Ah, Stern College for Women. Just the mere utterance of those four magical words cannot help but bring to mind so much. Where to even begin? The most obvious of the innumerable virtues that have earned Stern College for Women its sterling reputation is doubtless the exceptional diversity of the student body. Even a visitor merely strolling across the grassy, rolling plains of the sprawling campus couldn’t miss the overwhelming number of French students milling around at any given time. Why, there must be – at the very least – four of them. And that’s just counting the French students. Including the legions of Canadians would almost certainly necessitate bringing out a second hand for counting purposes.
In fact, there are so many deeply wonderful things that can be associated with Stern College that it’d likely be dangerous to list all of them, for fear of monopolizing too many of the valuable lines already generously allotted for this particular piece. After all, articles in the Observer are prime real estate; in recent months, hundreds of Stern students begging to contribute articles have been turned away. “It is hard,” admits the Sports editor, “You’d be surprised at the number of students who approach me at all times – in the caf, in the elevator, sometimes they’ll be waiting by the door of my house on the weekends– begging to write a piece on baseball. I’ve actually had to have my home phone number unlisted.”
Of course, detailing an exhaustive list of all the glorious things the average person associates with Stern College could be risky for other reasons. In a place positively brimming with school spirit, the mere mention of those two words would likely inspire a torrent of rah-rah’s and enthusiastic declarations of school pride. At times, it seems unlikely that so much passion can be contained in one building. Literally. As one Stern College senior – who has daringly chosen to major in Biology because she couldn’t stand to be just another math major – complains, “Sometimes it can get so overwhelming. I’ll be sitting by my computer eagerly waiting the latest influx of s-studs, and when I see one advertising a poster-making event for an upcoming Macs game, I always double-check which room they’ve booked for it because I’m so nervous they won’t have enough space for everyone who will be attending.”
Yet there is one aspect of Stern College that certainly cannot go unmentioned. In fact, for many students, eating in the caf is the highlight of their college experience. With both a dairy and meat caf offering a wide variety of options, it can actually become rather difficult deciding which caf to eat in for dinner. One clever Stern College student has discovered a foolproof way to ensure that she consistently makes the right choice. “I’ll just go online to the YU website,” she explains. “It’s very user-friendly – they have this handy link to that week’s cafeteria menus that they always update, and I can just decide between the chicken they’re serving in one caf and the honey-mustard salmon they have in the other.” When asked if she’s ever regretted her decision, the sophomore nods, recalling the time she chose ravioli over Hawaiian meatballs. “It was a little strange,” she concedes, “because the ravioli totally tasted like tilapia. I mean, it even looked like tilapia. Everyone around me was actually commenting on how good the tilapia was. I pretended to agree, but secretly I felt bad for them. If they had read the up-to-date menu online, they would have known that it was actually ravioli disguised as tilapia.”
In a survey of the entire Stern College student body, the caf food that emerged as the number one favorite by a tremendous majority was the Mehadrin Yogurts. “It’s just the name,” exclaims a recently declared Physics major (her decision effectively increased the department by 100%).“I mean, it’s called ‘Fit ‘n Free.’ Doesn’t everyone just want to be fit? And also free? And they’re Cholov Yisrael. What’s not to love? It can be a little stressful, though. I’m always kind of concerned that the other Stern students who make it to the caf before me will have snatched them all up, but somehow there’s always a towering stack of them in the fridge. It’s kind of confusing.”
Or is it? In a caf simply teeming with variety, it’s no surprise that students gravitate towards the more exciting options. Choosing soup over, say, salad, can be a struggle, especially when each day’s soup tends to resemble every other soup that has ever simmered away in those giant vats. Because although there is something comforting about knowing the soup will always look the same no matter how it tastes, three’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of a full stomach after consuming almost three whole leaves of romaine lettuce and a sprinkling of feta cheese, all for the low price of $13.99.
Recent months have seen heartening evidence of the impact of the Student Life Committee on the Stern College dining program. One committee insider describes the flood of handwritten requests for a pancake machine with all the latest bells and whistles. “We were just doing our job,” she shrugs. “It was obvious that there were no less than fourteen Stern College students who felt their college experience would be heightened exponentially by the addition of a pancake machine in the caf, so we responded. Now, students can eat pancakes in various shapes any time of day. Also, we noticed that a lot of Stern students have very similar handwriting.”
Life in the big city can be intimidating, but Stern College students can’t help but feel safe under the watchful gaze of the security personnel that man each building’s entrance. Even the wiliest crook bent on entering the Brookdale lobby would be hard-pressed to find an empty blue plastic case emblazoned with the YU logo to flash at the security guards.
For the ordinary student, there’s secular college. For the extraordinary student, there’s Stern College for Women. No matter how bad things get, a Stern student always knows a flower-shaped pancake is only an intra-campus shuttle ride away.