Binghamton, NY

Shavonna Hinton

My intentions for last week’s blog post were not to boast and brag about how awesome and great I think upstate New York is.  In actuality, I was setting up a comparison of sorts to what I intend to blog about this week.  First, I feel a back story is in order.

When I first started looking at colleges, Binghamton wasn’t on my list.  I’d never even heard of it.  I had my mind set (like many other college seeking students) that I was going to go to a big name school.  It wasn’t until my dad told me about this well ranked business program that one of the SUNY’s had that I decided to look into Bing.

As I perused the college websites, the reviews I found were less than stellar.  I read things like, “the campus looks like trash “and “WalMart is the social hotspot every day of the week.  Nightlife sucks.” Needless to say, after reading several more downtrodden reviews I was not looking forward to visiting Bing.

Fast forward to now and I can say I have not a single regret in deciding to come here.  Binghamton went from being not on my list to my top choice.  I love the campus, it’s a manageable size, despite the fact that Mountainview has a killer hill and Newing is literally on the edge of campus.  While it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing place on Earth, it’s nice to know that people care enough to continually renovate and make the campus look more modern rather than old and boring.  WalMart is the social hotspot but who cares?  I’m sure everyone remembers the first time they took the bus to WalMart, it’s part of the initiation into the Bing process.

To most of America, Binghamton, NY is the most depressed city in the country, the home of the 40-Million-Dollar-Hurricane-Katrina-of- the-North-Flood and the second fattest city in the nation.  But to me, Binghamton is none of these things.  It’s not about what the city has or doesn’t have and labels are just labels.  The relationships you foster and the memories you make will far outlast and outnumber any negative stigma the rest of the country can give this town.  Binghamton isn’t a statistic, it’s been my home for the past 8 months and I’m proud to live here.