5 Things I Wish I Knew About Before Attending Suny at Albany

Hindsight may be 20/20, but it still deserves a good look. Though it was a challenge to choose just five things I wish I’d known before attending the State University of New York at Albany, I went with some discoveries that helped enhance either my college experience or my outlook on life. If you’re wondering, LSD was #6 by a coin-toss.

1.) I wish I knew about the tunnels sooner.

When Bob Dylan wrote “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” he may have been thinking of the SUNY Albany tunnel system, an extensive underground network that runs beneath the Podium. The campus as a whole is the second largest poured concrete structure in the world, after the Pentagon; the Podium is a large square in its center that contains academic buildings and lecture halls.

The tunnels are accessible at the Podium’s corners and through several doors in its midsection. In addition to shielding pedestrians from winter winds, they provide a unique kind of charm. Things are always deeper below the surface: these tunnels are like SUNY Albany’s guts, full of pipelines and vent shafts. It’s quite possible to get lost. Yet that’s part of what makes them so intriguing: where else among 10,000 people can you find a quiet hallway to fill with the echoes of your footsteps? Most people know about this labyrinth, but few take the time to explore it. Though it wasn’t at first sight, I fell in love. Is that weird? Go see for yourself.

2.) I wish I knew how easy it was to find citations for academic papers.

This is applicable to any student at any university who dreads the task of locating relevant source material for research papers. UAlbany has excellent facilities on campus: its spacious libraries house more than 2,000,000 printed publications. Not every university offers such amenities. But online there’s a near-infinitude of databases composed of every word ever written by every author in the history of civilization (slight exaggeration). If you haven’t already, check out JSTOR, EBSCO, or other similar research engines, and see if you can’t find what your paper needs.

Looking for a quote about the correlation between Soviet landmines and the 1973 oil embargo? Whatever. Obscure academic essays are only a browse away. I didn’t utilize this tool until my senior year, but it helped my writing (and grades) nonetheless. If you attend UAlbany, their massive library system gives you a built-in edge, but most online hubs are available to the public. Take advantage!

3.) I wish I knew how good the food actually was.

As mentioned, hindsight is always 20/20. My first two years at SUNY, I picked at crusty sandwiches and sneered at slimy burgers. I had green feces and cursed the food service for dishing out stuff that could do this to a person. In retrospect, that seems a bit harsh. If I’d known that spiel about “living like a broke college kid” subsisting on Ramen and desperation was not only true, but would far outlast my time in college, perhaps I would have been more appreciative of chicken strips. My advice? Get fat while you still can. Clear your plate. Thank the cooks. So your University cafeteria isn’t a Zagat-rated restaurant like that hot dog stand around the corner.

But it’s usually cooked, it’s got decent nutritional value, and if you’re on the meal plan, you don’t have to scrounge up change every night to eat. There will come a point in your life, probably quite soon, when three squares a day becomes a ludicrous proposition. Further, being in the dining hall gives you plenty of chances to talk up potential dates: “I’m out of sugar. But you look sweet enough to swirl my coffee.” Maybe don’t say that.

If you’re interested in SUNY at Albany, check out our article on 5 Things You Must Do as an Albany Student.

4.) I wish I knew that students ride CDTA buses for free.

This is also true for most universities; however, not all colleges are set in cities with as much to do as Albany. I failed to take advantage of free rides. My public transportation experience was very limited: catch a lift downtown Friday night, walk to a house party, drink, walk to a bar, drink, walk to the bathroom, do some blow, walk to the bus stop, realize it’s two in the morning and the bus isn’t coming. I wish I had gone more, seen more. I started feeling this way when I lived off campus and owned a car.

I began exploring: driving by Empire State Plaza, to the museum, along the riverside, uptown through Guilderland, and only a few minutes into more natural settings like Thatcher Park and the village of Altamont. The Capital District offers something for everyone, but there’s no better time for random traveling than your college years. And if you don’t have a car, there’s no better way to travel randomly than for free.

5.) I wish I knew how worthwhile summer courses could be.

I found this out before my final semester at SUNY. I wanted to graduate that fall, but I needed some additional credits. I signed up for a summer course in creative writing, even though the schedule (five days a week, three hours a day) was something of a turn-off. Taking that class was the best decision I made that year (it was a rough year). My writing improved and I met some very cool people. The whole experience was so unlike any other I’d had that I now count it as a turning point in my schooling.

If I was skeptical of the system before, this course affirmed for me the purpose of attending college. And if you’ve never seen Albany in the summertime, you should. Before 2008 I’d known only winter, so it was a revelation to find myself enveloped in greenery and actually needing to wear sunglasses. I developed a genuine fondness for the campus, and to this day I love the city. That wasn’t at first sight, either.

Jared Levine graduated from the University at Albany in 2010 with a BA in English studies. He recently returned to that city, where he lives like an unpublished writer.