The Graduate Center, CUNY

Hosting events here has been the most fulfilling part of my life, it’s like the Olive Garden but when you’re here you’re really family.

The doctoral programs are VERY difficult… they have no sympathy for full-​time workers, so I suggest if you get into any of these difficult programs make sure you are not working full-​time. The school its self feels like a hospital without windows, with the amount of money CUNY has they should really make this school feel like a school. If it wasn’t for the cost I wouldn’t recommend it but you just can’t beat the price for a PHD.

Aww… the first time I wrote a review for the GC, I was a fresh-​faced doctor of public health student. Now, over four years later, I’m two shakes away from being ABD as a level II doctoral student (passed my comp exam in September! !), and my love for many facets of this institution still ring true. There are some caveats to that naïve love I felt so long ago that only experience can compromise, but nothing that would prevent me from recommending my program and this school as a highly affordable, top choice for doctoral education in NYC.
The building is gorgeous and so is the location (go to an event in the Skylight Room on the 9^th floor and you’ll get a view you never imagined of the beautifully famous Empire State Building). The security is tight as it should be (this is not a tourist destination, it’s a place to learn). It’s an awesome place… but as this is a review update, let me add some points that build on my original review:
1.) The café as soon as you walk by security isnt open past 6:30 and only takes cash. The hot food is often unique (sauteed plantains with nicely seasoned beef… a welcome surprise one afternoon two years ago). Luckily, if a card is all you have, remember you’re in midtown and coffee and energy-​yielding nutrients are only a step away from the GC.
2.) In my first year and a half here, I felt like navigating through the halls to find a classroom was like an Escher painting (if you don’t know what I mean, Google it for a perfect visual). Programs generally use a small group of classrooms consistently so you’ll get your bearings before it’s time for your comps.
3.) You can almost count on someone printing out a «War and Peace» sized document in the printers on C level and the 2^nd level of the library when you have to print an article for class and class starts in 15 minutes. And yes, it will jam. It will be out of paper. It will be out of toner. I do wish we had better printing capabilites (printing caps before you pay per page hasn’t affected this practice in my experience. Maybe it’s their way of telling us to get a Kindle lol.
4.) I was an elected DSC program representative from 2012 – 2013, and while this entity is to represent the unified student concerns, like tuition and related charges increases, the meetings and behaviors of the council are often dominated by a few very vocal individuals who do not represent the beliefs or feelings of the GC masses. It is dysfunctional unfortunately, and as my friend is the current DSC rep, it’s only gotten worse. I hope things change when the highly opinionated within the DSC graduate and move on.

Pleasant top-​floor café, too.

Philosophy often debates the nature of man. Is man good? Evil? Indifferent? To settle this query just remember that most philosophers would garrote their mothers for a nickel.
This sunny worldview will be handy during your matriculation at the Grad center. In fact, you’ll save yourself from a lot of heartache and dissapointment in life if you operate under the assumption that people are venal and completely devoid of integrity. As a bonus, on the rare occasion that you’re proven wrong, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The grad center offers no surprises.
Let’s start with a true story. A professor there– klara Marton– got together with Sharon Lerner from student services to write a letter dismissing a student an hour after that student asked for accommodations under the ADA. This is a violation of federal law. While klara and Sharon wrote the letter, Sharon tended to another matter– working on getting grants to cover the costs of accommodating disabled students.
Now, Klara couldn’t flunk me alone so Doug Whalen was enlisted to sign a paper saying that my work sucked– only thing is, he never read it. A man who now has millions in grant money to play with committed fraud and may have committed a crime. I brought this to the attention of Adrienne Klein, who promptly wrote a letter dismissing my issue and lied about what I told her. See a theme yet?
At this point, you may be asking– wow, Bill Kelley must have put his foot down right? President of the grad center, subsequently chancellor, a man who gives hope to patchouli oil scented homeless English majors everywhere– this story must have a hero, and it must be him, right?
Wrong. The man hid in his office and did nothing. Bill Kelley– along with Matthew Goldstein– turned in oscar worthy, virtuoso performances in gutlessness.
How do I know all this? FOIL is your friend. But what struck me the most as I read these emails was one from Lorraine Obler; now, Lorraine is no prize herself (she was the one who came up with using Whalen) but one day, when there was a shooting near the grad center, she sent the department an email, writing that although nobody asked, she was fine. That email struck me– that after decades of being at the grad center, you weren’t quite sure whether your colleagues cared about whether you were alive or dead.
Read the first part of this again. Let it roll around in your mind for a minute as you consider the grad center.
A craven institution whose interest in you begins and ends with tuition payments. The professors are wholly disinterested in the student body and contemptuous of anyone who may require the slightest shred of individualized attention. Tuition has risen into the stratosphere, largely to pay for a raft of surly administrators whose sole purpose in life is to keep the riff raff at bay. The riff raff is you.
Fun edit: klara’s research centers on learning impairments (executive functioning and language) and she gave a talk at a federally funded shindig about it. Open mike discussion allowed yours truly to ask if she has any wisdom on those (like moi) who may be disabled due to a right hemisphere brain injury. She looked terrified (she always does because she is unqualified to do any substantive work; the woman embodies white privilege) and said no. Seems she didn’t want to enlighten the masses. What a shame!

Can’t get past security!!!

Yes, you’ll have to get past security to get in, but once you’re in it’s a cool little building. how lucky that CUNY grads get to go to school on 5^th ave.
This great building is RIGHT in midtown manhattan and a great place to study/​work. I’m sad that I didn’t accept grad school @ CUNY: (

haaa I can’t believe this has a Unilocal page! i like the non-​bourgeois little GC, helps me live life comfortably while avoiding the fundamental disconnect of a worker, forced to give up self-​development for development in the way the market says i should…

I
Like their
Programming
Of events and
The facilities are fine for panels.

Did some work here on the 9^th floor, the only one in the building being used, pretty tragically. (I’d gladly camp out here for an indefinite amount of time for a small fee.) It’s a pretty vast space with a respectable and reasonable café (teria). The Grad Center boasts a modern interior behind the majestic exterior, and though it’s nowhere my favorite area food-​wise after lunchtime, there are plentiful edible lunch options and it’s certainly a convenient jaunt from Penn.

I’ve been a doctoral student here for 3 going on 4 years. I teach in the CUNY system for a small stipend and thus don’t have to pay the already low in-​state tuition. The classes at the GC are great, and depending on what dept you’re in you can take classes in ANY other dept, ANY other CUNY school, or through the consortium at Columbia, NYU, or Princeton. What a great educational opportunity this is!!!
Cons: I haven’t taken out any loans but I am living hand to mouth. They recently gave grad students who teach a cheap, ok health insurance plan. Also, the whole process of how teaching positions are assigned and how people are selected is obscure, and there is too much favoritism, but then, that’s all through higher ed so better get used to it.

An ivory tower of learning in Midtown manhattan for ONLY graduate students, no hung-​over freshmen, frat boys and sorority sisters! Seems great in theory, less wonderful in reality. As a PhD student, I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that CUNY is a means to an ends, not an experience to be savored. The Graduate center will save you from selling your kidneys to pay for your degree, it has a good academic reputation, and lots of slave-​labor adjuncting jobs to go around. But it is not a place to feel connected. I mean the building was a department store, no windows, very caged-​rat type of feeling. The professors are not very concerned with your well-​being, you’ll go around being a «what’s his name again «student. The library is terribly small, but then again you’re only paying a few grand so hey suck it up. You’ll come out a decade later with a degree, gray with a beard down to your toes. But you’ll have the degree.

This past autumn, I applied to 13 Clinical Psychology doctoral programs, one of them being at CUNY. I found the application process with them to be particularly confusing from start-​to-​finish. Their online application was difficult to use because using the Back button caused an error page to appear on the screen. Additionally, their easy-​to-​use document that was supposed to tell me what documents to send to which department (e.g., some documents go directly to the Psychology Department, while others go centrally to the Graduate Center first) was anything but easy-​to-​use.
A couple months later, I wanted to inform the department that I had accepted an offer from another school, and didn’t want my application to be taken into consideration any longer. The webpage for the Psychology Department was poorly designed, and didn’t contain any phone numbers. Several transfers after calling the main number at CUNY later, I was finally connected to the Clinical Psychology Advisor, who sounded surprised that I had actually reached her. Out of the blue, she told me in a fairly rude way that I had not been selected to be interviewed, and I told her that that was fine, and that I had already accepted an offer from Northwestern University. Nevertheless, I still received several letters from the Psychology Department following that phone call.
For a graduate program that charges almost $ 100 for the honor and privilege of applying to them, they should be much more organized, friendly, and efficient.

Once upon a time, I became really manic and decided it was a great idea to get a PhD. I delusionally began the application process for the English program at CUNY.
The English department was very helpful and friendly. When I went on campus, the security staff was helpful and friendly. Then I went to a bunch of different offices where they were not so helpful or friendly and gave me the runaround. I consider myself a semi-​smart person, but how was I going to get my PhD if I couldn’t remember my 11hundred digit student number? I sucked it up during this process, figuring that not everyone can be friendly and helpful.
Then I sat in class and found that if you don’t consider a PhD program your full time life, then you don’t belong there. My classmates were nice but also lived the Grad life. The professor was one of the smartest men I’ll ever know and he was, surprisingly, very down to earth and sarcastic, just how I like em.
Alas and alack, the program isn’t suitable for part time wannabe PhD people although it claims to be. I’ll stick to maybe being famous enough one day to get an honorary PhD from some obscure college in Guam.