College/University Culture at Your Institutions

[ClassicsCandidate]

Hello all! 

     Since I am considering a few different places for my Ph.D., I was curious about the culture of the colleges/universities you're attending that you enjoy there. Bryn Mawr College is currently my top choice for my potential Ph.D. program, so I'd be extremely interested in that school in particular. I figured it would help if everyone shared their current institution's community/culture on-campus so others can get an idea of how the schools are; I'm interested in both inside and outside of the academic aspect. For example, what's the library situation like? What are the housing options like? Is it easy to get around? Is it loud/quiet at night? Can you walk to places easily or do you need to have a car to get around? Do you interact with graduate students from other departments often? What are some of the school traditions that you enjoy partaking in and why? What's around that you do for fun that has nothing to do with academia? Are there extracurriculars you do on campus, or is it all off-campus? How close are you with your cohort? Did I miss anything? 
     Overall, I just want to know about everyone's experience at their campus and in their program, especially in the following programs: Bryn Mawr College (Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology), Brown (Archaeology and the Ancient World), UC Berkeley (Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology), UPenn (Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World), NYU (ISAW), University of Michigan (Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology (IPCAA)), and the University of Chicago (Graduate Program in the Ancient Mediterranean World). I'm interested in everyone's current experiences. What do you like best about the program and the interaction of profs/students, etc.? I just want to hear a little bit about each of the kinds of cultures because I want to make good decisions on which schools I'll be deciding on and I want to hear the perspective of students who are there already (and if you want to send me a message about anything, in particular, you don't want to discuss publicly on the forum about your program if it's one of the ones on my list, please do!). I've looked around and haven't seen much about BMC in particular, but I figured it would be good to start this thread to discuss how the cultures of graduate Classics programs are at different schools. Sorry if this is a bit ramble-y, but I am going to visit some of these schools and think it's important to get an idea of how everything fits together before I even do that. 

Thanks in advance!

[Talmid]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Talmid