When we filled out the registration form for the tour, they asked what field of study the student was interested in. I put down theater for B, even though she is growing more and more interested in psychology. It may be that theater is more of a hobby for her while psychology becomes a career? I guess at 16 years old it is too early to tell! But anyway, the tour started in an auditorium where one of the counselors from the school gave a brief introductory talk which of course talked up all the great points of the school. 90% of the students get some kind of scholarship. 81% of the students do some kind of internship. They really push internships and how much they help students get jobs after college. The school is a 30 minute train ride from downtown Manhattan and many students intern with big name employers. B was especially interested in the Saturday Night Life and Tonight show with Jimmy Fallon internships!
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| The beautiful chapel. This is the only picture I took on the tour! |
After the general talk we were broken up into small groups, each with a tour guide. Ours was Caroline. I think she said she was a science major, but I don't know which science, maybe biology? She is a junior. Very perky and pretty girl. She made a good impression. I didn't take many pictures at all. I was busy walking and listening. The campus is pretty with some very old buildings and some new construction. There are several colleges within the University. The original and biggest college was the communication and arts college. They also had a school of diplomacy, a business school, a nursing and medical services school and probably something else, I think maybe a school of education. Actually that might be the original college since they named themselves after St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and she started the Catholic school system in the USA. Anyway, this fall they are starting a brand new medical school for actual doctors! I thought that was pretty cool. Hannah's friend is trying to become a doctor and she has to be really careful in choosing which school because most medical schools regularly have you perform abortions during residency! Isn't that awful? So we need Catholic medical schools.
We saw one of the dorms. It looked like a dorm. They do have coed dorms. So one suite of rooms will have girls and the suite next door could have guys. I don't recall her mentioning anything like visitation hours or anything. I guess you couldn't have something like that. So I don't think Seton Hall will ever make it into the Newman Guide for this reason. However, it made me think of Hannah's experience with the University of Dallas. One complaint she had there was that confession was only offered once a week and at a really inconvenient time and place even. So they had separate dorms for men and women but made it hard to go to confession. At Seton Hall, they had coed dorms but apparently you can go to confession every day at the very conveniently centered chapel! LOL. So I guess two different ways to approach the same problem!
One thing that surprised me about the dorms is that the school does not guarantee on campus housing. In fact only about 80% of the freshmen live on campus and for upperclassmen this goes down to 50%. The town of South Orange provides lots of group housing for the students and there are a fair number of commuters as well.
We saw the cafeteria which was huge and had lots of different areas with different types of food. We were in fact able to get a salad that seemed to conform to B's dietary restrictions. We also saw the sports facility. It has a huge indoor basketball court. They are big into sports in whatever division they are in. (I don't ever retain that kind of info!). They also had an indoor pool and a big exercise machine area. We saw students playing basketball and working out. We went into an empty classroom in the business school where she talked about various requirements and answered questions about the different colleges and such. She pointed out various important buildings like where you'd go for financial stuff and where the bookstore was, etc. We went into the library and learned about the best places to study.
We stopped into the chapel. Caroline our tour guide said that Seton Hall was as Catholic as you wanted to make it. There were crucifixes in every room/building entrance. I saw a couple of priests walking around but I also saw at least three different Muslim women obviously coming in and out of classes. I really liked that there was every color under the rainbow in the student body, but no one looked like they were 'posing.' I just remember one time walking through the Georgetown U. campus. Every ten feet there were posters about LGTBQ rights and so many of the students had mohawk, dyed bright pink hair styles, etc. It just gave off this vibe. I did see one poster about LGTBQ at Seton Hall, and there may have been an occasional student with a pierced nose, but while walking around campus, seeing kids going to and from classes, lining up and then eating in the cafeteria, etc, they all looked like regular kids who were busy getting an education. So the vibe of the school didn't feel politically radical to me, but it didn't feel stuffy and right wing either. It struck me as balanced.
Since I have become so interested in environmental issues lately, I was pleased to see that the school offers an environmental studies degree. And on the tour we passed by a big garden that either the department or ecology club had started. I also noticed they tried to do recycling, though the cafeteria has tons of plastic going on. However, they did have a hydration station where I could fill up my own water bottle. So SHU could improve but seems like it is moving in the right direction.
Someone on the tour asked about campus safety. our guide and the woman who gave the general talk (and she had an assistant there was well who was a girl) all said as females they felt safe walking around campus late at night. The campus is gated and there are emergency call boxes throughout. They also have campus police who regularly patrol the grounds. The South Orange police station is literally down the street. Since the whole area really seems dominated by students, it seems like people are probably up and about at all hours.
After eating in the cafeteria, we went looking for the theater which is in the same building. It is a theatre in the round. They were filming an interview in there for a media studies class. A graduate student/assistant teacher came over and chatted with us. Everyone was so friendly and down to earth. That just wasn't the campus either. We got lost in Newark and everybody was friendly and helpful. I always think there is this reputation for rudeness in the New York/New Jersey area but it is not true. Frankly, I think Washington DC is way ruder.
Back to theater, the guide said the college also performs in South Orange's performing arts center (SOPAC) which is right by the train station we discovered when we wandered around South Orange.
After our tour we walked out into South Orange which is literally a 10 minute walk away. Very cute little downtown area. We were freezing the whole time. It has obviously been much colder up there than here. They still had patches of snow on the ground. The temperature was a high of 35 and with the wind chill it felt like 29. And it did. It was so uncomfortable. We had only brought light jackets and no gloves or hats. And we were outside a good bit of the time walking around lost, waiting for buses and trains on windy platforms. Brrrr. That kind of colored our impressions too. And really tired us out. And we were already tired from getting up early and traveling and not eating breakfast and almost fainting from hunger while on the tour before lunch. But despite that major discomfort, I think we both were favorably impressed. I could see B there, fitting right in.
