of living, everything is
furnished and utilities are included, but the price is higher than the
undergraduate housing system. There is plenty of off-campus housing
throughout the city of Albany as well as the surrounding town of
Guilderland, which range in prices and quality of housing. Crime and
safety on campus is respectable. There were only a few incidents of
major crimes reported on campus, ie. rape, robbery, car theft or break
in's, assault..etc. These crimes are low in number and are not a major
problem by any means. Off-campus is a different story, students invite
themselves to many different risk factors when living in the city of
Albany. Robberies, rapes, and violence are not an uncommon theme when
living in the mid-downtown areas of Albany. Please check the city of
Albany, police crime statistics for more specific information.
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SUNY - University at Albany Admission & Application Surveys
