NYU: Loving the Machine

I'm about to enter my Junior year at NYU. Seeing as my undergraduate education is half over, I have accumulated a few (not many) thoughts on my esteemed university. Almost every student at NYU realizes they're going to what is basically a McDonalds under the guise of a well thought-of university. Sometimes it feels like NYU cares more about about they're inevitable dastardly takeover of every building south of 14th Street or taking your 50 thousand dollars. Sometimes, it feels like it's not about academia, it's just about purchasing the entirety of Governors Island- not that I'm complaining, we have to put the Engineering students somewhere and it's definitely not going to be in downtown Manhattan. Think of our cool level! It would plummet! And basically, that's what NYU is all about- cool level.

1. One great thing about NYU is the lack of hippie douchebags.*** Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had gone to an Amherst, or a Binghamton (omg Brett Easton Ellis = total alumni), or a Reed, or a ClarkU. A place where a bunch of people read important books and discuss them in a circle at some idyllic field under a sycamore tree quoting Balzac and Faulkner. That sounds kind of awesome though, right? Wrong. If I had to listen to some self-important asshole talk about how Hemingway changed their life I would have to punch them in the face. And think of how many people would do that! Everyone. I can't just go around punching everyone in the face all the time! There is something about hippie douchebags and loving these middle-aged white men ramble on about how drunk they are and how pathetic their lives are. Whatever, motherfucker. "Oh wow even though I have a bitchen' house and lots of money, life sucks because I can't bang this one chick boohoo" (The Great Gatsby) "Dude, Neal Cassidy isn't that much cooler than me. I'm cool too! Look, he's cheating on his wife! Not cool, right! Dude. I wanna bang her now. I mean that's not that bad, right. I mean, right?" (Every Jack Kerouac book ever.) "I am sooooOoOOOOOOooOoooOOOO drubk, how did I get here and why is this turban wrapped around my head omgggggzzzzz" (Bukowski) It just gets old. What about all the African literature, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the shit! Or Haruki Murakami- also the shit! Or Malcolm Gladwell, nonfiction is cool too! Lets not relegate our lives to the cadre of ruling drunk white men. Oh, I can appreciate Faulkner, Bukowski, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, David Foster Wallace, etc etc the list goes on forever. In fact, some of those drunk white dudes wrote my favorite books. I definitely think that those men changed American literature for years to come. I understand that, I respect that, but that doesn't change that I don't give a shit about how many drugs Jack Kerouac was on.

2. There are benefits of belonging to an institution that owns half of lower Manhattan and the greatest of which is this one- nap spots. NYU has a plethora of awesome nap spots. Almost every single building has a lobby with dozens of comfortable couches. In the summer they're air-conditioned, in the winter they're heated (the buildings, not the couches, THOUGH I WISH.) and at all hours of the day you can curl up for the best nap of your life. And it will be the best nap of your life. Have you ever fallen asleep while everyone else is doing important academic work? If you haven't, you should, it's the most rewarding feeling you may ever feel in an NYU building. I would like to add it's really easy to steal from the dining halls. Like, ridiculously easy. So when you lie down on that ridiculously nice sofa with a nice Diet Pepsi and a Crumbs cupcake, you can know you've taken .00005 % of your tuition back.

3. Sometimes the machine is good. Yes. I said it. But hear me out. NYU is a corporate machine that churns out the money-grabbers of tomorrow. This is true. Tisch is not about being better at your specific brand of art- it's about learning how to make money off it. You know what? I like money. I like it a lot. I don't mind being churned into someone with the ability to make money doing something I actually like. It's much better than being churned into a dude who, yes, knows everything about Proust, but also lives on some dude's roof, drinking 40s and writing really shitty poetry. It's also much better than being this dude I know named Azel who just blows ketamine all day and talks about the bougiosie and the rise of the working class as if he's an actual member of the proletariat. Dear Azel, you have to have a job to be a member of the proletariat.






So, as you can see, the machine isn't always bad. Sometimes it provides nice couches and free food. There will always be a level of bullshit. That's a given. But, hey, at least you're cool. So, all in all: sometimes, my friends, just sometimes there is such thing as a free lunch.

***I would like to omit the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television from the list of NYU schools without hippie douchebags. That department is full of douchebags. If you want further proof I'll send you some guy's personal essay I had to read in freshman english about how Quinten Tarantino changed this dude's world.