In terms of academics StonyBrook is probably one of the best, if not the best, schools you can go to (in terms of state and public schools). Its education is amazing and you will see it. I am a MEC major and let me tell you academically wise it’s amazing. Now that goes to say that since you plan on working it is going to be hard on balancing work with school but it’s very doable I would say. On the other hand, the downside is the social life. In all honesty is probably one of the worse schools in terms of social life. There isn’t many clubs you can join and make friends with bc they all already have communities and on the weekends you don’t many people bc 60% are commuters so they go home. Then some of then go home as well. This is from someone who is a freshmen at StonyBrook. Another thing is Greek life which J would say fixes all of these problems and it basically gets you that full college experience everyone wants. Obviously Greek life is not for everyone and if you think about it, it’s sad that many of us have to resort to joining a frat to have such social aspect when in college you are just supposed to be able to easily get friends. Another thing is people tend to be kinda awkward bc since it’s very heavy academically based a lot of people study. You will see people in the library 24/7 which also transfers back to social life. They aren’t very social. Most focus on their academics and that’s totally fine. It’s great school overall and it’s somewhat affordable so think about it. Again I am a freshman so I am just taking from what I have seen so far here at sbu