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 As one Newhouse junior told me, "One of the great things about this school is that everyone has DONE something. Yeah we have really bright students, and yeah we have students who've gotten impressive SAT scores, but something that's even a little more important...something that everyone can attest to...is that they've actually DONE something. Maybe you were an Editor of your school newspaper, President of your Humanitarian club...whatever it was...You showed some sort of iniative and action in what you were doing BEFORE Newhouse, and it's great to just be surrounded by all of this talent, potential, and ambition now." Keep in mind that this was an idle Newhouse junior minding his business by a random snack machine, not a tour guide who's "supposed" to tell you that, or someone who's prompted to encourage an interest in Newhouse School within visiting high school students. Nope. I went up to a random Newhouse student and asked a few questions, and he was fully enthused with the school. Interestingly enough, this was the case for a range of students; I didn't hear one apprehensive, mediocre, or even "so-so" review of the Newhouse school; everyone who goes there apparently loves it. That means a lot. According to Newhouse admissions directors, Syracuse University has been ranked by the Princeton School Review as "the" college with the most student activities on campus. The student spirit within Newhouse is enthusiastically optimistic and ambitious; I liked that. I got the impression of "go-getter"-ism there...students were confident, outspoken, amicable, and focused on their work, and that's a great educational environment.
Another thing I noticed while on the tour through Newhouse were the random professor-student huddles. We'd be walking into a new classroom or studio, and we'd pass a professor conversating with a small circle of students, apparently guiding them through personal projects and/or additional concerns that they had external of the classroom. There was a genuine feeling of a "hands-on" ambiance as we even passed a few students setting up camera lights and equipment along a nearby staircase to the Alumni Hall. Passing the "lights, camera, action" of the students hard and apparently happy at work, we came upon the Alumni Hall, a wall full of well-known communication professionals with contact/graduate information, open and welcoming to any Newhouse student who'd find themselves in need of a good reference or mentor in the varied field of communications. Newhouse focuses on broadcast journalism, advertising, graphic arts, magazine journalism, print journalism, photography, public relations, as well as television, radio & film. These are all illustrious and exciting fields that may prove difficult to penetrate; the connections made through a school like Newhouse appear to adjust that penetration problem by bringing it down to a drastic minimum.
 Recently, as in the past two months, I've been learning more and more about Syracuse, specifically Newhouse, a school that I'd previously known almost nothing about. Upon finding out about the reputation of Newhouse, I added it onto my list of college choices, but because of the external skepticism of it possibly being "only a communications school", with lack of a solid educational program outside of the communications arena, I wasn't sure of how strongly I'd really be interested when it came down to college applicatoin time. However, what I've found out as a result of this trip however, is that 3/4 of the Newhouse education isn't even based around communications; it's liberal arts. 1/4 of your education is strictly communications, which is good. Essentially, you're getting the best of both worlds; the educational foundation you'd need as a highly productive citizen of contemporary society, as well as the strong communcations training by one of the top communication schools in the country. This is important to me; yes I'm enthustiatic about communications, but a solid educational foundation is also paramount in my concern for college. Newhouse is more than "just" a communications school; I learned that first-handedly.
So to wrap this all up, (because I'm getting kinda tired now..haha), I really appreciated and enjoyed my time spent at Syracuse. Very simply, the trip down here was worth it. Seat belts fastened, highway road ahead and a couple of hours before they're back into the city, HarlemLive staff members are all chatter about their futures after a visit to Newhouse School of Communications, one of the most highly accredited communication schools in the country. Syracuse University has definitely elevated its position on my college list. Newhouse is more than a reputation, more than a communications school, and more than just a 4 1/2 hour trip to some location in upstate New York. I'd recommend a visit to the school for anyone even remotely interested in communications. Thanx Mr. Patino! Thanx Hanif! Thanx Stan & Rich! Thanx HarlemLive Peeps! This was a great trip.
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