Students hone their adaptive learning skills in ‘the city that never sleeps’
While Stanford undergraduates can choose from among dozens of overseas study programs, they also have a new option to learn in New York City.
Stanford in New York is a quarter-long program launched in 2015 that leverages the city’s global stature in the arts, media, finance, design and other fields. It combines the advantages of two coasts and two worlds: Stanford’s great faculty, resources and depth in experiential learning, and New York’s excitement and primacy as America’s largest city.
Through an intensive quarter of study, reflective practice and experiential learning, Stanford in New York students hone their intellectual skills and capacities, develop their abilities as adaptive learners and enlarge their creative confidence.
Twenty juniors and seniors take part each quarter. They live in a dorm-style residence in Brooklyn Heights and work four days a week at internships aligned with their personal, professional and intellectual interests. Once a week, students attend classes taught by Stanford faculty and industry leaders at Stanford in New York headquarters in Manhattan’s Flatiron District.
The academic benefit of studying in New York is the real-world learning philosophy that all of my classes seemed to encompass. We were forced to think beyond the classroom and integrate ourselves within the city.
— Tatiana Bacquero, ’17
A required introductory seminar takes New York City as its subject: What makes New York New York? Each quarter, the program looks at the city through one of three lenses.
Autumn quarter focuses on the arts, architecture, design and urban studies. Electives include New York and the Art World and The Agile City. Internship sites include New York City’s municipal planning office and the world-renowned Public Theater and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
I received a job offer from the architecture firm I worked at, so the program was seminal in my professional development at this stage in my career.
— Nathalie Weiss, ’16
The winter quarter program focuses on media and finance. Courses include Disrupting the News and Big Finance and New York City: Exploring the Linkages from Individual and Corporate Finance to the US and Global Economies with internships at firms ranging from CBS News and WNET to Goldman Sachs.
Starting in 2018, Stanford in New York will add a spring quarter program, The Global City. It will look at how the city shapes and is shaped by international relations and business, environmental sustainability and climate change, immigration and cultural integration, and global arts.
One of the classes took us to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an after-hours tour with Thomas Campbell, the museum director. The tour wrapped up in his office with milk and cookies on his balcony overlooking the skyline. It’s a memory I will take with me for the rest of my life.
— Nathalie Weiss
Watch video of Stanford in New York students.
Learn what participants have to say about the program.