How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
NYU's newest study abroad site is set to break ground on September 20. But this time it's not very abroad — it's about 200 miles south in Washington, D.C.
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The 12-story building will house students and have space for classrooms.
NYU is planning to build a "home away from home" for students and faculty in Washington, D.C. where students will be able to spend a semester studying in the nation's capital.
The program will be targeted toward CAS students studying politics, economics, journalism, art history and history, but will also be available to Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service students who wish to take night classes for their doctoral degrees.
The standard curriculum for students who decide to study at the NYU-DC Center will consist of core seminars, internship seminars and electives from all the departments. Many of the seminars will focus on the role D.C. holds in politics.
Already, many students and faculty have expressed excitement at the prospect of being able to study and teach in D.C.
"The NYU home-away-from-home site in D.C. is an excellent development, not only for politics and journalism majors, but for students in the law and society program minor," politics professor Christine Harrington said.
Joe Jourdan, a CAS freshman and politics major, also expressed an interest in studying in D.C.
"It'd give me a firsthand view of the corruption in Washington rather than through the slant in the media." Jourdan said. "It'd be a learning experience."
The NYU-DC Center will be located on the northwest section of L Street, blocks away from the White House.
The building will be 12-stories high, complete with lecture halls, seminar rooms and offices on the lower floors and dormitories on the higher floors. The Office of Government and Community Affairs and the Brademas Center for the Study of Congress will also have offices and hold events in the NYU-DC Center.
According to Alex Pommer, a freshman at The George Washington University who is studying international affairs, D.C. is a great educational resource.
"If you're interested in international affairs, or politics for that matter," he said, "[D.C.] is a great place to be."
He stressed that D.C. offers a number of opportunities for internships with non-governmental organizations, Congress and other international organizations that can't be found elsewhere.
Others, such as CAS sophomore and journalism major Ben Radding, think students would not profit as much.
"I think it would really benefit journalism majors interested in political journalism, being that that's where the action is," Radding said. "For me, though, I want to do more cultural journalism, and New York is where that's at."
Questions have also arisen about whether this would intrude on GWU's territory.
"I guess in a way [NYU is], but I still don't see it necessarily as a bad thing," Pommer said. "You shouldn't be limited by distance and not have the same opportunities that we do here in D.C."
