On December 5, a group of students from John Dewey High School were allowed to visit the campus of St Joseph’s university.

St Joseph’s University, a university founded in New York state in 1916 by the sisters of St. Joseph, with campuses both in Brooklyn and Long island, had allowed a group of students from JDHS to go on a tour of the Brooklyn campus. While the university has two different campuses in the state, it also allows students to study online to make it as simple as possible to get your degree.

SJNY is a private catholic university which offers degrees for more than 54 majors along with other programs. Some of the most popular programs for students to take at SJNY are Business, Special education and Teaching, Psychology, and Nursing. These are just some of the few majors that are being offered at SJNY.

Although the university offers online programs, there are only a little over 25 programs online programs which have been offered for over two decades by the university. These programs consist of undergraduate, graduate, dual degree and online certificate programs.

The university’ s leaders are committed to following their motto: Esse non videri- “to be, not to seem”. Although that is their motto, St. Joseph’s core focus is to provide education at the highest quality possible to each of its students no matter their values, position, or whether they are fully committed to their education; not to mention that the university is rooted in liberal arts so that their alumni can be fully prepared for success in their profession and graduate with a variety of skills.

The school was originally built with the purpose to provide education to young women, but it wasn’t until 1969 that a name change was made; from St. Joseph’s college for women to just St Joseph, in which its first male students were admitted and it was transformed into a coeducational institute.

Once the handful of students made it to the campus of SJNY on a cold December morning, they were faced with a light breeze sweeping leaves all over the Brooklyn sidewalk. Once the breeze had subsided they were greeted with a sidewalk filled with brick building, warm looking houses and in front of them was the campus, looking more like a home than an institute.

One of the first buildings the group of students were introduced to was Tuohy hall in which they were introduced to one of the two churches that the institute has on campus, which plays host to services on Wednesday’s at 12 for all students. Although the university was built on catholic ideals, it is not required to attend these church services at all, nor is it required to be of catholic faith to attend the university.

Throughout the trip to the campus, Senior Hannah Rodriguezvargaz was thoroughly surprised. Rodriguezvargaz entered the trip expecting to just be informed about different activities and programs that the university provided, but once the group arrived at the campus she was pleasantly surprised as the campus was like no other that she had seen before.

Rodriguezvargaz had attended many college trips prior to this one, but SJNY was one of the few that truly brought interest; what with its older style of architecture causing a seamless blend between the neighborhood it is based in to the point that most are not aware where the campus ends and the neighborhood begins. The architecture was a great point of interest for Rodriguezvargaz along with all the programs that were offered.

The trip ended by the middle of the day with the last stop on the tour being the Dillon child center, a place for parents to leave their children while they were in classes but it also doubles as a place for child study majors to gain some hands on experience.