Train pass or student MetroCard?

April 1, 2014 6:41 AM

Based on the participation in this post about the specialized high school system in NYC, it looks like a whole bunch of MeFites graduated from one of those schools. So I figured it'd be fun to have a MeTa thread to sound off.
posted by griphus to MetaFilter-Related at 6:41 AM (28 comments total)

HCHS '02. Hunter Debate!
posted by grobstein at 7:37 AM on April 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just NYC, or can we have a TJHSST sound-off too?
posted by capricorn at 7:39 AM on April 1, 2014

What
posted by Melismata at 8:32 AM on April 1, 2014

TJHSST is a great solution for people who live on the wrong side of the river and can't go to MCPS.
posted by escabeche at 8:55 AM on April 1, 2014

TJHSST '98 in the house.

(Didn't go into STEM in the house also.)
posted by clavicle at 9:10 AM on April 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

wrong side of the river
posted by grobstein at 9:12 AM on April 1, 2014

Oh I figure I should probably mention my own pedigree:

Brooklyn Tech '02. Cutting class playing Quake 2 deathmatch in the computer lab! ("You frag me one more time, you're failing my class.")
posted by griphus at 9:22 AM on April 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

SHS Math Team!
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:49 AM on April 1, 2014

SHS, where I vividly remember cutting class to, you know...read about Feynman in the library.
posted by corb at 11:28 AM on April 1, 2014

TJHSST is a great solution for people who live on the wrong side of the river and can't go to MCPS.

Jeez, you guys are getting awfully aggressive lately. ;)

I'm TJ '09 by the way.
posted by capricorn at 11:37 AM on April 1, 2014

HCHS '83. I challenge grobstein to debate the proposition "Musical Rep rules and Brick Prison Playhouse tends to drool!"

Griphus, back then we played Melee, OGRE, and Car Wars right on the lab counters during physics and chemistry classes. Although we did write a passable Defender clone in 6502 on the Commodore PETs...

Oh, and yeah, subway passes. Which we'd get jacked for at 96th Street by the "kids" from Vocational Tech.
posted by nicwolff at 11:53 AM on April 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

I went to Stuyvesant. My soph/junior year I cut almost every single class (to play magic, yay!) (and at the end asked me to leave, but that's another story). Eventually I stopped cutting classes (when they were clamping down on people playing magic) and I just stopped going to school entirely. After that, I hung out with two other stuy students who were also skipping class. We used to go to nearby pizza-places/arcades; sometimes we'd head up to Neutral Ground (more magic!) or the Barnes & Nobles that was a couple blocks from there. We stole tons of shit from both of those places. They were really good friends, and they took care of me. Honestly, they saved my life. I was going through some really fucked up shit at the time, and if it weren't for them being there for me, I'd be dead. I really, really miss them sometimes. I've tried looking them up online every so often, but the names are pretty common and reminiscing about my past is really hard on me so I usually end up a crying sobbing mess.

So, I guess ultimately I'm happy about my experience at Stuy, even if they ended up kicking me out. My mom literally cried that day. Said I'd never make anything of myself. Well, fuck you mom.
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 11:55 AM on April 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh, bonus story about HCHS. I took the test (it was in sixth grade or something, right?), got perfect scores on every section except the essay-writing section, which I completely skipped for a reason that escapes me to today. I got chewed out by the vice-principal of my school, literally in front of the entire grade for that. That was not a pleasant experience.

My asian-immigrant mother sent me to english tutoring after that. My english was fine. I probably just didn't like the stupid essay topic or something. I ended up skipping tutoring too, which upset her to no end, because she was paying for that tutoring.
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 12:07 PM on April 1, 2014

And you know what? One of the reasons I stopped going to class initially at Stuy was because they took away my full-fare metrocard and gave me a partial fare one. I couldn't figure out how to get the partial fare metrocards to work in the subway, so I started taking the bus instead so I could just dump the 75 cents into the machine. The bus didn't actually get me all the way though, and I got fed up with that shit pretty quickly, so I just walked to school instead, which in turn made me pretty late for class consistently (and I spent that 75 cents on junk food instead -- ugh).

And yeah, I know all of this stuff could probably go in the other thread, but I'm kinda not feeling it over there. Thanks for letting me vent? I see my therapist on friday but I've got so much other fucking stuff to talk to her about. :/
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 12:20 PM on April 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Stuy. Was there a year, got sick, transferred to my local HS in Qns and graduated from there. After transferring, my gpa jumped from high 80's to high 90's. I also avoided that long, damned commute in and out of the city, which truly sucked. I did miss being in Mrs. O’Garro's Spanish classes, though. Fantastic teacher.
posted by zarq at 12:32 PM on April 1, 2014

Oh, and I pre-date Metrocard commuting. We used to have to show our transit passes to the attendant at the booth in order to go through the exit (not the turnstile.) We use to cover each other by surreptitiously passing our passes back and forth in crowds.
posted by zarq at 12:34 PM on April 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

I remember having a transit pass when I was really young, then a student Metrocard. I was pretty sad it only allowed for 3 rides per day, being a sort of urban adventurer even in my middle and high school days (while lots of my classmates had never even ridden the subway). An unlimited Metrocard is a beautiful thing.
posted by mlle valentine at 12:52 PM on April 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

which in turn made me pretty late for class consistently

I spent three years relying on the G train to get me to school on time.

I was never in school on time.
posted by griphus at 1:06 PM on April 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

I was a freshman at Stuy '88-'89, predating metrocards. My experience was like zarq's, we always passed our passes behind our backs when somone forgot theirs or didn't have one. The new ones limit your trips? How the hell are you supposed to really experience the city that way? I used the HELL out of my transit pass.

I had some memorable teachers at Stuy: the math teacher with the long, long rattail, the male French teacher with the manicure (who took us on a field trip to Quebec, where we had an earthquake), the biology teacher who always wore such high heels. I spent a lot of time in the study hall/auditorium, I seem to recall. I liked being able to play cello there.

But I was really not into the sciences, and the commute was long, 1/2/3 all the way down Manhattan and then that long tunnel to the L, so I transferred to Humanities in Chelsea (by lying about my address) for sophomore year. No orchestra, but we had guitar class! Also, better diversity, and that straight shot commute.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:15 PM on April 1, 2014

TJ 02!
posted by whitewall at 6:02 AM on April 2, 2014

I'm not sure I'm ready to admit that my fifteen-year TJ reunion is this year.
posted by Riki tiki at 7:39 AM on April 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

BxSci, class of '01.
posted by Xoder at 12:52 PM on April 2, 2014

I lived too close to my school to get a full-fare student Metrocard, but one day my younger brother found one on the floor of a Toys R' Us. I scratched the other kid's name off and used that thing for months. The entire time I was expecting that it'd be reported lost and stop working the next day but it never did, and finally expired. I brought it down to whatever office dealt with Metrocards in my school and even got them to give me another full-fare card, but it only took them 2 days to catch on and that one did end up getting deactivated.
posted by Venadium at 1:32 PM on April 2, 2014

HCHS '84. Train pass. 30 year reunion this June. Old.
posted by ltracey at 6:49 PM on April 2, 2014

Stuy '85. The old building. Stepped over winos in the morning. Had Frank McCourt for English...
posted by AJaffe at 11:22 AM on April 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

HCHS. Brick Prison 4 lyfe.

I didn't do debate, but having heard a bit about the team's antics, I really wish I had.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:08 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I feel like I'm back in NYU pre-med classes, where all these kids who went to schools I'd barely heard of talked about them *all* *the* *time*. I hadn't realized before that some parts of NYU are basically just a polytechnic finishing school for the boroughs.
posted by meehawl at 5:03 PM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Technite here! I still have my hammer that I made in machine shop.
posted by cazoo at 8:56 AM on April 6, 2014