The Value Of Writing A Thesis

May 10th, 2012 by Sharon Wu

Right before the last year of college, every undergraduate at NYU is given the chance to compose a senior honors thesis. The opportunity is usually optional, and application requirements vary by department and school.

The prospect of writing a thesis is pretty daunting and many reject the option in favor of a more relaxing senior year. It is indeed true that a thesis will absorb the vast majority of your free time, particularly during second semester.

A thesis demands immense dedication, an enormous amount of independent research, late night writing when you’d rather be sleeping, and weekend work when you’d rather be drinking. There were many nights when I, and most of my fellow thesis writers, desperately regretted writing one. My thesis was, without a doubt, the most challenging assignment of my academic career. Regardless of school or major, a thesis requires a lot of independent decision-making without much guidance. Advisers offer some help, but the biggest decisions are up to you.

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Don’t Get Sick: Take Care of Yourself This Fall, Damnit

October 5th, 2011 by Madeline Paumen

[Ed. Note: The staff of NYU Local are not medical professionals, we just play ones on the internet.]

We’re a month into school now, kiddos. It’s October. There’s a nip in the air. And while the fact that midterms are fast-approaching might make you feel violently ill, you’ve got to take care of yourself this fall to keep from getting really sick. You don’t have your mommy to do it for you anymore. But don’t worry – NYU Local is your mommy now (hell yeah, we just said that!). Here’s are some tips to avoid getting sick and what to do when the “not getting sick” part fails.

How to Not Get Sick:

1. Get a flu shot: Protecting yourself against the flu is one of the best things you can do for yourself this fall. That shit spreads like wildfire, and you will feel the metaphorical burn if you don’t get a flu shot. You’ll be in bed for days, miss a bunch of classes, and hate your life. And you know your roommates won’t actually make you tea like you think they might. Don’t let that be you! Go down to the Health Center and get your free flu shot to avoid that altogether. Read more…


How to Be a Real New York Sports Fan

October 3rd, 2011 by Jeremy Unger

October is here and Yankees shirts are everywhere. It’s baseball playoffs time, folks.

While most of us look on October as simply the last month when it is humanly possible to wear shorts in New York (or, alternately, when it is finally okay to unearth your ironic sweater collection), for sports fans, it is one of the best months of the year. The MLB season is concluding, the NFL is in full swing, and the NBA season is getting ready to start (if there is one, that is).

Perhaps you couldn’t care less about what’s going on with the Bronx Bombers, but this is one of the few times in the year when it becomes harder to avoid them and their athletic compatriots. But don’t worry, we’ll get you caught up on how to be a true sports fan.   Read more…


Move, Get Out The Way

September 23rd, 2011 by Ken Greller

As we all know from Sandra Bullock’s performance in the movie The Proposal, New Yorkers lead incredibly busy lives. We have places to go, people to see, and assistants to rope into marriage contracts. Many of us here at NYU even traverse multiple boroughs of our fair city every single day (Oh, you hipsters ruining Staten Island) thanks to the majesty of mass transit. But as we learned when Irene hit (or, you know, every weekend that you try to get to Williamsburg) the trains, sadly, can’t always be relied on. Taxi TV is annoying, and cars are for suburbanites. What’s left? The bus? Shut up. You take the bus. Yeah, Red Hook’s real fucking cute now, ain’t it?

WALKING. According to the first page of Google search results, the average New Yorker walks about 5 miles a day, which totally counts as working out. It’s also, most importantly, how we NYU-ers get from Dorm to Academic Building to Dining Hall, all conveniently ruining the rather hectic city in between them. Read more…


Don’t Be Afraid to Skip a Reading: Advice for Freshman Year

April 28th, 2010 by Myles Tanzer

On Monday WSN published an editorial entitled, “Lessons from a Freshman Year at NYU.” I didn’t really agree with the author’s advice, so I wanted to offer my side of the story–a side that I feel would more accurately portray lessons learned from a freshman year of experiences in the heart of Jay-Z’s “concrete jungle.”

I arrived at NYU like most freshmen do: excitement inside of them bubbling over like a freshly thrown sake bomb from every Asian restaurant that will serve you for the next seven days. But admittedly, I was nervous with no friends by my side. Welcome Week was a “shitshow” as my roommate (and now best friend) would say. But no bad connotations here; you should drink every night of Welcome Week. I know it will leave you thirsty and exhausted but that first week, meeting a mass amount of people is paramount to physical health. Getting a fake ID is totally a good idea, even if it’s a bad one. Most places you’re going to aren’t strict and it’s good to have at least something.

After the incessant drunken Welcome Week, I organized my books and prepared for class. The freshman honors seminar I elected to take was called “Welcome to College: The Novel.” It was basically a lit class with a super pretentious title, and we had to read a book a week and compose a variety of writings. I was swayed to take it because the description said it would feature Tom Wolfe (I Am Charlotte Simmons) and the whole book-a-week thing seemed like a good idea. Remember, wide-eyed high school ambitions were still in place.

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