Any dopers have firsthand knowledge of Kean University in NJ? My nephew has been accepted there for graduate school, and just now made a trip out there to lay eyes on the place. He’s not real enthused about what he sees; a “commuter school” with no out-of-state students, no student housing, in a really bad neighborhood, with really expensive local housing options.
He wants to study industrial psychology, and feels that, on paper at least, they have a good program.
Can anyone affirm or deny or allay or add to such opinions? We’re seeking actual real-life accounts, or second-hand versions of them. We’ve seen Kean’s website, so there’s no need to link to that.
I’ve been on campus a couple of times, but for odd reasons and only when classes were out of session. I can’t disagree with your son’s assessment. I do know a few students from my high school enroll at Kean each year, so apparently past students aren’t reporting horror stories. Sorry I don’t have anything more specific.
I’ve lived about 5 minutes from there for most of my life. Kean has had student housing in the past. I wasn’t aware that they discontinued it. The areas surrounding Kean vary. There are ghettos not too far off, but there are some real nice areas as well. I live in the Elmora section of Elizabeth which is pretty nice. Your nephew would also be walking distance from Pizza Villa, which IMHO is the best pizza on earth (on most days). Sometimes Rico is having a bad day, and the pizza lets you know about it. Anyway, Union County has some very, very nice areas in Summit, Westfield, etc. BTW, the PGA Championship is in Springfield, which is also in our county. That’s something people need to know about NJ. We have some of the most crime-infested areas very close to the some of the finest areas in the country. Your nephew shouldn’t judge the area by his first impression. Manhattan is a half hour drive, or 20-min. train ride away. Plus there’s lots of fun/entertainment/bars/clubs very nearby as well. Those Kean kids do party it up quite a bit.
Growing up, we used to make fun of Kean College (its name was recently changed to Kean University). But later I learned that it actually is a pretty good school for certain subjects, such as Education. I have no idea about Industrial Psychology.
I work with a number of industrial psychologists, and have heard more than my share of SIOP and normalizing and regression to the mean and etc etc etc. I’ll bounce this question off of a few of them and get their opinions.
The first recommendation I got was for him to get involved with SIOP, as they’re “a strong professional org, and really the be all/end all of I/O psychology”. Their website has a graduate training program page and a page specifically about Kean. If you’re looking for some hard numbers (average GRE, average GPA, # of students, et cetera) that’s a good way to compare different programs.
Ino, he’s shooting for a Masters at this point. I’ll forward this stuff on to him. He’ll have to make up his own mind, and I’d hope he’d have more info than just the gut feelings of a midwestern boy off to the great Jerhattan metropolis for the first.
Or, if you want to know about the school, and the atmosphere, I can help you with any specific questions you have. I have known plenty of people who had gone there, and I worked there for a little while.
I appreciate the offer, brickbacon. But my nephew is back from his trip out there, and he should now have the necessary info and contacts to make his decision. I’ll offer to have him connect with you if he desires, though.
Right now the big concern seems to be to find affordable housing in a ‘safe’ neighborhood. He seems set on entering the program there.
Kean, as I’m sure you know, is in Union, which is not the best area. It is getting better though. They added an apartment complex within walking distance from the school, and they recently added a nice train station on campus that is easily accessible from any of the cities on the Northeast corridor and Raritan Valley lines on New Jersey Transit. You might suggest to him that he look for housing in one of the the nearby cities if he feels uncomfortable living in Union. Some close cities that he may find more to his liking are Edison and Metuchen, which are both within 20 minutes of the university, and have a more suburban look and feel.