By Melissa Cronin

Here at NYU, we straight females know that the odds are not in our favor. Last Saturday, NYU Local went to a land where the men outnumber women four to one, sports teams reign supreme and Keystone Light flows like the raging waters of the Hudson. For this installation of Local Went There, we’re taking you to the vodka-soaked, bar-crammed world of Stevens Institute of Technology, Lax Bros and all.

What was a Google Map-estimated travel time of forty-five minutes turned into an hour and a half-long journey through Jersey accents, bad subway advertisements and a longer-than-preferred conversation with a fellow PATH rider. Whether this was due to the reporters’ incompetence or to the confusing lack of maps on the New Jersey PATH train is unclear. The PATH is surprisingly clean and well maintained — so well maintained, in fact, that there are no trash cans for security purposes. This means, too, that there is a strict no eating or drinking rule; so train-gaming (pre-gaming on the train, that is) is particularly difficult (Thanks for nothing, Cory Booker.) If you do get to make the trip to Stevens, be sure to get off at the one and only Hoboken stop. If not, don’t worry — you’ll have an extra half hour to perfect your Jerseyese accent while you wait.

Regardless of how long it takes (which, to be clear, should not be very long for the competent among you) Hoboken is well worth the wait. The one square mile city of 50,000 has the second-most bars per square mile in the country (damn you, New Orleans). Between this, the city’s panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline, and Cake Boss, we didn’t need a lot of convincing to spend the remainder of a Saturday in this adorable New Jersey city. Maybe you’re not so bad after all (or maybe you are.)

Upon entering the wide gates of Stevens Institute of Technology, it became very clear that we were on a real-life college campus. With Stevens sweatshirts, Ugg Boots and yoga pants abound, we crept through the pristinely manicured lawns and arching brick buildings towards the massive athletic complex.

Stevens, founded in 1870, is a well-respected Technology Institute, but the college also offers a wide range of majors including philosophy, film, and literature. And although Stevens is Division III in all athletics, there is no shortage of sports pride at Stevens. Most of the students we spoke to were involved in school sports and many students, we were told, came to the school specifically for its teams. We wisely decided to investigate just that.

Naturally, we headed straight for the varsity lacrosse team’s home game against Utica College last Saturday afternoon at Stevens’ Dobelaar Field. Although there were hundreds of parents in attendance (think high school football games sans cheerleaders), it is not difficult to make your way down close and sit by the edge of the field for some front-row Ducks action. Stevens, who blew Utica out of the water 17–7, takes their lacrosse very seriously. And if you don’t believe us, you can ask head coach, Gene Peluso who will tell you in incredible depth during an hour-long speech at the tailgate after the game (where the taco meat was as plentiful as the man meat).

Despite their sports pride, it turns out that Stevens students are oddly similar to NYU students, in that one of their primary goals is to seek inebriation at any cost.

“Everyone here gets really fucked up,” Ryan O’Connor, sophomore and former lacrosse player said, sitting in his off-campus bachelor pad, surrounded by a massive bottle collection, a clear green Nintendo 64, and dozens of cans of Keystone Light. “People don’t have limits. People get really belligerent here.”

“There’s no way to have fun any other way,” added Bryan Specht, a sophomore studying mechanical engineering.

And while Stevens is a nationally ranked university for its academics, the school does suffer from one major problem, according to its students. When asked what the worst thing about his school was, Nick Harris, a sophomore studying business, quickly replied, “The girl-to-guy ratio!”

It’s obvious from a five-minute stroll on the campus that there are no shortage of men — something that we at NYU have a hard time relating to.

When asked why there is so much drinking at Stevens, Harris said, “There’s no girls, so no worries.”

Specht agreed,“We only party with guys, so we don’t need to worry.”

With such a skewed male-to-female ratio, the likelihood of these men finding female hook-up companions severely decreases and so too does their anxiety about embarrassing themselves with drunken antics.

While they’re not at Stevens for the girls, many of the students are in it for their future. When asked what his principal motivation for coming to Stevens was, Specht said, “The money I’m going to be making when I get out of here.”

And he’s not far off base: the average starting salary for graduates is $62,850. The placement rate is 94% within six months of graduation, and the university was ranked #13 for career development by The Princeton Review in 2012.

Although separated by the Hudson River, NYU does sometimes enter the consciousness of Stevens students.

“It’s hipster,” O’Connor said, sandwiched by two friends who were half-watching the PGA tour over a few cans of Keystone. “Some of those hipster girls are pretty hot…especially the ones with the glasses.”

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