Wacked-out wednesday wordage

Okay peeps...here's the thing. CRAZY cool things happened today. Like, God is phenomenal. Not allowed to post about it here, but hit me up if you want to know. (and you do.)

ANYWHO...

Awesome day today you guys. I have the most amazing professors and classes...I think I'm going to gain a lot here.

It occurred to me recently that many of you don't know anything about where I'm going, so this post is going to address that issue.

First things first, I'm going to a university called The New School University, which is a collective of several schools or colleges (seven, I believe). The university has actually been very influential, both here in New York and around the world. It's music school is on a level with Juilliard and its design school is one of the leading design schools in the world.

Which brings us to my school. I attend Parsons the New School for Design which, as I said, is one of the leading design schools in the world. Some of the most famous alumni are people such as Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Normal Rockwell, Alexander Wang, and Tom Ford. (if you have no idea who those people are, not to worry...I didn't either). All of that to say, it's a pretty uppity up school, with uppity up students and uppity up teachers.

Now then, that leads us to the program itself. I am in Foundation year, which is the program that all freshmen who pursue design or art degrees must go through. This is school wide, which means that there are around 700 of us foundation kids. The courses we do are things like drawing, 3d and 2d design, art history and such.

Here is where it gets interesting. This foundation program is the most difficult and advanced program of its kind in the country. It has a serious reputation for being extraordinarily challenging. So much so that out of the 700 freshmen, if historical statistics hold true again, 30-40% of them will either drop out by the end of the first semester or by the end of the year. Stressful? Yes indeed. This is due to the fact that the work and intensity load is absolutely huge and very, very taxing. You have to be seriously dedicated to your field and driven to succeed in order to make it here. Will I do it? Excellent question...I'll get back to you.

So, I suppose that about covers it. If you have any other questions, feel free to holla at me.

Some fun facts:

• The New School has the highest percentage of international students of any university or college in the country. Crazy...
• Central park, here on Manhattan, is larger than the entire principality of Monaco.
• Only about 75% of the downtown area is built on natural land. The remaining 25% is built on landfills created for that purpose.
• Broadway is one of the longest continuous streets in the world. Its actual name is Highway 9. (boring right?)
• In New York City, around 26,000 people live in each square mile. Think about it for a second.
• New Yorkers have an average commute of 47 minutes to work/school each day.
• The Federal Reserve on Wall Street has vaults 80 feet beneath it that hold 25% of the world's gold bullion.
• On each weekday, 4.9 MILLION people ride the subway system in New York City.
• As of the most recent information 8, 363,710 people live in New York City. (!!!)

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little walk through some fun facts. Until next time...I love you all.