Stony Brook University

About Me

Intro

I used to be that friendly little university that could. Now, that I'm that big university that did. And will. And I like to think I'm still pretty friendly, too. No entourage or weird backstage requests, here. I'm still a regular ol' state university, just like all the others.

I'm not going to brag that I'm one of just a handful of universities associated with a National Lab (Brookhaven National Laboratory), or that I'm always on the lists of the top research universities on Earth. Nope, not a chance.

Because you probably already know that anyway.

I may have also decided back in 1994 that I wanted to be a NCAA Division I school, so I built up some facilities and by the 2000s, I started winning regular season and conference tournament championships in baseball, basketball, football, and lacrosse. Yeah, no big deal.

There's still a lot of small-school-cool left in me, and I like to think that's what draws the crowds.

Like, every Wednesday, I just stop classes from 1:00PM to 2:30PM for Campus Life Time. It's like a weekly family reunion with live music, free food, and fun, quirky goings-on. On top of that, I'm always building and growing—new academic buildings, new dorms, even new programs (like SUNY's only journalism program that I spun up back in 2006).

If you have those big-school ambitions, but a small-school vibe, you might want to check me out.

Name

Wolfie the Seawolf. Yeah, uh, a seawolf's a thing. It's a wolf, that you find…in the sea.

Hometown

How about 1,400 acres of sweet awesomeness nestled on the north shore of Long Island, in a sleepy little town called Stony Brook? Stony Brook is part of the Three Villages, including Stony Brook, Setauket (sea-taw-ket), and Old Field. George Washington ran his spy ring around here, and Stony Brook's been on the map since at least 1699.

Birthdate

It's complicated. I started out back in 1957 as State University College in Oyster Bay, NY, about thirty miles west of Stony Brook. In 1962, I pulled up stakes and moved to Stony Brook where I became SUNY Stony Brook. There's a lot more to that story, but let's save that for our second date.

Body Type

My campus is huge, just huge. There's West Campus, where you'll have most of your classes, and where you'll live. On the other side of Nichols Road (a speedy, four-lane highway) is the East Campus, a giant teaching hospital and regional trauma center. You'll probably notice the helicopters coming and going…I'm saving lives here, people.

There's also a South Campus, where the dental school, Marine Science Research Building, and Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities are located.

Leave Stony Brook, and there's still more Stony Brook—Park Avenue in Manhattan, an eighty-one acre campus in the Hamptons, and (wait for it) a campus in South Korea. Yep, SUNY Korea, located in Incheon, opened its doors in 2012.

There's so much space that you're not going to really notice you're sharing it with 20,000 other humans—and that's just the students.

Current Living Situation

There are a lot of choices for on-campus living.

Old-school corridor dorms house about thirty students in single, double, and sometimes triple rooms along one hallway. They share a common bathroom, lounge, and sometimes a kitchen.

If you're looking for something a little cozier, try to get into a suite-style dorm, where four to six folks of the same gender share two or three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room/dining area.

Upperclassmen with good grades (3.0 or higher) can apply to live in the West Apartments. Apartments have four to six single bedrooms and a shared kitchen/living area. No meal plan requirement here, so feel free release your inner Iron Chef…by adding Sriracha to your Cup o' Noodles.

Nobody has to live on campus though, and, in fact, a lot of people live in shared rental houses in the neighborhoods around campus.

Relationship Status

SUNY Albany…ugh. Sure, we're both SUNY schools, and yeah, we both have canine mascots (The Albany Great Danes? Really?), but we've been rivals forever. It seems like every time the SBU lacrosse, basketball, or baseball teams get to the America East Tournaments, there's Albany.

Football-wise, the Liberty Flames used to be the team to beat. In 2009 and 2010, we were co-champs in our conference, Big South. In 2011, I pulled ahead, but soon after, I switched football conferences to the Colonial Athletic Association. Guess who was already there? Yeah. Albany.

You should apply to me if...

you really get that "It's a small world" thing and you want an education that's not stuck in the 'burbs.