Stony Brook University Top Questions

What's the most frustrating thing about your school?

Alex

The most frustrating part about Stony Brook University is the opportunity to make friends after freshman year. After freshman year, most people have created their circle of friends and tend not to deviate away from that group, making it difficult to make friends.

Amber

Professors not realizing that every student isn't 18 years old with no life experience

Adam

I'm learning this applies to most parts of life. Some of the people are quite frustrating. Stonybrook is an incredible academic institution with proven curricula for intense study, and is a perfect fit for hardworking and self motivated students. The academic environment encourages personal enrichment, so it's frustrating that not every shares that mindset. Some students complain that courses are hard, like they expect getting into college to immediately hand them a degree and get an important job in their desired field. I'm discouraged and frustrated by lack of ambition and laziness.

Erika

The transportation systems are not always spot-on.

Brittainy

The most frustrating thing is the steadily increasing tuition amount.

tamar

The campus is very large, and the health professions side of the campus is very far and isolated from the undergraduate and graduate programs side. The social activities are not on the same part of the campus, so if you're a health sciences student, you basically are isolated from students and activities in other academic focus areas than health science.

james

There is a lack of connection between the professors and students. Besides a few set of very intelligent professors, the majority of the teaching staff tend to stick themself and are often times hard to contact.

Deanna

The transportation is horrible. Buses are never on time and are completely unreliable. The absolute worse part is the amount of cuts to all programs except science and engineering majors. Although the budget cuts have hit everyone hard, the only ones suffering are the social sciences.

Jaclyn

Stony Brook is a very large school, which mean very large lecture hall classes. It is sometimes frustrating to be in such a large class because you don't get as much individualized instruction. Also, you don't get to meet and interact with your classmates as much in a large lecture than in a small class.

Samara

Hard classes

Jaslin

The most frustating thing about my college is its inactive student body. Very few people compared to more than 20,000 students take active pursuit in athletics. Most of the throng either prefers to be in their dorms or studying in the library. In addition to that, I would say that even though the school made an attempt to make mathematics less daunting by making Math Learning Center (tutoring center provided by Teacher's Assistants in campus), there is a problem in the availibilty of more TAs and half of them fail to come on time.

Mohammed

Although the school is very diversed, there is still a lack of clash of the different cultural groups. After living on campus, I have noticed that many of the same or similar cultural groups tend to stick together rather hanging out with other races.

Elizabeth

Its a big school. Its hard to know what's going on, especiallly on the weekends. Its also kind of hard to find food before noon on weekends. The majority of the campus leaves on the weekends, but its nice to have it quiet for a few days. You need to know where to look for activities and join clubs. Joining clubs wil make you experience at Stony Brook very fulfilling. All in all, the campus can be quite dead, if you don't know where to look.

Jahan

Having little to do on the weekends, and walking in the rain.

Katrin

The campus is packed.

Robert

The lack of academic scholarships based on GPA.I have a 3.9 GPA and the school doesnt provide me with any financial incentive to keep my GPA at that level as the price of education goes up.

Dharma

The weekends are dead, as the majority of students are commuters from surrounding Long Island area, or from the city. The only social scene are bars and fraternity/sorority parties that involve alcohol. The food is expensive and not of the corresponding quality, according to the price. Without a car, access to the malls, stores, drug stores, etc is very difficult, as the free campus buses only run on weekends to specific destinations, and the county buses are late and unreliable. There is no walking access to the retail and food store world off campus.

Nicole

The constant construction at the time to improve the campus

Nicole

General Academic Advising Sucks, go only to your department advising!! Not enough ON CAMPUS HOUSING!!!!

Tania

The most frustrating thing about stony brook is the fact that if you don't drive or know someone who does drive it'll be hard for you to get around outside of campus for groceries, shopping, and acticities outside of caompus. we do have the LIRR stop right at our camops. But, in order to go to the movies, mall, etc. you definitely need a car.

Nick

The school is frustrating because It is very difficult to understand a lot of the teachers, most are teachers that speak with some form of an accent.

Krystalyn

Cramming two days before a major test may seem like a good idea in the beginning, but it is much harder to focus on the subject when that time comes.

Leslie

soo many people in class

kavi

lack of campus activities

Fitzroy

nothing in particular

K.

the way that Stony Brook is more of a place of business than a learning institution. They find every way imaginable to rob their students of money from the meal plan points, to any product bought at the bookstore and/ or seawolves marketplace.

Zachary

The large classroom sizes for introductory classes in the physical sciences are designed to weed out those without the drive to independently learn, and as such, cause the learning experience of all students to suffer.

Elizabeth

There is a lot of red tape to go through administration-wise.

Anna

Lack of school involvment.

Samantha

Large lecture halls. Must dedicate time to teach yourself. Too large.

Michael

Campus life tends to be pretty dead on the weekends unless you find something to do. Also, the variety of food on campus tends to get pretty old.

Andrew

The most frustrating thing about Stony Brook University is selecting courses and housing. This is probably due to the fact that Stony Brook has such a large population, it is difficult to accomodate everyone. Classes usually fill quickly and on campus housing is often limited.

jane

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Rachel

Parking for commuters, rising tuition

Suzanne

The school itself is very large, and some of the class sizes reflect that as well. Also, it is sometimes hard to get around off campus because of the bus schedules or the lack of transportation.

Alisha

My school is too big. Class sizes are too large to get to know any of your professors. Very few of them know my name. It's also very hard to meet people unless you are part of a club or sport on campus.

Greg

Course load, large classes, lack of people caring, just being a face in the crowd.

Paul

Everyone goes home on the weekends. If you are from out of state, you will have no social life. The campus is usually dead all the time. Students come here only to work and have no social lives.

Brady

Each ethnic group will ONLY associate with other members of that ethnic group.

Catherine

The most frustrating thing about my school is that it is a ghost town on weekends. Many of the students live two hours by train away from campus and we have the Long Island Rail Road in our school so it is easily accessible for people to go home on the weekends. People have to stop going home on the weekends so there is more of a social life on campus.

Jacqueline

I think the most frustrating thing is that as a physics/mathematics major alot of the students and professors are somewhat pretentious which makes someone feel ashamed of they don't understand a certain concept. I feel discouraged from attending extra help sessions (when they are infrequently offered) because of this. The "help rooms" are over crowded and understaffed which makes them a waste of time.

Ashley

TRANSFERRING.