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- Hey guys, what's up? I'm Matthew Friend.
I'm a junior here at NYU, I'm from Chicago,
I go to the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study,
and I'm studying political satire, comedy,
acting, and the entertainment business.
Welcome to NYU.
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- [Interviewer] So, where are we now?
- Right now we're in Washington Square Park
in downtown Manhattan, it is an incredibly
vibrant area, kind of the center of NYU.
- So what is it like going to school
in the biggest city in the US?
- Well, I think that it's a very
sort of adult experience and I think it takes
sort of a mature kind of personality to go to school here
because you are sort of put into
a major city and you have to,
you're living in the city, you're living
in a dorm in the city or an apartment or whatever.
So it's definitely kind of a real-world, adult experience.
- So the campus of NYU, does it really have a campus?
- It's interesting to me when people say that NYU
has no campus because I very much feel that
there's an extreme sense of vibrancy along
the area that we're in right now, Washington Square Park.
There's Bobst Library over there,
the Kimmel Center for Student Life and then
Tisch, Stern, Gallatin, all of these
different schools are kind of within this
very close area or proximity to each other.
So I kind of consider Washington Square Park
to be our quad, and it very much
to me does feel like a campus--
- Oh yeah, I mean, you've got students walking around,
you've got people studying here, so.
Okay, so, I guess, what are the biggest benefits of being
in the city and what are kind of some of the drawbacks?
- You know, for me, I really don't see a lot of drawbacks
other than, if you kind of want that smaller kind of
college experience where everything is sort of,
I don't want to say isolated but kind of--
- But you are not isolated here?
- Don't feel any sort of isolation at all,
it's really the opposite, it's extremely freeing.
I just love, I'm a city kid, I grew up
in the city of Chicago so I naturally love
kind of living in the city amongst a lot of people
and different kinds of people, and there's just
so much to do and I think that's the best part of NYU
because you can literally never get bored.
You're in Manhattan, you're in the greatest city
in the world, sorry to my Chicago friends.
But yeah, just an incredible place.
There's definitely parties on campus that you can go to,
bars, if you're of age,
and yeah, there's just literally so much to do.
Plays to see, Broadway, there's student shows,
I was in a play last semester, which we can talk about.
So yeah, there's no shortage of things to do here.
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We're here at the Kimmel Center for Student Life,
it's a great place to hang out, catch an incredible
view of Washington Square Park.
There's also a lot of auditions that take place
for various comedy and performance groups,
rehearsals can take place here, you can eat here
get coffee, whatever, just a really great place
to hang out and catch a good view.
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So this is my room, I love having a single.
It's about a five, six minute walk to class,
really close to Washington Square Park, too.
So just pretty centrally located along
the campus and very convenient for me.
I have a kitchen as well, so I can make
omelets in the morning or whatever, smoothies.
So yeah, everything's really kind of
great, great accommodations here.
Like I mentioned, I do a lot of comedy
and stand-up comedy throughout the city
and here on campus and NYU, but one of the
things that I do is I make a lot of YouTube videos
for my channel, MatturdayNightLive, very creative, I know.
And I do that here kind of in my dorm room set up,
my microphone, computer, headphones, that's pretty much it.
This is Barack Obama and I'm here making a YouTube
video for The Crimson, it's a great
company, you should check it out.
And here we are (chuckles). Okay.
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Hey guys, what's up?
We're outside of the Gallatin School
of Individualized Study, it's a school where
students who have kind of two or three interests
can combine them and develop their own concentration,
as opposed to one singular major.
So it's really great if you have kind of
interests on varying ends of the spectrum,
and you wanna just kind of merge them together.
It's a really great place to learn.
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- The Gallatin School, what is it?
- I don't know. No, I'm kidding.
No, so basically it's called the
Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
So really for students who have two or three interests,
they can kind of merge them and create their own
unique concentration as opposed to
a traditional college major.
- And this is unique to NYU?
- Unique to NYU, yeah, there's really nothing like it.
And there's a lot of kind of lingo and terminology
that's used, that I can kind of explain
as we go on, but it's very unique.
- So what is your program in the Gallatin School?
- So with the help of my academic advisor,
I'm creating a concentration along the lines of
political satire, comedy, acting
and the entertainment business.
So basically the way it works is, you can choose
from any number of courses within the entire school.
So if you want to take a Stern business class
or a music class, or an art class, whatever you want.
- And you just to have to justify how it fits into--
- Right. So basically, at the beginning of each semester,
students have to create a plan of study,
and they basically have to justify what they
want to enroll in, which classes they want to take
and kind of write out what they're thinking.
And by the end of sophomore year, students
are required to write what's known as the IAPC,
the Intellectual Autobiography and Plan for Concentration,
which is an essay that you work
with kind of with your advisor, defining
who are you, how you learn, why you learn,
what you're interested in learning about?
How are you going to historicize your concentration
related to the different kind of
requirements that Gallatin has?
- Gotcha. So when you graduate,
what is your degree gonna say?
- Well, what Gallatin culminates in, you will
ultimately have a book list, like about 20 to 25 books,
of your readings and texts that you've kind of
acquired throughout your time here.
And then you have to write a colloquium,
or you have your senior colloquium, where
you basically have a conversation with faculty
advisors and professors on what you've studied
for the past four years, and it's sort of like
defending your thesis--
- [Interviewer] Oh, that's intense.
- write a paper and really get into
really just gotta know what you have been studying.
- Is Gallatin why you chose NYU?
- Yeah, very much so.
It's just kind of the perfect place for me
because I'm someone who has their interests
in kind of a similar area, political science,
comedy, performance, but there's
really nothing like this place
to be able to not only combine my interests
in an academic setting but then also make use of that,
and go into the real world, which is New York City,
and kind of implement what I'm studying.
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- So you transferred from Tufts to NYU,
what was that transition like?
- You know, it was a really easy transition for me.
I found that coming to New York was just,
there's so much to do and so much to immerse yourself in.
I think that with NYU particularly, you have to
really be willing to put yourself out there.
Not stay in your dorm room, you have to really
meet people, be willing to kind of go outside
your comfort zone a little bit and do things
maybe that you're not necessarily used to.
And I think that for me, the transition was pretty easy
because I was willing to meet people, kind of
try different things at NYU and put myself out there.
- Was NYU what you expected or have there been things
that have sort of been unexpected,
that have kind of surprised you?
- Yeah, you know, I sort of expected
the very adult-like experience that
was gonna happen when I came to NYU,
because I knew I was gonna be living in a city now
and no longer on a college campus where everything
is kind of isolated and you kind of see
the same faces everyday, even though I still do
have that experience, but it's pretty much
what I expected, and even better than I expected.
I mean, I didn't really realize how fun
of a place this would be, there's
just so much to immerse myself in.
I mean, the best part about NYU,
for me, is that you can't get bored.
- So you're in sort of an unusual
program at NYU, and more broadly.
So do you have any advice for students who
are thinking about applying to the Gallatin School
or another program like it somewhere?
- Yeah, I think if you're interested in Gallatin,
it's really great for a specific kind of person
who has really two or three kind of clear interests
and they want to not necessarily give up
one of those interests, they want to pursue them both
and kind of mesh them together.
And it's really great for a person who has
a clear view of what they want to do
kind of professionally and out in the world.
And I think that what's so great about
Gallatin and NYU, but Gallatin specifically, is that,
someone mentioned, one person that I know,
you really have a foot kind of in the college experience,
but you also have another foot into the real world.
- Oh okay, that makes a lot of sense.
It's very kind of career oriented, almost.
- Career oriented but, I mean, there's incredible
internship opportunities, incredible
connections that NYU has to offer.
What I love about about this experience is that,
like I said, one foot in the real world,
one foot kind of in the traditional college experience.
I think it's a great kind of balance to
have at this kind of young age.
- If you could go back and give one piece
of advice to your high school self, what would it be?
- I would say, for me it would be kind of
just start to pursue the things that I really love
to do, and not that I feel like I have to do.
I think I found that kind of in my high school experience,
I was doing some extracurricular things that might
look good for a college application, or I was just
kind of focused on resume building,
and in hindsight I think that you should just
kind of just always live your life based on,
this is what I really want to do, this is why,
I'm doing this for a reason, and I think that
will ultimately reflect really well on,
when you are applying to college.
And also just kind of to step back
during the process and be like,
okay well what is it that I want, what location do I want?
Not where I feel like I'm supposed to be,
just kind of reflect on what is it
that I want and where should I be?
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Like I said, there's no shortage of things
to do here at NYU and in New York City.
You just kind of keep moving forward,
like I'm gonna do to this cube.
Okay, a little hard to move, but if you enjoyed this video,
please like, share, and subscribe.
I'm Matthew Friend, with The Crimson, signing off.
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(person grunting)
- Oh, I'm pulling, I'm pulling.
- [Matthew] We going?
(person grunting)
- [Interviewer] Go cube.
- [Bystander] Keep going, keep going,
don't stop, don't stop.
(grunting and chuckling)
- [Matthew] Oh my, God, dude this is absurd.
- Oh he's doing great, he's doing great.