nyu gallatin essay

Washington Square News

Guest Essay: Gallatin master’s students deserve better enrollment

Guest essays reflect opinions from writers beyond WSN. If you’d like to submit a guest essay for consideration, please email [email protected] .

When deciding where to pursue my master’s, I chose NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study over a master’s psychology program because I also wanted to take courses in technology studies and writing. As I parsed through courses on Albert, my intellectual journey felt limitless — until I tried to enroll in them.

Gallatin’s Master of Arts program touts that students can design their educations by taking up to 26 of their 40 required course units across disciplines . In reality, students pursuing a Gallatin master’s degree face strict course restrictions that inhibit their interdisciplinary focus. Not advertising these limitations draws students to choose Gallatin for its uniqueness, locking them into a program that is unlikely to meet their needs. 

“I felt so free and had so many options in undergrad,” Mimi Ginsburg, who studied at Gallatin for her undergraduate degree and came to Gallatin for a graduate degree in mental health and creative writing, said. “But I’ve felt so constricted in graduate school.” 

Although the Gallatin website reports some course restrictions , the school underreports how widely these restrictions are enforced. 

As of February 2024, the website indicates that 13 departments in the Graduate School of Arts & Science restrict or limit outside enrollment in their courses. However, in Albert, over 200 GSAS courses are restricted, meaning that they require departmental consent or do not permit outside enrollment at all. 

Typically, departments that permit external students require that they wait until after registration has opened for their students to enroll. However, because most master’s courses are seminars, these often fill up by that date.

“I’m on waitlists a lot,” a Gallatin student who preferred to be anonymous said. A spring course they wanted to take was closed in early December, the day it was supposed to open to non-majors. Luckily, after three months of waiting, a space in the course opened up one week into the semester, requiring them to readjust their schedule at the last minute. “It’s been emotionally frustrating,” they said. 

At worst, these policies prevent Gallatin students from taking courses that would be foundational to their interdisciplinary concentration — concentrations that they had described Gallatin in their admissions applications. While Gallatin students are known to pivot their focus, we should question whether course restrictions drive this phenomenon. 

“The prerequisite Stern course that I need to take, Introduction to Marketing, is always unavailable, and it’s required for film courses such as the Business of Producing and Movie Marketing,” said Caitlin Ouano, who studies film. Four semesters into taking courses at Gallatin, Ouano has only been able to get into one business course. “I was really hoping for a business-focused major, but now I just have more of a film/arts degree.”

While course restrictions imposed by other departments might be reasonable for specialized courses that require previous knowledge, even highly skilled Gallatin students cannot get into the courses that would advance their craft.

Before studying at Gallatin, Londyn Alexander trained as a dancer in college. At a Gallatin information session for prospective students, she asked if she would be able to train with dance majors at Tisch School of the Arts while pursuing an interdisciplinary focus. “Technically you’re not allowed, but you can get into them,” she recalled being told.

Now in her final semester, Alexander has only been able to take one Tisch course with other trained dancers. To supplement, she has taken private lessons and Tisch Open Arts courses, which are designed for non-dancers. “I ended up being more of a TA and helped lead those beginner classes,” she said. 

As a first step, Gallatin should closely track the outcomes of students’ attempts to take courses. Through a survey or pulling administrative data from other departments, they should aim to answer the following: Which courses and departments tend to interest students and which ones tend to reject their enrollment? This exercise, if ongoing, would provide foundational data for the experience of interdisciplinary study at the master’s level.

Next, it is Gallatin’s ethical obligation to make clear in its outward communications, at info sessions and on its website, that interdisciplinary study is possible with only a limited list of departments. For example, in GSAS each department places their own set of restrictions, so Gallatin should set clear parameters before students apply.  

In acceptance letters, Gallatin highlights that certain courses “may be limited or restricted” or “may require departmental approval to register.” However, it is too late to establish this when students have already dedicated hours of work to applying to Gallatin and enrolling, sometimes enticed by scholarship money or tuition remission. The program should know that its vague verbiage possibly triggers optimism bias in students. Saying that “courses may be limited or restricted” while providing an inexhaustive list of those restrictions does not convey that students’ enrollment often depends on luck rather than merit or previous experience.

More ideally, Gallatin should negotiate with other schools to reserve spots for their incoming master’s students rather than leave new students to advocate for themselves and navigate a new school system. For example, having admitted Alexander for dance, Gallatin should have better negotiated with Tisch before she arrived to allow her to audition to take classes with dance students. 

Gallatin has a unique and worthy mission — it is one of the only programs in the country that offers interdisciplinary study at the master’s level. But if it doesn’t make concerted efforts, the program is responsible for misleading students. If enrolled students are to leave Gallatin, they’ll need to apply to graduate schools again.

“If they communicated that the likelihood [of getting into courses] is not high, at least they could say they were honest,” Alexander said.

WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.

Contact Eliane Mitchell at [email protected] .

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4 Great “Why NYU?” Essay Examples

New York University is a selective university in the heart of NYC. Its top academic programs and location make it a highly-desirable college, and only a select few of over 85,000 applicants were accepted last year.

It’s clear that writing a strong essay is vital to standing out and demonstrating your interest in NYU. In this post, we’ll go over NYU’s main supplemental essay prompt from previous years, and what admissions officers are looking for. Then, we’ll share essays from real applicants, analyzing what they did well, and what they could’ve improved. Note that the supplemental prompt has changed for the 2022-2023 cycle.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our NYU essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts. 

“Why NYU?” Supplemental Essay Prompt

We would like to know more about your interest in nyu. what motivated you to apply to nyu why have you applied or expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, and or area of study if you have applied to more than one, please also tell us why you are interested in these additional areas of study or campuses. we want to understand – why nyu (400 words).

This prompt is a classic example of the “ Why this College? ” supplemental essay. This essay aims to better gauge your interest in the school, and how you might fit with the campus community. You’ll need to research NYU’s opportunities and point out how they support your goals and interests.

A common mistake students make is to cite general aspects of the college that apply to many other schools. You may want to go to NYU because of NYC, but why do you want to be in NYC? Is it because of the fashion industry opportunities? Is there a special internship that NYU offers with companies in Manhattan?

You should aim to get granular and cite resources unique to NYU. This shows that you’ve reflected on your potential role in the NYU community, and are certain that it’s a fitting place to pursue your education.

Essay Example #1

My mother never takes off her Cartier necklace that my father gave her 10 years ago on their anniversary. As a child, I didn’t fully understand this attachment. However, on my 15th birthday, my aunt gifted me a ring, which was uniquely designed and made up of three rings linked together. Wearing it every day and making sure I would never lose it, I didn’t treat it like my easily replaceable childhood necklaces; it was my piece of luxury. This sparked my deep curiosity for the luxury world. The niche strives to provide the finest and most memorable experiences, as equally as my Japanese attention to detail and my French appreciation towards aesthetic beauty. In a constantly shifting environment, I learned that luxury chases timeless excellence.

NYU Stern’s BS in business and a co-concentration in management and marketing will fully immerse me in the business side of luxury fashion that I aim to pursue a future career in. The luxury marketing track, offered only by NYU, will enable me to assemble the most suited classes to reflect my interests. Specifically, NYU Stern’s exciting electives such as The Dynamics of the Fashion Industry seminar and Brand Strategy & Planning will encourage me to develop the skills that I was introduced to and grew keen on when running a virtual sustainable fashion auction.

As someone who has moved around from Paris to Tokyo, to Chicago and now Athens, I thrive in meeting and collaborating with others from diverse backgrounds. The school’s strong global outlook, demonstrated through Stern’s International Business Exchange Program, further sets NYU apart for me, as it is crucial to building essential soft skills. This opportunity allows me to experience new cultural approaches to luxury business which I can bring back with me to New York, and therefore push me to become a well-rounded business student. Similarly, I am excited to take part in the array of student clubs offered, such as the Luxury and Retail Association (LARA), which I learned about after connecting with and talking to current students. Seeing past talks from employers of companies like Conde Nast, I am eager to learn outside of the classroom from future speakers. 

Finding myself in new situations constantly, I always seek new challenges and explorations – to me, it is clear that NYU Stern will push me to create the finest and most unique learning experiences of timeless excellence.

What the Essay Did Well

This essay has an amazing introduction paragraph. It doesn’t mention anything about NYU or what this student is planning on studying, which is what makes it so intriguing. The reader doesn’t know where this student is headed after making such a seemingly unrelated statement about jewelry, but we want to find out. 

Not only does this essay immediately capture the reader’s attention, it maintains a succinct and direct tone that helps the reader effortlessly flow from one paragraph to the next. The student chose to include three opportunities at NYU that excite them and fully elaborate on them. This serves as an excellent example of more is less. 

We aren’t bombarded with a laundry list of classes, professors, and clubs the student wants to take. Instead, the student took a focused approach and described why they were excited by each offering they highlighted. Going deeper into a smaller number of opportunities at the college still shows this student did their research, but it allows for their backstory and goals to be discussed in far greater detail.

What Could Be Improved

While this student does a good job of elaborating, they also mention a few key aspects of their personality as throw-away lines, when it would have been great to elaborate further on them. For example, they mention running a virtual sustainable fashion auction (cool!), but don’t provide us with any details on what that actually entails, how they got involved with it, what they enjoyed about it, etc. They also mention moving around a lot in the context of developing a diverse perspective, but they don’t include any emotional insight into what that was like.

Although there are only 400 words available, and you don’t want to spend too much time discussing the past, it would be nice to see just a sentence or two that delves into the details of this student’s background. The fashion auction and moving around clearly had an impact on the student, so we want to know what that was. If they are choosing to include these details, they must be important in the student’s decision to pursue business at NYU, so they shouldn’t be afraid to divulge the emotional significance to the reader.

Essay Example #2

“A futuristic way of looking at academics,” the student panelist said during a New York University virtual information session. I reflected on a conversation I had with my grandma; she couldn’t understand how her vegetarian granddaughter could build a career in the food industry. However much I tried convincing her that vegetarianism was the future, as it offers substantial benefits to the environment and can offer health benefits to a growing population with the same environmental resources, she insisted that tofu would never provide the same satiation as meat. She was raised in a community where meat consumption was embedded in the culture, and its production is a large part of the country’s economy. In contrast, I had the privilege of living a few steps from San Francisco, with many restaurants and grocery stores dedicated to plant-based meat alternatives. Trying innovative recipes and products eventually allowed me to develop my own recipes. Upon my move to Nicaragua, where my grandmother is from, I found my food options to be limited, expensive and hard to find. So I developed my own small-scale solutions that did not break the bank and satiated grandma.

An institution that implements forward-thinking is what I need to reach my goals of changing the future of plant-based diets and people’s views on vegetarianism. NYU’s Nutrition and Food Studies program offers multiple disciplines of food studies that I will apply to my aspirations as a vegetarian. I plan to study under Adjunct Faculty Kayleen St. John, whose success in the plant-based industry and her teaching of the ‘Foundations of Plant-Based Nutrition’ in The Vegetarian Times excites me. The variety of classes like Introduction to Food History, Food Photography, and Food Systems: Food & Agriculture will give me an overview of what is available in the food industry to be prepared for all fields. Not to be cliche, but NYU’s proximity to the city is essential for the rapidly changing vegetarian industry. The multiculturalism available in NYC and NYU will allow me to understand the food system and diets of various cultures, religions, and areas. I can explore the extremes of the food industry, from fancy restaurants to public school cafeterias. These juxtapositions, much like the one I experienced after my move to Nicaragua, will allow me to broaden my reach and demonstrate that the vegetarian diet is not something reserved for select groups but a diet attainable to all. 

A core strength of this essay is the fact it takes its time to provide the reader with ample background on why this student is interested in nutrition and food studies and how they have grappled with difficult questions and surrounding this topic in the past. It’s okay to not mention anything about NYU for a whole paragraph if you are using that space to bring depth to your interests and tell the reader the crucial backstory behind pursuing your intended degree.

Another positive aspect is the inclusion of New York City for a purposeful reason. NYU admissions officers read thousands of essays that just talk about living in NYC for the sake of NYC—this is not what they want to hear. In contrast, this essay focuses on the vast and lively food scene in New York that the student considers to be an invaluable asset to her NYU education. This is a time where including New York actually plays to the appeal of NYU, rather than making it seem like the student is simply applying for the city.

Finally, this student clearly demonstrates that they are someone who wants to change the world for the better, but through their personal niche. NYU is looking for people who express this desire to be a changemaker, but oftentimes sweeping statements like “I want to change the world” come across as vague and disingenuous. The essay does mention changing diets and looking to the future, but it is focused within the student’s specific area of interest, making the claim to change the world more determined and authentic. 

This essay could be made stronger if there was a bit more personal reflection included. The first paragraph provides a lot of details on the student’s vegetarianism and how it conflicts with her grandmother and her heritage. What it doesn’t include very much of is how the student thinks and feels about her diet being at odds with that of her family. 

Does this student feel they are betraying their heritage by being vegetarian? What emotions do they feel when people criticize vegetarianism? Why did they go vegetarian in the first place? Probing questions like these that get to the emotional core behind the story in the first paragraph would really help to build out this student’s backstory. We want to understand what their emotional responses and reasoning processes look like, so finding ways to include those into an already expositive paragraph would further bolster this essay.

Essay Example #3

Hacking represents my ideal college experience.

Hackathons give me a special way of expressing myself and exploring my intellectual curiosity. Conceptualizing a potent societal problem, investigating a technically complex solution, building an application, and presenting to industry experts all within a day gives me the thrill of exploring a new form of education I thrive in. 

I’d apply this approach to a larger scale with research at NYU CS, taking advantage of their strong research partnerships with cutting-edge technology firms in New York. At NYU’s CS Colloqium, I’d learn from internationally renowned researchers around the world and apply these groundbreaking machine learning discoveries to the CILVR Lab and the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, both of whom focus on computationally predicting the causation of deadly diseases. Expensive healthcare has led to a history of undetected chronic illnesses for my extended family, so, at NYU, I want to tackle AI-Based preventive care to stop these problems at their roots. 

NYU’s undergraduate thesis will let me carry out my novel visions, with support from faculty, through the scientific process and eventually publish my findings. I’m a “doer”, so I define success my own way and want my college research to produce findings that contribute to tangible, positive changes in the world. This time I’ll have 4 years at NYU with endless opportunities to do so, instead of the 24 hours I get at hackathons.

I’d also want to take my talents overseas to study abroad with NYU while exploring foreign cultures. Whether it be the food, language, traditions, or values in a country, I always love to immerse myself in new environments. Doing so while benefitting from small class sizes, hands-on learning, and local major-specific academic events, such as the NYUAD International Hackathon for Social Good, is a dream.

Equally important as satisfying my academic curiosity is finding my community. At hackathons, I compete with my friends and other participants, who have helped form a bond of inclusivity seldom found at other competitive events. My teammates became a second family with whom I play park basketball, watch movies, and Bollywood dance. 

At NYU, I’d replicate this with an extremely diverse population with different backgrounds and interests who come together to venture through New York with the discounted student passes, plan school-wide events with the Program Board, and form a sense of camaraderie with Residential Colleges. 

This essay has a nice flow that comes from multiple short paragraphs. So often in college essays, students fall into the trap of including long chunks of text on the page, but those essays are always harder for admissions officers to read through. Breaking up the essay into focused sections makes it much more manageable for the reader.

In terms of the content, the student’s ability to tie everything back to the central theme of a hackathon is a clever way to demonstrate their passion for hacking and bring together a bunch of unrelated aspects of NYU. We get insight into how this student handles challenges and thinks through problems based on the way they fawn over the structure of a hackathon. Using one of their primary passions in high school as a metaphor for college life creates this natural progression and makes it very easy for the admissions committee to imagine how this student would fit in and engage with the NYU community.

One of the largest drawbacks of this essay was how it heavily relied on telling the reader what occurred and what this student enjoys, rather than showing us. 

The essay tells us their family has a history of chronic illness, but it doesn’t describe how they cried all night about saying goodbye to a loved one after hearing of another diagnosis. The essay tells us they are a “doer”, but it doesn’t explain the project they took upon themselves because of their motivation to change the world. The essay tells us their teammates were a second family, but it doesn’t include the laughs and inside jokes they share during a game of basketball to show the comfort the student feels with their friends.

Simply telling the reader what has happened without elaborating, or what type of person you consider yourself to be without showing your character in practice makes for both a bland essay and a less convincing one. Not showing what happens through descriptions and colorful imagery, makes it harder for the reader to envision what the student is trying to share. 

If this essay showed what occurred and how the student reacts and thinks, we would truly get to see the importance hackathons have on their life and feel far more connected to this student.

Essay Example #4

The United States is a “tossed salad” of cultural diversity in which New York City is the epicenter of innovational food exploration. An opportunity to major in food studies at New York University would allow me to work with a global community to explore different experiences and opinions with the hopes of developing a sustainable food source in the future that can adapt to population growth. Steinhardt School’s emphasis on developmental social change in particular, is an atmosphere that will encourage me to pursue new ideas both in and out of the classroom.

I am looking forward to taking the next step toward my future with entering university while continuing to cultivate my own identity in NYU’s academically diverse campus. Through the NYU food lab, I would be able to discuss current nutrition and sustainability issues through a hands-on approach in a commercial setting—access to the kitchen would also allow me to continue my love for baking and cooking with the opportunity to share my creations with peers. Not only will I satisfy my hunger for our food systems with classes like Essentials of Cuisine: International and Food Production Management, I will be able to participate in discussions that challenge my understanding of our food system in a creative setting.

Whether sampling smoked fish in Makola Market or hosting cooking demos with Club EAT, NYU’s educational possibilities are endless. With study-abroad programs ranging from a few weeks to a semester in locations far and wide, I am able to learn about cultural food systems through hands-on experience; with the world as my classroom, there is no limit to the knowledge that I can achieve. When I am not examining America’s organic agricultural policies in Washington D.C, I would participate in the diverse extracurriculars that NYU has to offer. From the Baedeker blog and Peer Health Exchange to the NYU Art Diversity Festival—appealing to my adventurous and artistic nature—regardless of the extracurricular I choose to pursue, I am confident that I will find success in any direction I take. 

A NYU student, I would be proud to extend the social mission of advancing innovation through culture as I cannot imagine a campus that would better nurture my development as both a scholar and an individual. As an aspiring foodie, I look forward to walking into the Urban Farm Lab in the Greenwich Village, as if I have returned home. 

A large positive of this essay is how it remains true to the student. This student’s passion for food shines through in every paragraph. They do a good job of weaving their interest into academics, extracurriculars, and the surrounding community, which helps the reader get a feel for the type of person this student would be on campus.

Another aspect of this essay to note is the author’s voice ㅡ they retain an academic and professional tone without being overly serious. Their inclusion of more colloquial terms like “foodie” helps counter more advanced vocabulary, crafting their unique voice without being overly formal or casual. When writing your essay, it is important to focus on your word choice to strike this balance. 

One thing lacking from this essay is elaboration on why this student cares about food and sustainability. While the essay mentions a plateful (excuse the pun) of food-related opportunities at NYU, the reader doesn’t understand what drives this student’s passion. 

They tell us they want to develop a sustainable food source to address the growing population in the introduction, but this essay would be much stronger with more elaboration. Did this student have a jarring and eye-opening experience surrounding food insecurity? Did they grow up cooking with their family? Was there a particular moment or news story that sparked their interest in sustainability? Although this prompt wants you to look to the future, it’s just as important to delve into your past to help the reader understand your motivations.

This essay could also benefit from a more organized structure. There is an attempt to discuss academics in the second paragraph and extracurriculars in the third, but when they should be discussing academics they started talking about baking with peers for fun, and when they should have addressed extracurriculars they were discussing studying off-campus. This back and forth makes it harder for the reader to take away clear summaries of each paragraph. It would have been simpler to follow if the student dedicated each paragraph solely to one aspect of NYU, whether that be academics, extracurriculars, the community, or study abroad.

Where to Get Your NYU Essays Edited

Do you want feedback on your NYU essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

NYU Gallatin Essay

<p>I plan on applying to NYU Gallatin under the second early decision deadline (Jan. 1st), making it my school of choice. It’s definitelyyyy a reach for me academic-wise (GPA around 3.4, maybe 3.5 weighted, SAT comp is 1840, ACT comp 29), BUT I have moderately decent/focused ECs and a very unique background; I grew up in Japan, am a ‘third culture kid’, moved back to the US at the beginning of 9th grade and went thru some pretty intense culture/reentry shock back in my ‘home country’. I am also graduating early by taking classes online and am moving to Japan for six months next semester to work, live and apply for permanent residency. I know that NYU values ‘globally minded’ students, and that’s me to a T. I have a very unique major in mind for Gallatin, one that relates to my background, and I know that my supplemental (optional) essay about why I would succeed at Gallatin needs to be phenomenal and convincing with my grades/test scores. I’ve used all opportunities to write ‘personal statements’ to my advantage (maybe a little too much…) and I’m wondering if anyone is willing to read over the supplementary essay I plan on submitting and give any kind of feedback. It’s long (two pages) and I’m sure there’s some stuff I could cut out. I would REALLY APPRECIATE feedback and am willing to return the favor for ANY writing at all- I’m a pretty decent writer!</p>

<p>If anyone posts willing to read/help/give feedback I’ll post the most recent draft of my supplementary essay.</p>

<p>Thank you!!!</p>

<p>Also, first time poster here, so if this is on the wrong forum please let me know…</p>

<p>where’s your essay? :)</p>

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Additional Program Requirements for Internal Transfers

Several programs have special requirements for internal transfer students or restrictions on when you are able to apply. Please make sure you factor the considerations below into your application process.

• Students interested in applying to internal transfer to CAS are permitted to do so for either the Fall & Spring Semester. If a student has been denied to internally transfer to CAS, they are welcome to reapply for the following semester.
• Students must be in good academic standing in their current school/college.

We do not have prerequisites that are required for any of our programs in CAS, however, we may pay closer attention to courses that are relevant to the student’s intended major.

Exception : Current students in Applied Mathematics at the Tandon School of Engineering cannot apply to internally transfer to Mathematics, Computer Science and Mathematics, Data Science and Mathematics, or Economics and Mathematics in the College of Arts and Science. If you have any questions, please contact your academic advisor.

Students interested in the Data Science major should email  [email protected]  as early as possible for academic planning support.

• The Concentration Planning Worksheet (CPW) is a brief essay and a proposed course schedule that the Gallatin faculty will review to determine whether your plans are academically appropriate and can be feasibly completed in two years. 
• 64 credits is the maximum amount of credits that students are able to transfer into Gallatin. Students who have earned more than 64 credits can apply, but will need to forfeit additional credits once they matriculate to Gallatin.
• Rising juniors (students who will have completed 64 or more credits at the start of their next semester of study at NYU, including, AP, IB, college courses taken while in high school, or other advance standing)
• Students who have already completed 48 or more units, including: AP, IB, college courses taken while in high school, or other advanced standing AND are enrolled in current coursework.
• Students who have already completed three or more college/university semesters at the time of application
• Students in the Liberal Studies Core Program who would like to start at Gallatin in the Spring or Fall
• March 1 - for Summer or Fall admission 
• November 1 - for Spring admission
• December 1 - for Summer or Fall admission (current LS Core Program students only)
• Ideally, internal transfer students will begin planning for their transfer during the fall semester of their first-year.
• Any of the six Nursing prerequisite classes taken prior to transition need to be completed with a “C” or better. The six prerequisites are APSY-UE 1271, CHEM-UA 120, NURSE-UN 70, NURSE-UN 75, NURSE-UN 80, and NUTR-UE 119.

The following programs do not offer admission to spring internal transfers:

Media, Culture, and Communication

• Music Business
• Music Theory and Composition

Applied Psychology

If you want to transfer or transition to the Applied Psychology major, you must have  completed at least one of our core courses  before applying, receiving a grade of B- or better:

APSY-UE 0002 Introduction to Psychology and Its Principles APSY-UE 0010 Developmental Psychology APSY-UE 1050 Cultures of Psychology

We also recommend that you have at least a B- (2.7) cumulative grade point average in order to make satisfactory academic progress within the major.

As of Fall 2020 and going forward, any student transferring to the MCC major from within Steinhardt or elsewhere at NYU must have completed MCC-UE 0001 and MCC-UE 003 before applying to transfer/transition, receiving a grade of B- or better.

The Department also recommends that such students have a B (3.0) cumulative grade point average. 

Music and Art Programs

If you are applying to a Music and Performing Arts program or to Studio Art, an audition or portfolio is required.

• Music and Performing Arts: Audition procedures and requirements are available on the Steinhardt Music & Performing Arts professions website. To expedite the scheduling of your audition, we recommend you apply by two weeks prior to the admission deadline.
• Studio Art: You are required to submit a portfolio with an artist statement directly to the Studio Art program. Detailed portfolio submission requirements are available on the Studio Art website.

To be considered as a transfer applicant to Stern, you must:

• Apply for the fall semester only;
• Be in your first-year or sophomore year; and
• Have completed or be in the process of completing the required coursework.

Students who were admitted as external transfer applicants to one of NYU's other nine schools/colleges are not eligible for internal transfer admission to Stern.

If you wish to transfer into the sophomore year at Stern, you should have completed the coursework below at NYU. Additional suggested coursework can be found under the junior year requirements.

• Calculus I or higher
• Writing/Composition (1-2 semesters)

If you wish to transfer into the junior year at Stern, you should have completed following at NYU:

• Introductory-level Microeconomics
• Statistics and Regression
• Financial Accounting

Please review the detailed list of course equivalencies to best prepare your internal transfer application.

• We will not transfer any AP credit your current school may have awarded for AB Calculus, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Statistics, or English Language.
• If admitted, you may be required to complete additional business coursework over Summer/January terms to meet graduation requirements.

The Computer Science major at Tandon is not able to accept any internal transfer applicants at this time.

NYU's Tisch School of the Arts requires an artistic review for all programs. Please visit the Tisch School of the Arts website to learn more about artistic requirements.

The following programs accept spring transfers: Cinema Studies Game Design Performance Studies Photography and Imaging

The following programs accept fall transfers: Cinema Studies Collaborative Arts Dance Drama Dramatic Writing Film and Television* Game Design Interactive Media Arts Performance Studies Photography and Imaging Recorded Music

*All accepted transfer students to Film and Television must begin their studies over the summer.

Garbage Anxiety: Intimacy and Interconnection at the Landfill by Vasi Bjeletich

Garbage anxiety: intimacy and interconnection at the landfill.

Our trash cans are filled with mementos of our daily experiences. What happens to this intricate personal archive once it is picked up and taken away? How much of it will lie forever amidst the irredeemable refuse of the modern landfill? A different perspective on garbage and on abjection itself might finally allow us to embrace questions like these.

“Actually, the landscape was no landscape, but ‘a particular kind of heliotypy,’ a kind of self-destroying postcard world of failed immortality and oppressive grandeur.”

– Robert Smithson, “A Tour of Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” 1967​​ (72)

( 1 /6) My Personal Trash

I hate looking into my trash can. When I lived alone, I was usually the only one filling that trash bag, and it made me very aware of the physicality of my existence. It felt absolutely deplorable, how quickly I would restock my trash can, as if I were capitalism itself’s most dutiful employee. I had never realized I was such a consumerist! But every crumpled up plastic wrapper, every wasted scrap of food, every clump of dust from my vacuum cleaner, every ragged paper towel and each of the mysterious and numerous spills and the unnaturally blue cleaning substances soaked into them — I was the one who had put all of it in there. I don’t like to see how quickly it piles up, and I don’t like to think about all of that garbage touching each other, mingling , conglomerating . Once my trash bag has been taken out to the curb and closed away in its bin, I hope never to see it again.

The remnants of my days, all of the food scraps that I didn’t finish and the ripped disposable packaging that I used all week, archive the materialism of my own recent history. “Our refuse,” writes anthropologist Robin Nagle in “The History and Future of Fresh Kills,” an essay about New York City’s largest landfill, “reflects our simplest, most mundane behaviors as well as our more celebrated moments.” 1 Your trash can is a detailed personal archive of your recent endeavors, right up to the moment you relinquish its contents to the communal garbage in the blender of a garbage truck. Every time I see one of these trucks, regardless of whether it actually holds my garbage, I’m forced to note the sentimentality I somehow still hold for these sad little things, things which are already used and discarded.  Even though I never want to see what happens to my personal waste, I can’t help picturing my trash joining the landfill, mixing in and becoming indistinguishable from the trash of my neighbors and everyone else in this great modern melting pot.

The remnants that constitute a landfill “are enigmatic, but they are enigmas without resolution, let alone redemption” 2 — the ambiguity of this intimate garbage collage “imposes technical, environmental, social, and cognitive challenges that [have the potential to] unite and commemorate the culture that creates it,” if only we are willing to examine it thusly. 3 When we must consider them at all, we tend to view landfills just as “an unfortunate answer to solid-waste disposal problems” rather than any sort of public commons, much less as our own communal creation, because contributing the materials of our lives like that, forming this place together, is just too intimate for public social convention. 4 Most of us are much more comfortable with an imagined but decisive boundary between ourselves and the rest of the world. The landfill sees something different in the conglomerate archive, something interconnected and interpersonal. 

( 2 /6) The Origins of Abjection

To talk about discard and its systemic tyranny, we must also talk about dirtiness itself and the ways we distinguish between trash and things worth saving.

In her landmark 1966 work Purity and Danger , anthropologist Mary Douglas formulated an analogy between notions of dirt and social systems of otherization and taboo which have come to be widely considered the basis of Discard Studies, a field that evaluates not only the efficacy of our discarding systems but the social otherization which is too often a direct result of our unbalanced waste dialectics. She opens the work by stating that “there is no such thing as dirt” (wherein ‘dirt’ is akin to ‘uncleanliness’ rather than simple ‘soil’) and that the concept of ‘dirtiness’ is in actuality about the limits of social norms and the urge to conform our world to the social expectations which we are still developing. 5 Furthermore, Douglas continues to insist that “no single item is dirty,” or even can be, “apart from a particular system of classification in which it does not fit.” 6 We tend to think of dirtiness as an interior trait, an essential characteristic of the subject, but in this framework, dirtiness and even taboo are states imposed upon subjects as a result of their non-conformity to strict social norms. Dirt, then, (or filth, or grime, or whichever ambiguous name you prefer) is not really a ‘thing-in-itself’ but rather “is produced through its ambiguity and its subsequent inability to be assimilated into existing socio-cultural categories and systems,” and “the constant process of keeping the unclassifiable at bay” is viewed as a beneficial act, necessarily performed by proponents of contemporary social norms. 7

In this way, a society’s relationship to the concept of filth itself quickly becomes the psychological frame for the creation and perpetuation of any ‘undesirable’ social status. It should not come as a shock to discover that modern society discards not only objects it deems useless, but people as well. “We denounce [things or groups] by calling [them] dirty and dangerous” — and that ‘we’ certainly includes myself and you as well, reader, because everyone is implicated in issues of social control, as all of us are inevitably shaped by our cultural surroundings. 8 Adults tend to approach dirtiness and especially ‘dirty people’ (often poor and unwell, which often has contributed directly to their presently lowered circumstances) cautiously, as if its proximity alone is hazardous, often not realizing that we may actually be practicing prejudice under the guise of safety. The first negative reaction to the initial ‘micro-taboo’ of dirt and dirtiness serves as a performance of standards and thus sets a cultural precedent for similar abject reactions to similar taboos; 9 as the hierarchy of power relations continues and evolves, power-seeking social agents will apply that precedent to groups of people they want labeled as ‘dangerous.’ The concept of dirtiness, which is of course the foundation of discard, is itself a powerful social agent, and has too often been weaponized against already marginalized populations.

( 3 /6) The Geographical Shapes of Systemic Waste

Within this framework, then, some amount of waste is purposefully generated to maintain the balance — or perhaps more accurately, the imbalance — of power which necessitates the wasting of people. What counts as ‘waste’ is in part decided and constructed “through relations between centers and peripheries,” where the preservation and cleanliness of the center zone is completely dependent on the subjugation of the ‘far-away’ periphery zones “in the interests of the more powerful center.” 10 (Periphery zones, as well, have not historically had much of a say in being made periphery.) Even within these privileged, centralized zones, though, exist marginalized, periphery people. Most people, in fact, embody an ambiguous medium role as both perpetrators and victims of the overarching system. 

On top of that, it is impossible to deny the specter of colonialism with which ‘waste import’ countries are chosen to become the new landfills of the Western world. This discard system will surely exasperate the archaeologists of the distant future, who will find the remnants of the lives of random Westerners scattered widely across the planet, perhaps preserved in the underground capsule of a sanitary landfill, or sorted and scavenged by the people who actually knew that land. Perhaps it is fitting, though, for the ‘social sculpture’ of the landfill to be a hybridized body, a perfect representation of the unprecedented interconnection of the modern world, complete with all of its problematic undertones. 11 Even in these cases where the landfill scavengers across the world have no concrete connection to the archivists of that foreign waste, “the artificial geography of the landfill is created by all [and] shared by all,” a layered, cooperative art process which serves as a reminder of not just everyone’s individual implication in our encompassing systems, but our connections to each other and the fortitude of human-centric networks. 12  

“Dialectics of this type,” relating natural subjects across time and space while acknowledging the nuances of human involvement, allow us to see things as they truly are, at the nuanced intersections of “a manifold of relations” 13 — after all, “to be is to be related.” 14 This theory of constant interconnection is referred to by Elizabeth Roberts, a historian of science and current professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, as ‘entanglement.’ It “allows us to understand how outsides and insides are constantly co-constituted across different lifeworlds,” mingling the products of both centers and peripheries in order that we comprehend “how linear boundaries restrict our ability to know the world better,” or arguably at all. 15 Landfills, then, become an overwhelming canvas of entanglement, connecting us materially through the literal conglomeration of my trash with my partner’s, and with my neighbor’s and with the discard collages of similar and dissimilar strangers, only to be sorted through, taken apart, and compositionally changed by the landfill’s local scavengers. Even after all these transformations, landfills “hold startlingly accurate records of the people who form them,” both on the interiors and exteriors of centralized zones, documenting and archiving modern relationships from the scale of a single kitchen trash bag to the massive complexities of international power relations, revealing our dependencies on corporations and on each other. 16

A landfill could be an incredible and unrecognized resource, developed “through mutations of connection and disconnection” that show us exactly who we are by examining what we’ve given up 17  – “and unlike the people, [landfills] endure” for centuries upon centuries, a tangible archive of humanity’s obsessions with materialism and exploitation. 18

Though it has become eminently clear that landfills are not the out-of-sight, out-of-mind solid waste solution we once thought they could be, if we could rhetorically redefine landfills as social conglomerate landscapes, a massive and artistic coalescence of the archives of hundreds of thousands of individual days in millions of lives, there may be a path forward that transfigures the way that people approach discard itself, rather than launching any more doomed attempts to improve a misdirected system.

( 4 /6) Our Systems of Discarding

We as individuals are inextricable from our situation, much like rancid yogurt is inextricable from a retired, hole-y towel in the trash bin. Our situation, though — our collective conceptualization of trash itself and all of the systems we currently rely on to quietly deal with our discard — has turned out to be not just unsustainable but counter-productive on all scales. Discard dialectics can provide critical insight into the ways we approach valuation itself, especially as we interact with and judge other people. If the act of disposal can be transformed into an act of communal respect, no longer a shameful necessity but a constructive cycle, perhaps the shift will carry its repercussions to every scale of the waste-value dialectic, from climate change to individual bias.

In the face of popular demands for regulation, major producers and manufacturers of the West have “convinc[ed] the public that litter has [its own proper] place” as a side effect of technological progress — notably, a niche under the responsibility of the consumer of the product, and not the producer. 19 Our recycling infrastructures, under the economic influence of conglomerate producers, “create a framework where disposables become naturalized commodities” rather than unnecessary by-products, “giving [them] a managed place in commodity flows that allows them to be produced at massive scales” without any efforts towards ecological redesign or waste reduction. 20 ‘Littering,’ the abandonment of the mundane trash of ordinary lives, is really a fairly petty crime, punishable by fees and the scorn of children, and can only be committed by individuals. When a person throws an empty soda can into a river, it’s littering; when a corporation dumps metric tons of hazardous waste into a river, it’s either pollution or entirely swept under the radar, but never ‘litter.’ 

Modern discard systems, set up separately from the productive systems of said discard but with the influence of their same investors, place the blame for pollution and its many effects on the individual and how much they do or don’t recycle, subtly but completely removing producers from the discussion. The existence of recycling programs, for many people, acts as a satisfying enough placebo for neutralizing the environmental costs of capitalistic production. In reality, a ‘recyclable’ symbol on a hybridized plastic bottle does little else than promote “a green reputation [for the producer] that makes [their] disposables appear sustainable as a genre of waste, regardless of whether people actually recycle [them], whether recycling processes create pollution,” or even how much material is actually reused compared to how much ends up in the landfill anyway. 21 This logic, “the logic of industrial modernism,” provides an extremely convenient and apparently autonomous mindset which “divorce[s] objects from their surroundings” and encourages us to act freely, as if without consequence, so that industries can do the same. 22  

This sort of separation, however, is completely fictionalized, as is its apparent convenience. The United States (the second largest global producer of plastic after China) has been exporting (and continues to offload) most of its waste overseas to developing countries in Asia and Africa. 23 The recipient countries of much ‘first-world’ global waste (from places like China, Western Europe, and, most notably, the United States, which refused to fully join the U.N.’s Basel agreement, a set of international standards for exporting plastic discard) include nations like Turkey, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Mexico, transforming their natural environments into Western landfills, contributing to their international disadvantage, as well as creating hazardous working conditions more often than not, and effectively pushing their citizens further into the global periphery. 24 International policies are under development in an attempt to recognize and restrict these kinds of subjugation, including the U.N.’s Basel Convention, which “doesn’t ban the production, transport or dumping of waste,” but requires all nations involved in passing around exported waste (including the importer, the exporter, and any nations the garbage passes through) to “agree in writing in advance on what can be shipped, whether for recycling or disposal. Recipient nations can [also] refuse to take waste they deem contaminated,” providing a legal basis of agency for marginalized countries in an effort to avoid coercion of smaller nations into becoming sacrificial periphery zones. 25 Legislation like the Basel Convention which attempt to “[decenter] systems that rely on externalization” demonstrate the critical necessities of “interrogating the power to create centers and peripheries in the first place” and restoring autonomy to disempowered peoples. 26 Solutions like these do very little or even absolutely nothing to limit production of disposables and pollution, but rather focus on human protection and attempt to transfer power from the self-centralized industrial giants to their maleficiaries.

A social norm is already a complicated thing for these powers to set up, but it is much harder to destroy. When any system becomes dominant, the things that it “devalue[s] and discard[s become] widespread, normalized, and systematic,” even in the face of popular social opposition. 27 The strength of a system that is already in place is exponentially more than any theoretical alternative, simply because it is already there. When any system is large enough, it can easily swallow those who do not wish to participate; i.e., no matter how much you believe in recycling and religiously sort your plastics, the recycling plant is still going to send most of it — by some estimations, as much as 92.3% of it — to landfills, and from there likely overseas to pollute someone else’s resources. 28 The bare, underlying, terrifying truth is that “solid-waste policy and practice geared around the recycling and reuse of certain fractions of municipal solid waste… isn’t working to reduce tonnage, toxicity, and continued growth of materials extractions and transformations,” both for individual nations like the United States and for the collective international community. 29

( 5 /6) Staring Down Into Your Kitchen Trash Can

It sounds so simple, just to look at trash differently, but it’s actually very hard to get anyone to look at trash at all. Garbage “invites a willing ignorance that is nicely revealed in our vehemently vague language of discard,” down to the instability of the very subject’s name: trash, garbage, discard, waste, rubbish, litter, refuse, and so many other euphemistic titles that refuse to tell us precisely what they describe. 30 Aside from the systems of convenience which exist to hide our discard systems (such as the early timing of garbage routes for certain neighborhoods, the large distances between even local landfills and the constituents they serve, etc.), there are very many “tactics of avoidance” that we, as supposedly uninvolved individuals, utilize to separate our identities from the waste we all amass. 31 We have forced garbage into liminality, barring it from the social realm up to the point of absolute necessity, perhaps because we are ashamed to be associated with and contributing to the flawed system in which we are entrenched, or perhaps because we have spent too long associating that kind of dirtiness and abjection with political enemies. 

Whatever the reason behind our shame, we all perpetrate the social segregation of those we see as ‘clean’ and those we call ‘dirty.’ Who can claim to have greeted every sanitation worker they’ve ever seen, stepped aside for every janitor’s broom, or enjoyed the sight of a familiar garbage truck? Everyone is complicit in the systems which segregate us, especially those of us with the privilege to overlook them. All of these systems — the sanitation department, a two-party political structure, industrial capitalism itself — with their subtle ideologies “about separating, purifying, demarcating, and punishing transgressions” are intended to impose order upon “an inherently untidy experience” at nearly any cost, be it a degraded quality of life for the masses, losses in individual rights and privacy, environmental catastrophe, and even the loss of millions of human lives. 32 As long as the power imbalance provides for those at the top, they will dedicate themselves to upholding it and spreading their miserly gospel. 

On the simplest community levels, it makes no sense. A person’s fate, their entire life determined by their place of birth and the numbers in their parents’ bank accounts… truly, “it is only by exaggerating [our] difference… that a semblance of order is created.” 33 Our austere social structures work to keep matter in ‘its proper place,’ creating a regimented, controllable world with distinct thresholds that allow us to utilize simplistic, high contrast logic that sorts actions and people into reductive moral categories. But simple logic does not translate so cleanly to a world of ambiguity and nuance such as ours, and thus the difficult topic of waste is forced into liminal purgatory. We assume, in its quiet liminality, that garbage is for the most part gone and defeated, but “those who work closely with trash,” whom we have also come to ignore as liminal by association, “understand it as an object that exists in liminal spaces of utmost importance, namely, the body, the household, the city, and the nation” — its liminality, in fact, those incorporeal margins to which we’ve shoved it, is what makes it so significant. 34

Trash is the uncomfortable evidence of our system’s shortcomings, objects whose usefulness is trapped in flux, and thus requires an individual in touch with their own liminality to engage with it. The peripheries of our social dynamics, where things do not quite fit, are the front lines in defense of ambiguity, and that is why the subject of garbage/litter/trash is so vital to effective, far-reaching social revolution — and precisely why existing systems and their benefactors have vested interest in the peoples’ ignorance.

Abjection is the repellent result of all of this social turmoil, just as Mary Douglas had theorized; it is “caught up in the production of the boundaries of peoples’ bodies, societal norms, and the self,” and it adapts to many scales, from the degradation of a single unhoused person to the global subjugation of the working class. 35 Distress and abjection are the byproducts of social control, and they must be waded through in order to recognize the failings of the authoritarian logic which constructs them. We tend to think of abject subjects as innately disgusting or horrible, but according to their place in the construction of social boundaries, “the defining quality of the abject [is the way that it] muddles normative borders and divisions, …thus threaten[ing] a breakdown in [the] conventional or dichotomous ways of making meaning of the world” on which we rely to secure our own niche within the brutalities of our social structures. 36 After all, you are only less disgusting than anyone else if you are better able to hide your gross practices from public perception. 

When we become willing to explore our “uneasy relationship” with abjection, the breakdown of its logic is inevitable, “[exposing] the fragility of normative orders” and thus indicating the possibility of an alternative system, one that does not operate at the cost of its constituents. 37 Had the guiding interests of our society been different, if humanity in general had continually chosen to prioritize each other above luxury, community rather than competition, there’s no saying the heights we might have reached by now, or the different infrastructures we might maintain (not to mention how nice it probably would be to be liberated from overwhelming climate disaster). Even in the tragic state of our convoluted reality, there is still a thread of “human creativity and desire to change society for the better that runs through the history of social movements,” especially as they relate to waste; 38 “notions of guilt, …stigma, and embarrassment attend solid waste as a problem [while] other notions of creativity, excitement, community solidarity, and satisfaction attend its solutions” in a dialectical coexistence that “present[s itself] sensually in the visibility and tangibility of trash” and reveals to us the suddenly obvious means of improvement. 39 This is, of course, positive engagement with human-centric values — we should be systematically taking care of each other instead of systematically shaming our peers into subjugation for outside interests. It seems obvious, and in the mindset which afflicts and supports our current system, we should be ashamed that it is not already the case. Therefore change for us, for now , naturally begins within abjection, at the muddled margins where “the boundaries between art and trash, the sublime and the disgusting” are permeable, and ripe with possibility. 40

( 6 /6) Ruins in Reverse

Finally, we return to the landfill, too disorderly to be a part of society and yet composed entirely of it. The collected, archived, and collaged trash of nearly every contemporary society “has created thousands of acres of shared space that would not otherwise exist,” a disregarded public commons among massive swaths of privatized and commodified land, segregated by arbitrary figures in inconceivable dollar amounts and parceled out in diminutive servings. 41 Robert Smithson wrote in 1966: “I am convinced that the future is lost somewhere in the dumps of the non-historical past; it is in yesterday’s newspapers, in the jejune advertisements of science-fiction movies, in the false mirror of our rejected dreams. Time turns metaphors into things, and stacks them up in cold rooms, or places them in the celestial playgrounds of the suburbs…” 42

This conviction is based in materiality (for there is little else we can assume is true) and saturated with ambiguity; in trash, this tangible evidence of lives lived, thousands of experiences collected and quietly amalgamating in a landfill, perhaps we see the antithesis of loneliness and yearn for that path. What if landfills were not just “an unfortunate answer to solid-waste disposal problems,” but a sort of “ruins in reverse,” a pile of raw social material that represented “all the new construction that would eventually be built” in its rampant entanglement? 43 In the same sense that a dump is an archive of personal and international social relationships as dictated by economic requisites, in the same way that one person’s trash can is an archive of their pedestrian comings and goings, perhaps “all these archival objects” of discard “serve as found arks of lost moments in which the here-and-now of the work functions as a possible portal between an unfinished past and a reopened future,” suggestive of real, systematic change in its potential to transform the way we approach discarding itself, cascading this knowledge into the creation of new systems, new solutions of a type as of yet unimagined. 44  

If trash should be uncomfortable at all, it should be for the difficult smell or the knowledge that it will not be yours forever. It shouldn’t bother me to recognize my own trash in the heterogenous and compiled conglomerations of the landfill, because garbage does not have to be shameful and discard does not have to be damaging. It is undeniable that we need systematic change when it comes to waste management, even if only to escape the unsustainability of our current systems. There must be a better way “to live in mutuality with each other on and with this planet: tracing out and acknowledging the messy and entangled relations that produce existence” and define our experience. 45 Why should it not be the landfill, the overwhelming embodiment of our failures and of the resilience and inevitability of human entanglement, that shows us the way ahead?

In the conglomeration of our trash with that of the rest of the world, we must directly face our most intimate anxieties and embrace our connection. Entanglement, though cast as the frightening antagonist to the capitalistic individuality which validates our disregard for the repercussions of our choices and actions, is the solution that stares us in the face. It appears in the peripheries of our socioeconomic systems, at the liminal moments which foster revolutions, and resides at the very core of our humanity. Perhaps all of “the ‘secrets of the universe’ are just as pedestrian,” and the answers to all of our questions lie waiting in the face of the situation. 46

Discard dialectics are able to reveal this answer which we already knew but could not recognize because they embrace ambiguities and they notice the fearless conglomeration of the material world through a system reliant on our willing ignorance. As much as we may dislike them, we are complicit in the systems and structures that form our societies and we reinforce their terms by accepting the security, the peaceful unconsciousness, the self-serving privilege that the system affords us; it is only by denying these systems, by making the effort to look outside of them and to notice and analyze their structural flaws, that we can hope to construct a world as dedicated to service as our dearly beloved household trash cans.

• Nagle, R. (2011). In Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life (pp. 190). “The History and Future of Fresh Kills.” Profile Books.
• Foster, H. (2004). An Archival Impulse. October, 110, pp. 16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3397555/.
• Nagle, R. (2011). Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life , 190.
• Nagle, R. (2011). Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life , 187.
• Douglas, M. (2015). In Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, with a new preface by the author (pp. xvii). Preface and Introduction, Routledge.
• Douglas, M. (2015). In Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, with a new preface by the author , xvii.
• Arefin, M. R. (2015, February 27). Abjection: A definition for discard studies [web log]. Retrieved from https://discardstudies.com/2015/02/27/abjection-a-definition-for-discard-studies/.
• Douglas, M. (2015). In Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, with a new preface by the author , xi.
• Douglas, M. (2015). In Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, with a new preface by the author , xii.
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power (pp. 21). Prologue: “Intro to Discard Studies” and Ch. 3: “Insides and Outsides; a Theory of Power.” The MIT Press.
• Smithson, R. (1979). In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings (pp. 160). “A Tour of Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” “Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape.” University of California Press.
• Roberts, E. F. S. (2017). “What Gets Inside: Violent Entanglements and Toxic Boundaries in Mexico City.” Cultural Anthropology 32 , no. 4 (pp. 595). https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.4.07.
• Roberts, E. F. S. (2017). “What Gets Inside: Violent Entanglements and Toxic Boundaries in Mexico City,” 594-595.
• Nagle, R. (2011). Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life , 192.
• Foster, H. (2004). An Archival Impulse , 6.
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power , 82-83.
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power , 12, 67-68.
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power , 70.
• Roberts, E. F. S. (2017). “What Gets Inside: Violent Entanglements and Toxic Boundaries in Mexico City,” 595.
• Pekow, C. (2021, May 17). “As the rest of world tackles plastics disposal, the U.S. resists” [web log]. Retrieved from https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/as-the-rest-of-world-tackles-plastics-disposal-the-u-s-resists/.
• Pekow, C. (2021, May 17). “As the rest of world tackles plastics disposal, the U.S. resists.” and MacBride, S. (2013). In Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States (pp. 179). Ch. 2: “Curbside Recycling Collection,” Ch. 5: “Extended Plastics Responsibility: Producers as Reluctant Stewards,” Conclusion. The MIT Press.
• Pekow, C. (2021, May 17). “As the rest of world tackles plastics disposal, the U.S. resists.”
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power , 23.
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power , 77.
• MacBride, S. (2013). In Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States , 181.
• MacBride, S. (2013). In Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States , 222.
• Liboiron, M., & Lepawsky, J. (2022). In Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power , 90.
• Douglas, M. (2015). In Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, with a new preface by the author , 5.
• Arefin, M. R. (2015, February 27). Abjection: A definition for discard studies .
• MacBride, S. (2013). In Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States , 238.
•  MacBride, S. (2013). In Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States , 238.
• Arefin, M. R. (2015, February 27). “Abjection: A definition for discard studies.”
• Nagle, R. (2011). Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life , 189.
• Smithson, R. (1979). In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings: “A Tour of Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” 74.
• Nagle, R. (2011). Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life , 187, and Smithson, R. (1979). In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings: “A Tour of Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” 72.
• Foster, H. (2004). An Archival Impulse , 15.
• Roberts, E. F. S. (2017). “What Gets Inside: Violent Entanglements and Toxic Boundaries in Mexico City,” 596.
• Smithson, R. (1979). In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings: “A Tour of Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” 73.

Vasi Bjeletich (BA ’24) is a graduating senior at Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She originally wrote a similar piece for Discard Studies with Rosalind Fredericks during the fall semester of 2022, and revisited it in the Spring 2024 Confluence tutorial with Corinne Butta.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Yuyang Liu.

Individualized Major (BA)

Components of a gallatin education, the structure of a four-year program, degree requirements, study in the other schools of nyu, global study, civic engagement, internships and other learning opportunities, student-directed learning, dual degree.

Gallatin students develop individualized concentrations under the guidance of the School’s advisers, take core courses within Gallatin as well as courses in the other Schools of NYU, expand their knowledge by pursuing global study opportunities, cultivate experiential and self-directed educational opportunities outside of the classroom, engage with civic life both on campus and in greater New York City, and draw together all that they have learned in the senior colloquium, a final oral examination.

Gallatin undergraduates mark their progress by fulfilling a set of carefully defined expectations during each year of study.

• Sophomore Year
• Junior Year
• Senior Year

Students follow the degree requirements in effect during the first semester in which they matriculate at Gallatin. In an Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration (IAPC), they articulate the academic plans which they will refine over the course of their undergraduate academic career. Students consult with their advisers to develop a concentration, a program of study organized around a theme, problem, activity, period of history, area of the world or some central idea. At the end of their final year of study, they synthesize various learning experiences by engaging their senior colloquium, an integrated discussion of several books and themes, from classical to modern, and reflect on their Gallatin concentration.

• Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration (IAPC)
• The Concentration
• List of Works and Rationale
• The Colloquium

Gallatin students may take courses in most of the schools, departments, and programs of NYU--sometimes referred to as cross-school study . Each semester there are several hundred courses to choose from, many taught by some of the country’s leading research scholars and teachers. While Gallatin students must comply with each school’s policies about prerequisites and requirements, including restrictions in particular programs, the opportunity to take courses throughout the University enables them to develop a unique, interdisciplinary program of study.

To expand their academic and cultural horizons, Gallatin students may take advantage of several forms of global learning that range from individual travel courses to summer courses to semester and year-long study away programs.

The School supports innovative and collaborative models of learning that reflect active participation in the communities outside our classrooms; the development of scholarship that is directly useful for practitioners, as well as other scholars; and a self-reflexive, critical analysis of ourselves and our place in civil society.

• Prison Education Program
• Urban Democracy Lab
• The Literacy Review
• Great World Texts

A key part of the Gallatin curriculum, experiential learning bridges the gap between the classroom and the outside world. From global study to internships to courses in the Community Learning program, students are given the opportunity to combine community-based action with intensive reflection, to explore the relation between theory and practice and to develop skills and knowledge that will contribute to social change as well as to intellectual, personal, and professional growth.

Gallatin offers students an opportunity to pursue their interests through a variety of alternatives outside the traditional classroom: independent study, tutorials, private lessons, and senior project. The faculty encourage students to use these learning formats when appropriate.

Independent Study

Private lessons, senior project.

New York University's Office of Undergraduate Admissions supports the application process for all undergraduate programs at NYU.  For additional information about undergraduate admissions, including application requirements, see How to Apply . 

Gallatin offers students the possibility of completing the bachelor's degree and specific master's degrees in five years by taking graduate-level courses while enrolled in the undergraduate program. These accelerated programs are designed for academically strong students with an equally strong commitment to the specific areas of study. The options currently available to Gallatin students are:

• Gallatin-Wagner BA-MPA
• Gallatin-Wagner BA-MUP
• Gallatin-School of Global Public Health BA-MPH
• Gallatin-School of Global Public Health BA-MA in Bioethics
• Gallatin-School of Global Public Health BA-MS in Biostatistics
• Gallatin-School of Professional Studies BA-MS in Global Affairs
• Gallatin-School of Professional Studies BA-MS in Global Security, Conflict, and Cyber Crime

Program Requirements

Gallatin courses, intellectual autobiography and plan for concentration, rationale and list of works, senior colloquium, liberal arts course policies, pre-modern period, early modern period, historical & cultural course policies, critical race studies course policies, independent study policies, tutorial proposal guidelines, internship requirements & policies, student responsibilities, private lessons policies, information about program requirements, undergraduate core requirement.

The Core comprises both credit-bearing (34 credits) and non-credit bearing requirements.

Students must complete 32 credits in Gallatin School courses, all of which contain the letters “UG” in the course subject area. In fulfilling this requirement, students must earn 4 credits in the *First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar, 4 credits in *First-Year Writing Seminar, 4 credits in *First-Year or Transfer Student Research Seminar, and 16 credits in interdisciplinary seminars. Any remaining credits may be taken in other Gallatin curricular offerings, including additional interdisciplinary seminars , advanced writing courses ; arts workshops ; practicum courses ; global and travel courses , and individualized projects ( independent studies , tutorials , internships, and private lessons ).

Please Note: 

• The First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar counts as an interdisciplinary seminar; thus first-year students who have completed a First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar are only required to complete 12 credits in Interdisciplinary Seminars. 
• Students may not take the First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar, First-Year Writing Seminar, First-Year Research Seminar or the Transfer Student Research Seminar on a pass/fail basis.

For Transfer Students: 

• Transfer students who enter with 32 or more credits may substitute another Gallatin interdisciplinary seminar for the First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar.
• Transfer students may satisfy the required First-Year Writing Seminar and First-Year Research Seminar with approved expository writing courses from other schools; this substitution does not reduce the required 32 credits in Gallatin courses. 
• Transfer students who must complete one or both seminars in Gallatin should consult with their transfer adviser.

Students are required to write a two- to three-page essay called the Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration by the end of the semester in which they complete the 64th credit toward the B.A. degree. Students who transfer into Gallatin with 64 credits must complete this requirement during their first semester at Gallatin (deadline: summer/fall admits – November 1; spring admits – April 1). Students write the essay in consultation with their adviser, and the essay must be approved by the adviser.

This essay has several purposes. First, students are expected to compose an intellectual history that describes the trajectory of their interests and education thus far. Second, students are asked to frame a plan for future study, including classroom course work and individualized projects. In constructing this essay, students should describe their educational experiences, the central idea or ideas informing their concentration, and the course work relevant to their concentration. Finally, this essay should be understood as an opportunity for students to reflect on how they learn as individuals and to consider what they find academically interesting and worthwhile.

For more information about this topic, see Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration .

Students are required to submit (1) a five- to eight-page adviser-approved Rationale about the topic or topics to be discussed in the Colloquium and (2) a List of Works consisting of 20-25 works representing several academic disciplines and historical periods related to the theme or themes described in the Rationale. Both the Rational and List of Works require approval from the student's adviser and another member of the Gallatin faculty.

For more information about this topic, see  Rationale and List of Works .

Students receive 2 credits for successfully completing a two-hour presentation and discussion with the student’s adviser and two other faculty members. Both the Rationale and List of Works serve as the main focus of the discussion in the Colloquium. Students register for COLLQ-UG 1 Colloquium in the semester in which they plan to sit for the Colloquium.

For more information on this topic s ee  Colloquium .

Liberal Arts Requirement

All students must complete the Liberal Arts requirement, which is distributed as follows: 8 credits in the Humanities; 8 credits in the Social Sciences; and 4 credits in either Mathematics or Science.

• Some Liberal Arts courses may also satisfy one of the Historical & Cultural requirements, and/or the Critical Race Studies requirement (for example, a course may satisfy the Humanities area of the Liberal Arts requirement, as well as the Early Modern area of the Historical & Cultural requirement, as well as the Critical Race Studies requirement). In this example, three requirements would be satisfied by the completion of a single course. 
• To fulfill the Liberal Arts requirement, students may take courses in Gallatin, as well as in several departments and programs in other schools of the University. A list of Gallatin interdisciplinary seminars that may be counted toward the Liberal Arts requirement is available on the Gallatin Courses page . A list of other NYU departments and courses that satisfy an area of the Liberal Arts requirement is available on the NYU Courses that Fulfill Gallatin Requirements page .
• Please note that the following Gallatin courses do not fulfill any area of the Liberal Arts requirements: Individualized projects, including independent studies, tutorials, etc. (INDIV-UG), First-year program courses, including first-year interdisciplinary seminars and first-year writing and research seminars (FIRST-UG), Advanced writing courses (WRTNG-UG), Arts Workshops (ARTS-UG), Community Learning courses (CLI-UG), Practicums (PRACT-UG).
• Courses taken to fulfill the Liberal Arts requirement may not be taken on a pass/fail basis. After admission, transfer students' prior coursework will be evaluated to determine which, if any, of the Liberal Arts requirements they have fulfilled. AP course credit/unit and credits earned from other similar programs may not be used to fulfill the Liberal Arts requirement.

Historical & Cultural Requirement

This requirement is designed to help students think historically—and culturally---about their concentration work. To that end, students are required to take at least 4 credits of coursework in the 'Premodern' period, 4 credits in the 'Early Modern' period, and 4 credits in ‘Global Cultures’ for a total of 12 credits. While some courses may satisfy multiple areas of the Historical & Cultural requirement (i.e. Global Cultures and Premodern), one course cannot be used to fulfill more than one area of the requirement (in this example, either Global Cultures or Premodern, but not both).

More information about the Pre-modern, Early Modern, and Global Cultures areas is available below.

The 'pre-modern' period traditionally extends from the world of antiquity, from the earliest records of human civilization up to the emergence of early modern social, political, and technological regimes (14th-16th centuries CE). It is common to include under this vast temporal umbrella such disparate phenomena as the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and South Asia; the societies and cultures of the European 'Middle Ages'; the Mayan and Incan civilizations of South and Central America; pre-Ming dynasty China; the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates of the Middle East, north Africa, and Spain. Students of the pre-modern world might expect to study (among many possibilities) Classical Greek philosophy and drama, Ancient Mediterranean wisdom Literature, Epic poetry and romance, the interplay of oral and written cultures, the Han legacy in the East, the Roman legacy in the West, heresy and the institutionalization of religion, the rise of Islam, crusade, the flourishing of scientific learning at Baghdad and Cordoba.

For a course to fill the pre-modern requirement, at least half of the semester's coursework should focus on this historical period. Courses that use this historical period as foundation or context for later historical periods do not fill this requirement.

**It is important to understand that 'pre-modern' and 'early modern' are categories created by Western scholars to describe cultural, political, social, and economic differences across vast periods of time. For this reason, these categories are not fixed, and they vary across disciplines and geographic regions. In other words, while the terms 'pre-modern' and 'early modern' can be useful for exploring the diversity and development of ideas across time, they also invite debate, discussion, and interrogation.

The 'early modern' period is understood to begin in many regions around the 14th century, and to continue to the 18th century, or, depending on geographic region, to the late 18th or 19th century CE. It describes the era from the invention of the printing press to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, from the early contact of European explorers with the Americas to the American Revolution. It marks the beginning of world exploration and the expansion of world trade, the beginning of a global economic system; and the beginning of European colonialism, including the Atlantic Slave trade. It is common to associate this period with, for some examples, the European Renaissance, the Ottoman Empire, the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, colonial Latin America, the colonial and early revolutionary culture of the United States.

For a course to fill the Early Modern requirement, at least half of the semester's coursework should focus on this historical period. Courses that use this historical period as foundation or context for later historical periods do not fill this requirement.

• Some Historical & Cultural courses courses may also satisfy one of the Liberal Arts requirements, and/or the Critical Race Studies requirement (for example, a course may satisfy the Early Modern area of the Historical & Cultural requirement, as well as the Humanities area of the Liberal Arts requirement, as well as the Critical Race Studies requirement). In this example, three requirements would be satisfied by the completion of a single course. 
• To fulfill this requirement, students may take courses in Gallatin, as well as several other NYU departments and programs. A list of Gallatin interdisciplinary seminars that may be counted toward the Historical & Cultural requirement is available on the Gallatin Courses page . A list of other NYU departments and courses that satisfy the Historical & Cultural requirement is available on the NYU Courses that Fulfill Gallatin Requirements page .
• Please note that the following Gallatin courses do not fulfill any area of the Historical & Cultural requirements: Individualized projects, including independent studies, tutorials, etc. (INDIV-UG), First-year program courses, including first-year interdisciplinary seminars and first-year writing and research seminars (FIRST-UG), Advanced writing courses (WRTNG-UG), Arts Workshops (ARTS-UG), Practicums (PRACT-UG).
• Courses taken to fulfill the Historical & Cultural requirement may not be taken on a pass/fail basis. After admission, transfer students' prior coursework will be evaluated to determine which, if any, of the Historical & Cultural requirements they have fulfilled. AP course credit/unit and credits earned from other similar programs may not be used to fulfill the Historical & Cultural requirement.

Critical Race Studies Requirement

The Critical Race Studies requirement is met by classes, across disciplines and intellectual traditions, that foreground race/racism and structures and practices that produce them. These classes will help students better understand how to unpack the racial grammar, sometimes visible and often latent, that shapes and constricts “knowledge” in different domains about that theme. This may entail focusing on how the legacies of racial and colonial violence have given rise to “common sense” notions about race, naturalizing uneven distributions of power, resources, cultural worth, and life chances.

Courses meeting this requirement address how modern race/racism emerged and attend to the flexibility and adaptability of ruling ideas about race in the U.S. and transnationally. Some courses allow students to examine how seemingly group-specific racial ideologies change across time and place, with attention to the ways in which racial thinking has led to dispossession, elimination, and social deaths of others. Other courses focus on decolonizing movements and cultures that have envisioned marginalized peoples as sources of social transformation and liberation. Regardless of their specific topics, courses meeting this requirement help students develop their concentrations by situating different ways of knowing in relation to historical and contemporary maps of racial power and privilege, local and/or global. Courses may examine political economies, cultural production, scientific knowledge, and people’s understanding of themselves and others.

Students must take (at least) 4 credits of coursework to fulfill this requirement. For a course to fulfill the Critical Race Studies requirement, at least half (seven weeks) of the semester’s coursework should focus explicitly on the above.

• Some Critical Race Studies courses may also satisfy one of the Liberal Arts requirements and/or one of the Historical & Cultural requirements (for example, a course may satisfy the Critical Race Studies requirement, and the Humanities area of the Liberal Arts requirement, and the Early Modern area of the Historical & Cultural requirement). In this example, three requirements would be satisfied by the completion of a single course. 
• To fulfill the Critical Race Studies requirement, students may take courses in Gallatin, as well as in several departments and programs in other schools of the University. A list of Gallatin interdisciplinary seminars that may be counted toward the Critical Race Studies requirement is available on the Gallatin Courses page. A list of other NYU departments and courses that satisfy an area of the Critical Race Studies requirement is available on the NYU Courses that Fulfill Gallatin Requirements page.
• Please note that the following Gallatin courses do not fulfill the Critical Race Studies requirement: Individualized projects, including independent studies, tutorials, etc. (INDIV-UG), First-year program courses, including first-year interdisciplinary seminars and first-year writing and research seminars (FIRST-UG), and Practicums (PRACT-UG).
• Courses taken to fulfill the Critical Race Studies requirement may not be taken on a pass/fail basis. After admission, transfer students' prior coursework will be evaluated to determine if the Critical Race Studies requirement could be fulfilled by a transfer course. AP course credit/unit and credits earned from other similar programs may not be used to fulfill the Critical Race Studies requirement.

Additional Study Options

An independent study provides students with the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty member on a particular topic or creative project. Often the idea for an independent study arises in a course; for example, in a seminar on early 20th-century American history, a student may develop an interest in the Harlem Renaissance and ask the instructor to supervise an independent study focused exclusively on this topic during the next semester. Students may also develop creative projects in areas such as, but not limited to, music composition, filmmaking, or fiction writing. For more information visit the Independent Study Proposal Guidelines web page.

• Students are required to submit an Independent Study Proposal form by the published deadline listed for each semester. Students who cannot meet this deadline are advised to register for a classroom course in place of the independent study, and may submit the proposal for a future semester.
• The Gallatin Independent Study course ( INDIV-UG 1901 Independent Study ) is offered at the Washington Square campus only.  Remote independent studies are not permitted. (NOTE: Students who will be studying at one of the  NYU global locations may not enroll in the standard Gallatin Independent Study option ( INDIV-UG 1901 Independent Study ). Students are permitted to take only the courses listed in the NYU global site course offerings. Please consult the specific site course offerings by linking to the site page from the Studying Abroad website .)
• Individualized Projects (Independent Study and Tutorial) may be conducted during the Fall, Spring, and Summer terms. No Individualized Projects are allowed in January term.
• Generally, the work for an independent study should be comparable to a Gallatin classroom course. See the Independent Study Proposal Guidelines for specific instructions regarding requirements. The specific format of the work will be determined by the student and the instructor who will evaluate it. They may choose several short papers, or a longer paper written in sections as the work progresses and depending on the nature of the study, video productions, paintings or music productions may be appropriate. The work for the study should be submitted according to the schedule of due dates agreed upon at the outset, and as with a classroom course, late work may be penalized.
• Independent studies may be taken for two, three or four credits. The number of credits determines the number of readings and amount of work assigned. See the Independent Study Proposal Guidelines for specific requirements.
• Only instructors employed by NYU can be the instructor for a Gallatin Independent Study. All instructors must be located at the Washington Square campus.
• Independent studies are graded with letter grades (A through F).
• The independent study proposal cannot duplicate an existing class, nor can a student take a course as an independent study, unless there is a valid exception. If an NYU course exists that covers the content of a student's proposed independent study, the student is expected to enroll in the NYU class.
• Meeting spaces for an Independent Study are identified and secured by the student and/or instructor. Please note that personal spaces (i.e. an apartment or dorm room) are not suitable. It is recommended that the instructor or student book an NYU space through Bobst Library .
• The Gallatin program is designed for a careful balance between independent and classroom experience.  Undergraduate students may therefore register for no more than 8 credits per semester in any combination of Independent Study and/or Tutorial.  
• Students enrolled in another NYU school are generally not permitted to apply for a Gallatin Independent Study. In rare instances a student from another NYU school might be able to take a Gallatin Independent Study with a Gallatin professor. In all cases, students should contact KatheAnn Joseph for more information.
• Students are expected to adhere to the proposal submission deadline . The completed independent study proposal consists of:
• adviser’s approval
• instructor’s approval
• completed proposal form
• description of the study
• written work to be evaluated

Please note that independent studies do not fulfill any area of the liberal arts requirement or the historical and cultural requirement.

Tutorials are small groups of two to five students working closely with a faculty member on a common topic, project, or skill. Tutorials are student-generated projects, and like independent studies, ideas for tutorials typically follow from questions raised in a particular course. Students may collaborate on creative projects as well. Students work together with the instructor to formulate the structure of the tutorial, the details of which are described in the tutorial proposal and submitted to the Faculty Committee on Individualized Studies for review and approval. The tutorial group meets regularly throughout the semester, and students follow a common syllabus: all participants complete the same readings, write papers on similar topics, etc. At the end of the semester all students are evaluated by the instructor and assigned a letter grade (A through F).  For more information visit the Tutorial Proposal Guidelines web page.

Tutorial Policies

• Students are required to submit a Tutorial Proposal form by the published deadline listed for each semester. Students who cannot meet this deadline are advised to register for a classroom course in place of the tutorial, and may submit the proposal for a future semester.
• Individualized projects (Tutorial and Independent Study) may be conducted during the Fall, Spring, and Summer terms. No individualized projects are allowed in January term.
• Generally, the work for a tutorial should be comparable to a Gallatin classroom course. See the Tutorial Proposal Guidelines for specific instructions regarding requirements. The specific format of the work will be determined by the students and the instructor who will evaluate it. They may choose several short papers, or a longer paper written in sections as the work progresses and depending on the nature of the study, video productions, paintings or music productions may be appropriate. The work for the study should be submitted according to the schedule of due dates agreed upon at the outset, and as with a classroom course, late work may be penalized.
• Tutorial groups must include at least two students, but no more than a total of five students.  At least two members of a Tutorial group must be  Gallatin students.
• Only instructors employed by NYU can be the instructor for a Gallatin Tutorial. All instructors must be located at the Washington Square campus.
• Tutorials may be taken for two, three or four credits. The number of credits determines the number of readings and amount of work assigned. See the Tutorial Proposal Guidelines for specific requirements.
• All students enrolled in the same tutorial must register for the same number of credits and follow the same syllabus.
• Tutorials are graded with letter grades (A through F).
• Meeting spaces for a Tutorial are identified and secured by the students and/or instructor. Please note that personal spaces (i.e. an apartment or dorm room) are not suitable. It is recommended that the instructor or one of the students book an NYU space through Bobst Library .
• The Gallatin program is designed for a careful balance between independent and classroom experience. Undergraduate students may therefore register for no more than 8 credits per semester in any combination of Independent Study and/or Tutorial. 
• The Gallatin Tutorial course (INDIV-UG 1925) is offered at the Washington Square campus only.  Remote tutorials are not permitted. ( NOTE: Students studying at NYU global sites may not enroll in the standard Gallatin Tutorial option (INDIV-UG 1925). Please consult the specific site course offerings by linking to the site page from the Studying Abroad website .)
• Students enrolled in another NYU school might be permitted to join an existing Gallatin Tutorial. In all cases, students enrolled in other NYU schools should contact Kathe Ann Joseph for more information.
• Advisor's Approval
• Instructor's Approval
• Completed Proposal Form
• Description of the Study
• Written Work to Be Evaluated
• Please note that tutorials do not fulfill any area of the liberal arts requirement or the historical and cultural requirement, or the critical race studies requirement.

The Senior Project is a semester-long, four-unit, intensive independent research and/or creative project that students work on under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Projects often, although not always, take on themes or questions with which students engage in their colloquium or rationale, and they attempt to make a new scholarly or artistic contribution to their fields. Examples of Senior Projects include a paper based on original research, a written assessment of a community-learning initiative, or an artistic project (such as design-based work, art exhibit, or theatrical production) accompanied by an analytic essay (comprising artistic background, aims, and technique). They may also take other forms, depending on the student’s interests and abilities. 

Students who have had their rationale approved and have completed or scheduled their colloquium by the application deadline in their first semester of their senior year may apply to do a Senior Project in the second semester of their senior year. The crucial question the Senior Project Committee asks is whether it will be possible for the student to complete the proposed project to a high standard in a semester. Thus the proposal should show that the student is well prepared for the project and has considered the tight timeline for completing it. Students who complete the best senior projects, as judged by the committee, will receive Gallatin honors (which are distinct from Latin or University honors, which are based solely on class rank as determined by GPA).

Senior Projects are distinct from Independent Studies in their selection, expectations, and potential to earn Honors; students whose Senior Project proposals are unsuccessful may consider scaling back their projects and pursuing them as Independent Studies. All questions about the Senior Project should be directed to the student's Senior Class Adviser.

For more information visit the Senior Project web page.

Through internships, students gain hands-on work experience and develop skills and knowledge that may lead to employment. Internships are credit-bearing work experiences in non-classroom environments that enable students to learn experientially at cultural and community-based institutions, social justice organizations, and private companies. Internships provide an opportunity for students to explore connections between academic ideas and professional experiences.

Internships are available in a variety of fields, including business, education, film, journalism, legal services, fashion and the Arts. Successful internships held by students have included:

• Designing Web pages for an Internet start-up
• Conducting a survey on housing conditions for a local community organization
• Writing, editing, and publishing articles for a print magazine
• Collaborating with designers to create infographics for large companies

All internships must be approved by the Gallatin School. To receive School approval, students must:

• obtain approval from their adviser;
• complete a Gallatin Internship Proposal form;
• submit a confirmation letter from the onsite supervisor; and
• complete a learning contract.

Gallatin internships require that students:

• write reflective essays about their internships throughout the semester;
• meet periodically with their adviser to submit their reflections and to discuss their work and learning;
• attend a School-sponsored workshop if it's the first time taking a credit-bearing internship;
• produce and submit a mid-term progress report;
• complete a final project for your academic adviser; and
• obtain a performance evaluation from the onsite supervisor.

Students may enroll in as many as (but no more than) four internship credits per semester (fall, spring or summer). The number of credits is determined by the number of academic requirements the student and the adviser agree upon. Students must work a minimum of 8-10 hours a week at the placement site over the course of the semester. Students admitted to the Gallatin School in Summer 2015 and later may take a maximum of 24 credits in internship during their studies at the Gallatin School.

All undergraduate internships are graded Pass/Fail, except for Embedded Internships, which are affiliated with select Gallatin courses. For regular internships, the faculty adviser assigns the final grade, which is based on the student's meetings with the faculty adviser, the progress report, the reflections, and the written work, as well as the supervisor’s performance evaluation. 

Students should be reminded that because internships are credit-bearing non-classroom courses, tuition and fees for an internship course are generated in the same way as those for a classroom course. This means tuition and fees for an internship are based on the number of credits for the internship course.

Note: Students interested in conducting an Internship who will be studying at one of the thirteen NYU global locations must consult the global site course offerings to see if this option is available at the site. Students studying at NYU global sites may not enroll in the standard Gallatin Internship option (INDIV-UG 1801). Please consult the specific site course offerings by linking to the site page from the Studying Abroad website .

Specific information about the Gallatin Internship requirements are available on the Gallatin Internship website

Private lessons permit students to earn academic credit for their studies at performing or visual arts studios in the metropolitan area. By studying with professional, New York City-based artist/teachers, students are offered the opportunity to learn and perfect their craft. Private lessons are available in a variety of areas such as voice, music, dance, acting, and the visual arts. Unlike private lessons offered elsewhere in the University, in Gallatin private lessons are arranged and paid for by the student.

Private lessons require the approval of both the student's adviser and the Gallatin School. The student must submit the studio's brochure, (or the instructor's resume or curriculum vitae), before they can register for the course. Studios and instructors must meet the criteria of the Gallatin School.

Upon finding an appropriate studio or instructor, it is the student's responsibility to make arrangements for the lessons, including the schedule of lessons, registration for the course, and payment to the studio or instructor. Please note: The student is responsible for full payment to the studio or instructor for the cost of the lessons, as well as to New York University for the tuition expenses incurred by the number of private lesson course credits. In addition, any payment arrangements with the studio or instructor must be made by the student. The number of credits for private lessons will be determined by the number of instruction hours per semester. The student must provide Gallatin with all details of the arranged lessons on the proposal form.

In addition to taking private lessons, the student has two other responsibilities:

• During the semester, the student must keep a daily or weekly journal which describes the student's studio work and artistic progress in the lessons.
• describe and summarize the nature of the work undertaken and the overall experience;
• analyze how the private lesson training contributed to the student’s overall educational goals for the semester; and
• discuss how it has prepared the student for the next level of artistic work.
• Undergraduate students may not take more than 24 credits in private lessons during their studies at the Gallatin School. Included in this total will be credits earned from Gallatin Private Lessons (INDIV-UG 1701) as well as credits earned from Steinhardt music courses noted as “individual instruction in the performing arts” (e.g., Participation in NYU Orchestra, Vocal Training (Private Lessons), etc.).
• Students who will be studying at one of the thirteen NYU global locations may not enroll in the standard Gallatin Private Lessons option (INDIV-UG 1701). Students are permitted to take only the courses listed in the NYU global site course offerings. Please consult the specific site course offerings by linking to the site page from the Studying Abroad website .

For more information, see Private Lessons .

Sample Plan of Study

Below is one of many possible configurations for a plan of study for the Gallatin BA degree. Students may opt to take more or fewer credits throughout the semesters, but should be aware that completion of 32 credits per year ensures the completion of 128 credits in four years.

Courses listed below as "Other Course" may be additional Gallatin courses, or may be courses offered by other NYU programs. For more information on other NYU courses that may be open to Gallatin students, see NYU Academic Departments and Programs ( https://gallatin.nyu.edu/about/bulletin/undergrad/cross-school/academic-departments.html#tripleBox_nyurichtext ).

This course may be selected from Gallatin's curriculum or from another NYU department.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the program, graduates will:

• Learn how to forge their various and sometimes disparate intellectual and/or artistic interests into an individualized program of inquiry and learning that comprises their concentration. Student concentrations should demonstrate breadth, depth and coherence.
• Gain proficiency in oral and written communication. They learn to write clear and well-developed analytical prose that reflects careful and complex thinking.
• Learn the critical analysis of ideas, themes and texts from major historical, cultural, scientific and philosophical traditions.
• Learn to become active learners in the classroom and to probe the relationship between the material they study in the classroom and the worlds outside of it – in the city and in the world beyond, in the domain of work beyond the classroom and in the professions they seek to enter.
• Learn to approach their own lines of inquiry with creativity and rigor, which transcend traditional disciplinary and professional categories and via the conception and execution of individualized and innovative projects.

Classroom Credit Requirement

Enrollment policy & maintaining matriculation, graduate course credit for undergraduates, business courses maximum credits, course equivalency maximum credits, internship maximum credit, maximum attempted credits, maximum credits per term, private lessons maximum credits, transfer credit maximum, petitions and appeals, repeating courses, total credits and time limit for completion of the bachelor's degree, nyu policies, gallatin academic policies.

Students must complete at least 64 credits in classroom courses. Transfer credits and course equivalency generally count toward this 64-unit requirement, but independent study, tutorial, internship, and private lesson credits do not. 

Students entering Gallatin must enroll in courses at NYU New York in the first semester. All students are expected to remain enrolled in each fall and spring semester until graduation by registering for NYU courses. 

Students who do need to register for more courses to fulfill degree requirements, but who want to take a fall or spring semester off for non-medical personal reasons during their career should request a Leave of Absence . 

Students who do not need to register for more courses in a fall or spring semester to fulfill degree requirements, but who have not yet graduated because of an incomplete grade or because the Colloquium has not been completed, must maintain their student status in the University by registering for the 0-unit MAINT-UG 4747 . Students who register for MAINT-UG 4747  are allowed access to, NYU Home, Bobst Library and entry to most buildings. Undergraduate students must complete all degree requirements within a period of 10 years from the first semester of matriculation at Gallatin.

The programs and courses offered at the Gallatin School are designed for students who attend courses during the day or the evening, on a full-time or part-time basis . Students may register for a maximum of 18 credits per fall or spring semester and a maximum of 8 credits per six-week summer session. Please see Maximum Credits per Term for more information. 

The policy listed below may not apply to students taking graduate-level courses that count toward Gallatin's Accelerated BA-Master's programs . Students enrolled in a Gallatin Accelerated BA-Master's program should read the policy governing the graduate-level courses that count toward their specific program. Students can link to the policies from the Accelerated BA-Master's programs web page

Some graduate courses at NYU are open to undergraduate students, and students may register for these classes on Albert after receiving adviser approval. For all other graduate courses, students must request permission from both their adviser and the department offering the course before being permitted to register.

Graduate courses count toward the 128 credits required for the BA degree, and the grades for these courses will be factored into the final GPA for the BA degree. Students should be aware that courses counting toward the BA degree cannot also be used to count toward a future advanced degree. Undergraduate students who are taking a graduate-level course that is not needed for the BA degree may request to exclude this course from their undergraduate program, which will prevent the course credits from counting toward the 128-unit requirement, and will exclude the grade from the semester and final GPA calculation. Requests to exclude graduate-level courses from counting toward the BA program must be made at the time of registration. Graduate-level courses that are excluded from the undergraduate program are available for future evaluation by another degree-granting program. Students can contact Gallatin's Office of Student Services for more information about excluding a graduate-level course from their undergraduate program. ( Note: Gallatin undergraduate students who are participating in the BA-MA in Bioethics program, must request that graduate-level required Bioethics courses taken during the undergraduate program be excluded from counting toward the BA degree.)

For graduates of Gallatin's BA program, 6 credits earned in graduate-level courses may be applied toward the Gallatin School MA program as transfer credit, providing that the credits earned are in excess of those used to meet the requirements for the undergraduate degree. Students must request that their course work be reserved for graduate credit at the time that they register for these courses. The transfer of credit is not automatic, and all courses must adhere to the transfer credit policies of the MA program.

Maximum Credit Limitations

No more than 31 credits in business courses can count towards the Gallatin BA degree. This includes, but is not limited to: all courses in the Stern School; business courses in the School of Professional Studies, NYU Shanghai, and NYU Abu Dhabi; and business courses transferred from other colleges and universities.

Undergraduate students may earn a maximum of 32 course equivalency credits for professional experiences they have had before matriculating in Gallatin. Course equivalency credits will be applied toward the transfer credit limit. The number of course equivalency and transfer credits combined may not exceed 64 credits.  Course equivalency credit does not count toward the undergraduate residency requirement.

Students may take a maximum of 24 credits in internship during their studies at the Gallatin School.

Students are expected to satisfy all degree requirements and thus graduate in the semester in which they complete 128 credits. If unusual circumstances require additional course work in excess of 145 credits, the student may file a Petition to request permission to take extra credits for one additional semester only.

No student may attempt or earn more than 168 credits. This limit itself is a rarity--a student may reach it only through receiving approval via a Petition.

Students may register for a maximum of 18 credits per fall or spring semester, a maximum of 8 credits per six-week summer session, and a maximum of 4 credits for a two- or three-week intensive session (i.e., January or summer). Students may request permission to exceed this load, provided they have at least a 3.0 GPA, no incomplete or NR grades, and adviser approval. First-year students, students who do not meet the GPA requirement, and students with grades of incomplete and NR from previous semesters will be permitted to exceed the ordinary credit maximum only in rare circumstances. Students enrolling for more than 18 credits in fall or spring will be assessed additional tuition charges (see the website of the Office of the Bursar for additional tuition and fee charges).

Undergraduate students may take a maximum of 24 credits in private lessons during their studies at the Gallatin School.  Included in this total will be credits earned from Gallatin Private Lessons (INDIV-UG 1701) as well as credits earned from Steinhardt music courses noted as “individual instruction in the performing arts” (e.g., Participation in NYU Orchestra, Vocal Training (Private Lessons), etc.).  

A student may apply a maximum of 64 transfer credits toward the Gallatin degree. Included in this maximum are all credits earned prior to admission to Gallatin (including Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, Maturity Exam Certificate, etc.), any non-NYU credits a student may be approved to take after matriculation at Gallatin, as well as credits granted for course equivalency. Please note: all Gallatin degree candidates must complete a minimum of 64 credits after matriculation at Gallatin and must satisfy all other degree requirements.

Transfer credit is applied to a student's NYU record according to the following policies:

• No credit will be given for courses graded on a "Pass/Fail" basis.
• For undergraduate students, only grades equivalent to "C" or higher will be accepted for transfer.
• The amount of transfer credit will be based on the number of credits or points earned at the external institution, as well as the length of that institution's academic term.
• Course titles will not necessarily appear on the student's NYU transcript.
• Grades for these courses are not recorded on the NYU transcript nor are they computed in the NYU grade point average.
• Transfer credits that are more than 15 years old may not be transferable. 
• For more information about transfer credit, please see Advanced Placement and other pre-college credit .

Students may petition to waive a rule or policy by submitting a Petition form, available by contacting Gallatin’s Office of Academic Support at [email protected]. In any case in which a student wishes to appeal a petition decision, the student may provide further information and request reconsideration of the decision in a letter of appeal to the Associate Dean.

Most courses may be taken one time only for credit toward the BA, unless the course has been approved to be repeated for credit.

Students seeking to improve their grade point average may retake a course that has not been approved as repeatable for credit. While both instances of the course and the grades for each will appear on the transcript:

• only the later of the two grades will be computed in the grade point average, and
• if credit was given the first time the course was taken, the student will not receive additional credit when the course is repeated.

Students should also be aware that certain graduate schools will count both grades in the average.

To be eligible for the Bachelor of Arts degree, students must complete 128 credits and all degree requirements within 10 years of matriculating at Gallatin. A minimum of 64 credits must be completed after matriculation at Gallatin. Students are expected to satisfy all degree requirements and thus graduate in the semester in which they complete 128 credits. If unusual circumstances require additional course work in excess of 145 credits, the student may file a Petition to request permission to take extra credits for one additional semester only.

University-wide policies can be found on the New York University Policy pages .

For a full list of school-specific related academic policies, please see the  Gallatin School of Individualized Study Academic Programs page . 

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Published May 13, 2024

Home Away from Campus: NYU’s Commuter Community

While NYU students in New York City come from 100 countries and 50 US states, the University is home to plenty of local New Yorkers. Students decide to live off-campus every year, and while commuting can be a challenge, it offers many benefits. Whether you want to live at home and stay close to family, or rent outside the city to save money, commuter students find community and opportunities for growth at NYU.

A Community for Commuters

Mya Sato, a Gallatin School of Individualized Study student, does not live in an NYU dorm and never has. After graduating high school and committing to Gallatin, she decided to rent outside the city to save money. Today, she concentrates in postcolonial Asian histories and political futures, minors in Peace and Conflict Studies, and commutes to class from her off-campus apartment.

Mya joined the Commuter Student Council (CSC) as a first-year undergraduate representative. Now, she’s president. The council advocates for commuter students’ needs to ensure they can make the most of their NYU experience. In addition, CSC offers various events to increase involvement and build community. This past year, they organized trips to the New York Botanical Garden and taken members apple picking. Plus, they hosted a bouquet-making class, student panels, and an open mic competition. “The CSC is my first home,” Mya says. “The colleagues I’ve met and worked with, as well as the young folks we’ve mentored, are all so important to my journey as a human being, leader, and student.” What’s more, Mya met her close group of friends thanks to CSC.

The Good, the Okay, and the Traffic

“Overall, the commuter student experience has been great,” Mya says. “Sure, it started off slow. Other folks had an advantage in gaining acquaintances and friends due to their proximity to the University and other students. However, I find that as clubs form and other connections happen, commuters don’t miss out on much. You just have to talk to people.” She admits that getting to morning classes on time can be challenging. Plus, delays can be an issue during inclement weather. But, commuting has taught her valuable skills, like time management and adaptability. “The greatest benefit is definitely the personal space and growth you experience as a young adult,” she concludes.

Off-Campus Living, On-Campus Resources

On campus commuter students have access to a number of spaces and lounges built just for them. Both the Washington Square and Brooklyn campuses have commuter lounges with cozy couches, computers, and a kitchen to prepare food. In addition, both locations offer lockers for storage. For many off-campus students, the commuter lounge is their home away from home. It offers not only a space to study, but a place to connect and relax. The CSC is always looking for new ways to make life at NYU even better for commuter students. “Here, commuter students always have a space and a listening ear,” Mya adds.

How to Navigate New York City’s Complex Transportation System

A guide to New York City’s intricate transit system and to NYU’s free transportation resources, such as shuttle buses and safety rides.

Community Building Transforms the College Experience

At NYU, Alia Masud found supportive spaces that have helped her thrive.

NYU Campus Resources: Make the Most of Your NYU Experience

Supporting students in their college journey is a priority at NYU. Whatever you need, there’s an NYU campus resource that can help you.

America’s Colleges Are Reaping What They Sowed

Universities spent years saying that activism is not just welcome but encouraged on their campuses. Students took them at their word.

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

N ick Wilson, a sophomore at Cornell University, came to Ithaca, New York, to refine his skills as an activist. Attracted by both Cornell’s labor-relations school and the university’s history of campus radicalism, he wrote his application essay about his involvement with a Democratic Socialists of America campaign to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act . When he arrived on campus, he witnessed any number of signs that Cornell shared his commitment to not just activism but also militant protest, taking note of a plaque commemorating the armed occupation of Willard Straight Hall in 1969.

Cornell positively romanticizes that event: The university library has published a “ Willard Straight Hall Occupation Study Guide ,” and the office of the dean of students once co-sponsored a panel on the protest. The school has repeatedly screened a documentary about the occupation, Agents of Change . The school’s official newspaper, published by the university media-relations office, ran a series of articles honoring the 40th anniversary, in 2009, and in 2019, Cornell held a yearlong celebration for the 50th, complete with a commemorative walk, a dedication ceremony, and a public conversation with some of the occupiers. “ Occupation Anniversary Inspires Continued Progress ,” the Cornell Chronicle headline read.

As Wilson has discovered firsthand, however, the school’s hagiographical odes to prior protests have not prevented it from cracking down on pro-Palestine protests in the present. Now that he has been suspended for the very thing he told Cornell he came there to learn how to do—radical political organizing—he is left reflecting on the school’s hypocrisies. That the theme of this school year at Cornell is “Freedom of Expression” adds a layer of grim humor to the affair.

Evan Mandery: University of hypocrisy

University leaders are in a bind. “These protests are really dynamic situations that can change from minute to minute,” Stephen Solomon, who teaches First Amendment law and is the director of NYU’s First Amendment Watch—an organization devoted to free speech—told me. “But the obligation of universities is to make the distinction between speech protected by the First Amendment and speech that is not.” Some of the speech and tactics protesters are employing may not be protected under the First Amendment, while much of it plainly is. The challenge universities are confronting is not just the law but also their own rhetoric. Many universities at the center of the ongoing police crackdowns have long sought to portray themselves as bastions of activism and free thought. Cornell is one of many universities that champion their legacy of student activism when convenient, only to bring the hammer down on present-day activists when it’s not. The same colleges that appeal to students such as Wilson by promoting opportunities for engagement and activism are now suspending them. And they’re calling the cops.

The police activity we are seeing universities level against their own students does not just scuff the carefully cultivated progressive reputations of elite private universities such as Columbia, Emory University, and NYU, or the equally manicured free-speech bona fides of red-state public schools such as Indiana University and the University of Texas at Austin. It also exposes what these universities have become in the 21st century. Administrators have spent much of the recent past recruiting social-justice-minded students and faculty to their campuses under the implicit, and often explicit, promise that activism is not just welcome but encouraged. Now the leaders of those universities are shocked to find that their charges and employees believed them. And rather than try to understand their role in cultivating this morass, the Ivory Tower’s bigwigs have decided to apply their boot heels to the throats of those under their care.

I spoke with 30 students, professors, and administrators from eight schools—a mix of public and private institutions across the United States—to get a sense of the disconnect between these institutions’ marketing of activism and their treatment of protesters. A number of people asked to remain anonymous. Some were untenured faculty or administrators concerned about repercussions from, or for, their institutions. Others were directly involved in organizing protests and were wary of being harassed. Several incoming students I spoke with were worried about being punished by their school before they even arrived. Despite a variety of ideological commitments and often conflicting views on the protests, many of those I interviewed were “shocked but not surprised”—a phrase that came up time and again—by the hypocrisy exhibited by the universities with which they were affiliated. (I reached out to Columbia, NYU, Cornell, and Emory for comment on the disconnect between their championing of past protests and their crackdowns on the current protesters. Representatives from Columbia, Cornell, and Emory pointed me to previous public statements. NYU did not respond.)

The sense that Columbia trades on the legacy of the Vietnam protests that rocked campus in 1968 was widespread among the students I spoke with. Indeed, the university honors its activist past both directly and indirectly, through library archives , an online exhibit , an official “Columbia 1968” X account , no shortage of anniversary articles in Columbia Magazine , and a current course titled simply “Columbia 1968.” The university is sometimes referred to by alumni and aspirants as the “Protest Ivy.” One incoming student told me that he applied to the school in part because of an admissions page that prominently listed community organizers and activists among its “distinguished alumni.”

Joseph Slaughter, an English professor and the executive director of Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, talked with his class about the 1968 protests after the recent arrests at the school. He said his students felt that the university had actively marketed its history to them. “Many, many, many of them said they were sold the story of 1968 as part of coming to Columbia,” he told me. “They talked about it as what the university presents to them as the long history and tradition of student activism. They described it as part of the brand.”

This message reaches students before they take their first college class. As pro-Palestine demonstrations began to raise tensions on campus last month, administrators were keen to cast these protests as part of Columbia’s proud culture of student activism. The aforementioned high-school senior who had been impressed by Columbia’s activist alumni attended the university’s admitted-students weekend just days before the April 18 NYPD roundup. During the event, the student said, an admissions official warned attendees that they may experience “disruptions” during their visit, but boasted that these were simply part of the school’s “long and robust history of student protest.”

Remarkably, after more than 100 students were arrested on the order of Columbia President Minouche Shafik—in which she overruled a unanimous vote by the university senate’s executive committee not to bring the NYPD to campus —university administrators were still pushing this message to new students and parents. An email sent on April 19 informed incoming students that “demonstration, political activism, and deep respect for freedom of expression have long been part of the fabric of our campus.” Another email sent on April 20 again promoted Columbia’s tradition of activism, protest, and support of free speech. “This can sometimes create moments of tension,” the email read, “but the rich dialogue and debate that accompany this tradition is central to our educational experience.”

Evelyn Douek and Genevieve Lakier: The hypocrisy underlying the campus-speech controversy

Another student who attended a different event for admitted students, this one on April 21, said that every administrator she heard speak paid lip service to the school’s long history of protest. Her own feelings about the pro-Palestine protests were mixed—she said she believes that a genocide is happening in Gaza and also that some elements of the protest are plainly anti-Semitic—but her feelings about Columbia’s decision to involve the police were unambiguous. “It’s reprehensible but exactly what an Ivy League institution would do in this situation. I don’t know why everyone is shocked,” she said, adding: “It makes me terrified to go there.”

Beth Massey, a veteran activist who participated in the 1968 protests, told me with a laugh, “They might want to tell us they’re progressive, but they’re doing the business of the ruling class.” She was not surprised by the harsh response to the current student encampment or by the fact that it lit the fuse on a nationwide protest movement. Massey had been drawn to the radical reputation of Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College, as an open-minded teenager from the segregated South: “I actually wanted to go to Barnard because they had a history of progressive struggle that had happened going all the way back into the ’40s.” And the barn-burning history that appealed to Massey in the late 1960s has continued to attract contemporary students, albeit with one key difference: Today, that radical history has become part of the way that Barnard and Columbia sell their $60,000-plus annual tuition.

Of course, Columbia is not alone. The same trends have also prevailed at NYU, which likes to crow about its own radical history and promises contemporary students “ a world of activism opportunities .” An article published on the university’s website in March—titled “Make a Difference Through Activism at NYU”—promises students “myriad chances to put your activism into action.” The article points to campus institutions that “provide students with resources and opportunities to spark activism and change both on campus and beyond.” The six years I spent as a graduate student at NYU gave me plenty of reasons to be cynical about the university and taught me to view all of this empty activism prattle as white noise. But even I was astounded to see a video of students and faculty set upon by the NYPD, arrested at the behest of President Linda Mills.

“Across the board, there is a heightened awareness of hypocrisy,” Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor at NYU, told me, noting that faculty were acutely conscious of the gap between the institution’s intensive commitment to DEI and the police crackdown. The university has recently made several “cluster hires”—centered on activism-oriented themes such as anti-racism, social justice, and indigeneity—that helped diversify the faculty. Some of those recent hires were among the people who spent a night zip-tied in a jail cell, arrested for the exact kind of activism that had made them attractive to NYU in the first place. And it wasn’t just faculty. The law students I spoke with were especially acerbic. After honing her activism skills at her undergraduate institution—another university that recently saw a violent police response to pro-Palestine protests—one law student said she came to NYU because she was drawn to its progressive reputation and its high percentage of prison-abolitionist faculty. This irony was not lost on her as the police descended on the encampment.

After Columbia students were arrested on April 18, students at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study decided to cancel a planned art festival and instead use the time to make sandwiches as jail support for their detained uptown peers. The school took photos of the students layering cold cuts on bread and posted it to Gallatin’s official Instagram. These posts not only failed to mention that the students were working in support of the pro-Palestine protesters; the caption—“making sandwiches for those in need”—implied that the undergrads might be preparing meals for, say, the homeless.

The contradictions on display at Cornell, Columbia, and NYU are not limited to the state of New York. The police response at Emory, another university that brags about its tradition of student protest, was among the most disturbing I have seen. Faculty members I spoke with at the Atlanta school, including two who had been arrested—the philosophy professor Noëlle McAfee and the English and Indigenous-studies professor Emil’ Keme—recounted harrowing scenes: a student being knocked down, an elderly woman struggling to breathe after tear-gas exposure, a colleague with welts from rubber bullets. These images sharply contrast with the university’s progressive mythmaking, a process that was in place even before 2020’s “summer of racial reckoning” sent universities scrambling to shore up their activist credentials.

In 2018, Emory’s Campus Life office partnered with students and a design studio to begin work on an exhibit celebrating the university’s history of identity-based activism. Then, not long after George Floyd’s murder, the university’s library released a series of blog posts focusing on topics including “Black Student Activism at Emory,” “Protests and Movements,” “Voting Rights and Public Policy,” and “Authors and Artists as Activists.” That same year, the university announced its new Arts and Social Justice Fellows initiative, a program that “brings Atlanta artists into Emory classrooms to help students translate their learning into creative activism in the name of social justice.” In 2021, the university put on an exhibit celebrating its 1969 protests , in which “Black students marched, demonstrated, picketed, and ‘rapped’ on those institutions affecting the lives of workers and students at Emory.” Like Cornell’s and Columbia’s, Emory’s protests seem to age like fine wine: It takes half a century before the institution begins enjoying them.

N early every person I talked with believed that their universities’ responses were driven by donors, alumni, politicians, or some combination thereof. They did not believe that they were grounded in serious or reasonable concerns about the physical safety of students; in fact, most felt strongly that introducing police into the equation had made things far more dangerous for both pro-Palestine protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters. Jeremi Suri, a historian at UT Austin—who told me he is not politically aligned with the protesters—recalls pleading with both the dean of students and the mounted state troopers to call off the charge. “It was like the Russian army had come onto campus,” Suri mused. “I was out there for 45 minutes to an hour. I’m very sensitive to anti-Semitism. Nothing anti-Semitic was said.” He added: “There was no reason not to let them shout until their voices went out.”

From the May 1930 issue: Hypocrisy–a defense

As one experienced senior administrator at a major research university told me, the conflagration we are witnessing shows how little many university presidents understand either their campus communities or the young people who populate them. “When I saw what Columbia was doing, my immediate thought was: They have not thought about day two ,” he said, laughing. “If you confront an 18-year-old activist, they don’t back down. They double down.” That’s what happened in 1968, and it’s happening again now. Early Tuesday morning, Columbia students occupied Hamilton Hall—the site of the 1968 occupation, which they rechristened Hind’s Hall in honor of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza—in response to the university’s draconian handling of the protests. They explicitly tied these events to the university’s past, calling out its hypocrisy on Instagram: “This escalation is in line with the historical student movements of 1968 … which Columbia repressed then and celebrates today.” The university, for its part, responded now as it did then: Late on Tuesday, the NYPD swarmed the campus in an overnight raid that led to the arrest of dozens of students.

The students, professors, and administrators I’ve spoken with in recent days have made clear that this hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed and that the crackdown isn’t working, but making things worse. The campus resistance has expanded to include faculty and students who were originally more ambivalent about the protests and, in a number of cases, who support Israel. They are disturbed by what they rightly see as violations of free expression, the erosion of faculty governance, and the overreach of administrators. Above all, they’re fed up with the incandescent hypocrisy of institutions, hoisted with their own progressive petards, as the unstoppable force of years’ worth of self-righteous rhetoric and pseudo-radical posturing meets the immovable object of students who took them at their word.

In another video published by The Cornell Daily Sun , recorded only hours after he was suspended, Nick Wilson explained to a crowd of student protesters what had brought him to the school. “In high school, I discovered my passion, which was community organizing for a better world. I told Cornell University that’s why I wanted to be here,” he said, referencing his college essay. Then he paused for emphasis, looking around as his peers began to cheer. “And those fuckers admitted me.”

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Chelsea melnick receives 2023-2024 presser foundation award.

The NYU Steinhardt Music and Performing Arts Professions Department has announced that Chelsea Melnick, a senior in Music Education , is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Presser Foundation Award. The Foundation celebrates students, selected by music faculty, who have achieved a high level of musical and academic excellence, demonstrated leadership, and contributed to an inclusive community.

Chelsea will use the grant to create a number of musical theater related projects with students, recent graduates, and small organizations. She plans to pursue writing, orchestrating, and music directing.

Chelsea, originally from Madison, Wisconsin, is a NYC based singer, pianist, conductor, music educator, and music director. Along with singing in NYU Village Voices, she has studied voice, jazz piano, and songwriting. Upon graduating, Chelsea will continue her work as a music director with the Tisch New Theatre and the Gallatin Theatre Troupe. Her recent credits include: Alice by Heart (Theater for the New City), No Guts, No Glory (The Garage at NYU), Cabaret (West End Theatre), and Spring Awakening: in Concert (The Cutting Room).

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