I have recently begun to be a bit more adventurous than I have been in the past. I have been trying to get out of my comfort zone and find somewhere to go besides my home, Stony Brook’s West campus, work, etc. It’s the “Wow, I put a lot of miles on my car, but I haven’t gone anywhere” sinking feeling that you have when you, all too often, are filling up your tank.

But seeing as there is still school to attend, and work to go to, I found myself wondering exactly how I was going to pull this off, when it dawned on me: Stony Brook Manhattan.

Technically, it falls in the whole school bubble but it is totally outside of anything that I have ever known Stony Brook to be, and more in what I had always thought that my college experience would be. There are approximately twelve students in the class including myself, and an engaging professor who seems to be living off the beat of Broadway. Modern Drama on Stage is the class. Seriously, take it.

And I’m thinking, “Wow, this is the experience I have always wanted from school.” A small class in which the professor can actually engage us, and allow us the opportunity to direct our own learning as well as guide us with his experience. And isn’t that what college is supposed to be?

I enjoy going into the city one night a week, getting the opportunity to learn how to take the subway myself, or navigate around the streets. It’s important, in fact, I am learning just as much getting to class as I am in class. So I have a suggestion. I feel that it should be mandatory, just like a DEC, that all Stony Brook students take one class on the Manhattan campus. You can take more if you want, but I think the university should require one.

Trust me, I am usually on the side of reducing the number of musts that we must do. The DECs, in my opinion, are crippling and distracting to our curricula; unless of course you are pursuing liberal arts, but I really feel that I am going to learn more about real life and things that are applicable to it at SBU Manhattan, than I ever did in my doubled-up humanities DECs.