Eugene Lang College

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Please tell me someone has heard of this (ridiculously small) school. If so, could you offer any opinions at all on it? I'm particularly interested in their writing program, but I can't decide if it would be the greatest or worst thing in the world for me.

I don't have anything in common at all with football-watching school-sports-supporting fratboys, but I also have a feeling that if I go to a school like this (which is smaller than my high school) I'll later regret missing out on the "college experience."

― Lee is Free (Lee is Free), Monday, 26 December 2005 06:30 (twenty years ago)

i took some writing classes at the new school, but it was over a decade ago so my info isn't the most up-to-date. anyway, i liked all of my teachers, and they all seemed to come from interesting backgrounds. the classmates weren't the brightest, but that was only an issue in workshop-type classes. the school itself... horribly disorganized and unhelpful and slow to respond to any of my concerns.

― inger lynde (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 26 December 2005 07:23 (twenty years ago)

(i took some non-writing classes too, but i guess you're just asking about the writing program.)

― inger lynde (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 26 December 2005 07:24 (twenty years ago)

but yeah, lang is just the undergrad division of the new school, which is itself a university with a bunch of different schools (parsons, milano, etc). it's bigger than it sounds.

― inger lynde (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 26 December 2005 07:27 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I was referring to the Eugene Lang part being tiny, not the whole school. I've heard that it's good if writing is what you want to do, but I still can't decide if spending 4 years there would be great or horrible. Every person I've talked to has made that comment about them being disorganized though...every SINGLE one...I would think they'd be trying to get their shit together if that's what they're known for.

Thanks for your comments. If anyone else knows anything, any kind of information is welcome.

― Lee is Free (Lee is Free), Monday, 26 December 2005 07:45 (twenty years ago)

My sister went there. I got the impression it was kind of...wacky.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 26 December 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

it has a really, really high attrition rate.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 26 December 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

it couldn't hurt to take one class there and get a feel for the place. at least it's less expensive than doing a full course load and deciding you hate it.

― inger lynde (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 26 December 2005 15:35 (twenty years ago)

The kids I know who go there are either amazing or awful. Ian Johnson's cool roommate dude writes papers about World of Warcraft all day there.

― GET EQUIPPED WITH BUBBLE LEAD (ex machina), Monday, 26 December 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

Joe does not write papers abt World of Warcraft. Joe writes papers about AIDs in Africa and the cultural implications of faggotry in french cinema and shit.

I kinda hated it there; I went for two years and am currently taking a year off. I found most of the kids at the school to be really annoying/stupid, many of them children of wealthy business owners who went to private boarding-type schools before Lang. Classes are small, but you have to be willing to have discussions with lots of annoying people--this is what seminar style means.

I had a few good professors there, namely Ivan Raykoff (music stuff; good guy, very intelligent) & Michael Pettinger (medievalist stuff--dante, boccacio, beowulf, chaucer, the aeneid, marie de france etc etc).. the others varied from "okay" to "truly awful." Beware the first year writing program, mandatory for all freshmen--I don't know anyone who's had a good experience in those classes. Similarly, it feels like there's a reliance on the old stand-bys of critical theory (marx, freud, walter benjamin, etc etc) that I find tedious and annoying. If yer in it for creative writing, though, i dunno--i mostly took music & lit. classes with brief forays into philosophy, science & culture, and history.

and FWIW, the only friend I've kept from school is my aforementioned roommate, Joe. The main drawback is definitely the students. Lame lame lame lame lame, for the most part. Lots of rich cokeheads, trust-fund hippies and snobby over-achievers.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 20:54 (twenty years ago)

feel free to e-mail me with any specific questions though, dude.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

I went there for less than a semester before abandoning school. What was said about the amazing/awful dichotomy is pretty spot on. It has a problem common to '70s-style open liberal arts colleges, which is that because all the classes are open to all "majors," every class, even the high-level ones, ends up seeming a bit (or a lot) like a first-year introductory survey course. This may be less true in the writing program.

Also, it's got a very Gilliam-esque bureaucracy you have to crawl thru to get anything done, and the registration process is frustratingly inefficient. Better than NYU, but not worth the high tuition.

― A|ex P@reene (Pareene), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

I went to Parsons and the New School, so I had some exposure to Lang students, but I don't really know all that much about the quality of the school. It's pretty left-wing, and it seemed to have a lot of lesbians enrolled. It seems okay. If the "it's the undergrad version of the New School" thing is right on, then it must be okay since I really really liked every class I ever took with the New School.

If you're in any way interested in having "the college experience," I wouldn't recommend going to school in NYC, especially not the New School or NYU, where students are more or less encouraged to find their friends and life outside of school.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

But yeah, the New School is all beaurocracy. It's pretty aggravating for some people. I never had a huge problem with it, personally, but I think I just got lucky.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:31 (twenty years ago)

Lots of rich cokeheads, trust-fund hippies and snobby over-achievers.

Throw in emo kids and fashionistas, and this is Parsons too.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

my classes were with new school's adult division. the actual adults in the classes were pretty smart! i think they were just old, rich, bored intellectuals.

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

haha after all these years the new school's bureaucracy is still a nightmare -- it took them two weeks to send out some transcripts that were supposed to take five days to process (although i don't know why it should take more than sixty seconds to look something up on a computer and print it out).

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:36 (twenty years ago)

I only took classes in the adult division - I basically worked it so that I was taking available New School classes to meet my academic electives. Strangely, almost no one else at Parsons ever did this! I was usually the youngest person in the room. I took a really amazing poli-sci class about marketing political candidates during the 2000 election, excellent intro courses on avant garde composition and jazz. I took several art history courses at Parsons (and a couple at the Corcoran), but none of them were as great as the Art After 1970 New School class that I took in my final semester. I vividly recall this one class where a couple stodgy older dudes were just seething with rage on the topic of Jeff Koons. (I'm pro-Koons.)

But yeah, loads of bored intellectuals with cash.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)

and no matter what you do, if you do go to any division of new school:
DON'T LIVE IN THE DORMS.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Thursday, 29 December 2005 02:47 (twenty years ago)

there are DORMS? i didn't even know that.

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 December 2005 02:48 (twenty years ago)

the hunter dorms are the worst...

― GET EQUIPPED WITH BUBBLE LEAD (ex machina), Thursday, 29 December 2005 02:54 (twenty years ago)

college dorms in nyc are usu. pretty dodgy.

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 December 2005 02:58 (twenty years ago)

columbia has nice student housing, no? my friend nate lived in STYLE.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Thursday, 29 December 2005 03:15 (twenty years ago)

really? i heard the columbia dorms were roach-infested and had terrible insulation.

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 December 2005 03:28 (twenty years ago)

perhaps, but spacious and private.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Thursday, 29 December 2005 03:30 (twenty years ago)

you can't generalize in any way about "the columbia dorms"

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 29 December 2005 04:31 (twenty years ago)

NYU dorms are a mixed bag. I lived in 80 Lafayette (Chinatown) for 2.5 years.

― elmo, patron saint of nausea (allocryptic), Thursday, 29 December 2005 04:37 (twenty years ago)

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