大学地理位置对我的意义

智梦顾问简介：Cody，普林斯顿大学建筑学专业毕业，国际设计工作室设计师。

In your college decision, many factors will rank above the geographic location. Even so, a college’s environment can significantly affect the experience you will have, because after all, youare spending four years (at least) of your life in this new town, city, mountain (see Sewanee, University of the South) or farmstead (see Warren Wilson College). In my case, at Princeton, I found myself attending classes deep in the quinte ssential American suburbia of New Jersey. I think it is safe to say that no high schooler in America has ever uttered the words, “I really want to go to college in New Jersey.” For foreigners unfamiliar with the reputation of NewJersey in America, The Sopranos and Jersey Shore are a pretty fair representation. Nonetheless, I found my four years in the Garden State to be nothing less than pleasant.

在你挑选大学时，有许多因素的重要性会高于地理位置。即便如此，大学的环境对你的大学生活和经历会有很大的影响，因为毕竟你花了四年（至少）在这个城镇，城市，山区（比如Sewanee, University of the South西沃恩南方大学）或农庄里（比如Warren Wilson College沃伦威尔逊学院）。就我自己的学校来说，普林斯顿大学位于新泽西州典型的美国郊区。我相信，美国的高中生不会说“我真的很想在新泽西州上大学”。对于不熟悉新泽西州的外国人来说，可能会通过The Sopranos（电视剧《黑道家族》）和Jersey Shore（电视剧《泽西海岸》）来了解新泽西州是怎样的。尽管如此，我在花园州（新泽西州）的四年时间里过得挺愉快的。

Perhaps, even more determinate of your experience at a college is how interconnected the school is with its surrounding environment. Even though Princeton sits a mile away from one of the busiest traffic corridors in the densest traffic state in America, it feels as if it belongs to a world of its own. Many students deride the hermetic scene in the “orange bubble” and feel its seclusion allows the campus community to ignore the very real social and economic problems beyond its walls. Proponents of a “closed campus” would say it allows more interaction between members of the college and that they enjoy the contemplative, academic feel that such a campus espouses. In contrast, at a school like NYU, whose buildings are dispersed throughout the city grid of Midtown Manhattan, students can be engaged citizens first and students second, while a real “campus” community is much harder to come by.

也许，你在大学的体验会是怎样，起决定性作用的是你如何将学校与周围的环境相结合。即使普林斯顿距离美国交通最密集的州中的交通状况最繁忙的交通要塞只有一英里远，感觉它属于另一个世界。许多学生戏称这种与外界隔绝的场景像活在在“橙色泡沫”（橙色是普林斯顿大学的代表色。橙色泡沫是指与外界的隔离的校园和对校园的保护）中，让校园里的人忽略了墙外的真真实实存在的社会和经济问题。“封闭校园”的拥护者会说，这样的校园会令学院成员之间有更多的互动，他们享受在封闭校园中，远离喧嚣，沉思冥想的感觉和学术氛围。相比之下，像纽约大学这样的开放式的校园，他们的建筑分散在曼哈顿中心区，让人感觉学生首先是城市的一员，然后才是大学的一员，很难感受到一个真正的“校园”。

While it may share a Zip Codewith one hundred and fifty strip malls, Princeton also sits within an hour by public transit of New York and Philadelphia, two major American cities.Princeton even has its own train line that brings students, professors, and visitors directly to and from the campus itself. The clear advantage of beingin or near a major metropolitan area is the wealth of academic and cultural resources available to students to support their intellectual curiosities. While the most conspicuous urban campuses obviously have this advantage, it should be noted that suburban schools near decent transportation networks can reap manyof these benefits too, including places like Northwestern University, the Claremont Colleges, Emory University and more. To draw examples from my ownexperience, in my freshman year I attended five different Broadway shows with tickets heavily subsidized by the university. When I took a drawing course mysophomore year, our professor led several optional tours of the galleries she knew well in New York’s Chelsea area.

虽然可能与一百五十个商场共享一个邮政编码，普林斯顿和纽约、费城这两个大都市，坐公共交通工具，只需不到一个小时的时间。普林斯顿甚至有自己的火车专线，方便学生、教授和访客直接往返。坐落在大都市区域或附近的大学的明显优势，就是学生可以利用的丰富的学术和文化资源来满足他们的好奇心。虽然城市中的大学，很明显也具有这种优势，但邻近便捷交通网络的郊区学校也可以获得很多好处受益良多，比如西北大学，克莱蒙特学院联盟（Pomona College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Scripps College和Pitzer College），埃默里大学所在的地区。我自己的亲身经历来举例，在我大一的一年，我观看了五个百老汇演出，门票都是由大学补贴的。在我大二年级学习绘画课程时，我的教授还带领我们多次参观了纽约切尔西地区的几个画廊。

In my mind, a suburban college location offered me the best of both worlds. When I felt compelled to goto an exhibit at the MoMA on political radicalism in architecture or march alongside my peers at a civil rights rally, I could hop on a train and do that. At the same time, when I needed a break from studying and I felt the need for the kind of fresh air one can only get by jogging through a cornfield, I could do that too. 

在我看来，郊区的大学为我让我深刻体验到了两个世界。当我感到迫要去参加在现代艺术博物馆举办的关于建筑中的政治激进主义的展览或在公民权利集会上与我的同伴一起游行时，我可以直接跳上火车去目的地，非常简单就可以做到。同时，当我需要紧张的学习之余休息一下，想要呼吸新鲜的空气时，就到玉米田里慢跑，同样非常简单就可以做到。