Selling My School: NYU as a Commodity

When we were talking about commodity fetishism in class, I found myself interested in the way we see NYU portrayed as a commodity. Since I work as an Admissions Ambassador for NYU, I feel like I’m pretty well versed in how we “sell” the university. (A large part of the job is working as a tour guide and interacting with potential students and parents at Open House events). We have day-long training sessions at the beginning of the semester, in addition to an intensive tour training process that we must go through when we first get hired. We are essentially taught how to make the people who take our tours buy into the commodity fetishism that is NYU.

I’m going to discuss an interesting point I found when I revisited my Ambassador Handbook for this blog entry. In the section entitled, “The Tour,” we are provided with key talking points and tips for our tours. In the introduction of this section, we are informed that “Although you are responsible for showing the campus, it is very important that you also share your experiences as a student and a New Yorker. This is your chance to tell your NYU story.” We are also encouraged to make sure that we represent NYU as a “global university” and as “a university in and of the city.” I see how these tips can be classified as methods of commodity fetishism. We focus more on selling NYU as a university within a cultural and exciting city versus selling it as an academic institution. This distinction makes sense to me, though. NYU is the number one dream school, probably due in a large part to the fact that it is located in New York City. On the other hand, it’s ranked as the 32^nd best nation in the University. Clearly, then, when selling NYU as a product, we’re going to want to focus on what we’re the best at, even if it happens to be our location, not our academics.

At the same time, though, I love my job, and I think that the way we package NYU to sell it is really the way we should. Each university has its own selling point, or what it commodifies the school as. I’m sure if I could look into the University of Florida or University of Texas Ambassador Handbooks, it might suggest the tour guides speak more about Greek life and sports and the school spirit on campus. At the same time, the tour guides at a small school like Haverford probably sell their school as very personal and a place where you won’t just feel like a face in the crowd. I think the way we sell NYU is true, because my experiences as a student really are influenced greatly by the city in which I live.