New York City Program

Live, work, and learn in one of the world’s premier cities of commerce and culture with other Hamilton students who are eager to expand their understanding of others and the world.

Hamilton in New York City, established in 2001, combines an internship, academic experience, and experiential learning opportunities that encompass a wide range of perspectives on New York as a classroom.

Application

To apply log into Via with you Hamilton SSO and complete your profile on Via and then search for New York City.

New York City Program video screenshot — Hear students recount their semester in New York City in the video above and see this photo essay by Virginia Davis ’25.

Current & Upcoming Programs

Director: Steve Orvis, Professor of Government
315-859-4310
sorvis@hamilton.edu

In 2023, New York City experienced an “immigration crisis,” as numbers of immigrants arriving in the city, many bussed from Texas and Florida, were unprecedented. The city struggled to find shelter for them, leaving too many without services and straining the city’s budget and capacity. This was only the most recent “crisis” in a long history of immigration that has shaped the city since its founding. This semester we will focus on the closely interrelated topics of immigration, identity, and inequality. When immigrants enter the US, they enter a social and political context of growing inequality and ongoing identity conflicts, and in turn they shape that context. How do inequality and identity influence how immigrants are received? How should they be welcomed into American society and culture? And how does all this play out now in the largest city in the country? In addition to the courses below, students will ideally pursue internships with organizations working on these interrelated issues in some way.

College 395: Inequality, Identity, and Immigration in New York City
Examines the history and current context of immigration into New York City and its relationship to identity-based groups in the city, identity-based political conflicts, and the evolution of socio-economic inequality. Topics will include: history of immigrant neighborhoods, municipal policies and practices around inclusion of immigrants in urban society, immigrants’ role in city politics, racial politics in the city, criminal justice policies, religious diversity, policies and social changes re: gender and sexual orientation. Includes guest speakers, visits to organizations in the city working on these issues, and current and former immigrant neighborhoods.

College 398: Seminar on Inequality, Identity, and Immigration
Examines the origins of socio-economic inequality in the US and its relationships to identity, identity-based political conflicts, and immigration. Key topics include: overall trends in inequality, perceptions and lived experience of inequality, the social construction of identity in the contemporary US, key contemporary identity-based political issues and conflicts (eg: criminal justice issues, housing, education, gender-based harassment, immigrant “assimilation”), immigration policies, philosophical and policy debates over equality and inclusion in a democracy.

Director: Chris Georges, Leavenworth Professor of Economics
Phone: 315-859-4472
Email: cgeorges@hamilton.edu

Open to all majors.
Prerequisite: Econ 100.
One course can count toward the Economics concentration or minor.

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New York City is one of the great global cities at the heart of the global economy. It is also a site of continual innovation, disruption, and change. This semester, we will focus on economic and social innovation in New York City in the context of innovation and change in the global economy.

College 395 Innovation and NYC
This course is organized around readings, guest speakers, and field trips in New York City. The City provides us an unparalleled space in which to study innovation in technology, industry, public policy, and the social sector. From AI and fintech to climate mitigation and urban planning, we will engage with contemporary and historical innovation case studies in this amazing city.

College 398 The Economics of Innovation
We will focus on the economics of technology and innovation with particular attention to New York City. Topics to include, for example, the implications of innovation and technological change for jobs, inequality, education, and wellbeing, the sources and financing of innovation, innovation in the public and social sectors, and cities as drivers of innovation. Prerequisite Econ 100. Students who have also completed Econ 166 can receive credit for this course toward the Economics concentration or minor.

Director: Robert Knight, Professor of Art
Phone: 315-859-4266
Email: rbknight@hamilton.edu

Open to all majors.

Concentration credit will be accepted for Studio Art (College 395 and 398); Art History (College 395 and 398); Cinema and Media Studies (College 395) and Digital Arts minor (College 395).

No prerequisite, but preference is given for students who have taken a Studio Art or Art History course.

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New York City has long been at the epicenter in the development of photography as a fine art. The first galleries devoted to the medium were founded there in the late 1890s by the legendary modernist photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In the 1940s, The Museum of Modern Art launched the first photography department at a prominent museum, with New York-based photographer Edward Steichen as its founding curator. Alongside such institutional support, New York nurtured a burgeoning art scene with photographers’ studios and darkrooms occupying former industrial and warehouse spaces across the city. This program will focus on the intersection of those two histories, focusing specifically on the development of “street” photography as a genre and the institutions that helped catapult photography onto the center of the art world stage.

College 395: Documentary Photography in the Digital Age

This is a photography production course in which we will use smartphone and DSLR cameras to explore the fabric of the city as a site for photographic investigation, closely examining its rich cultural, racial, and socioeconomic diversity. Each week, we will use the history of New York-based “street” photography as a road map for site-specific photographic field trips. Since the early 1900s, the streets of New York have served as an inspiration to generations of photographers such as Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Roy DeCarava, Margaret Bourke-White, and Helen Levitt, among many others. Class will be a combination of classroom-based technical training, critique, and in situ production. Potential photographic sites include Times Square, Central Park Zoo, Chinatown, South Street Seaport, Washington Square Park, Prospect Park, Coney Island, and Governor’s Island.

College 398: Arts Leadership in NYC

This seminar will provide students with a macro perspective on the role of the arts in various industries. While we will often focus specifically on photography, we will also consider other arts, such as theater, music, design, and dance. New York has long-served as the institutional capital of the art world. This seminar will take advantage of New York’s status through visits and meetings with arts leaders at various NYC-based institutions, including The Whitney Museum, the International Center for Photography, The Studio Museum Harlem, Christie’s, Phillips, Pace/MacGill Gallery, The New York Philharmonic, The Wooster Group, The New York Public Library, The Armory Show, among others. Field trips will be supplemented with classroom lectures, readings, and discussions.

College 397: Internship

Work experience with an artist, business, organization, agency, or advocacy group appropriate to the theme of the course during four days a week. Weekly electronic journal entries chronicling and reflecting upon the experience required.

College 396: Independent Study

Supervised tutorial resulting in a substantial photographic project and/or written paper that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.

Housing & On-site Support

One West, a landmark building located on the corner of West Street and Battery Park Place, features apartments with views to Battery Park, New York Harbor, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and the Financial District of Manhattan. A faculty member serves as an on-site program director and teaches the seminars, leads a variety of experiential learning field trips, and serves as the central resource for students as they navigate life in New York City.

Learn about NYC Program housing and costs

Internships

New York City Program students spend four days a week as interns in a firm or organization for one credit. Thanks to Hamilton alumni, parents, and other supporters, there is a growing list of sponsors for Hamilton’s New York City Program students.

Explore Past Internships

Alumni Networking

Hamilton has a large contingent of alumni located in and around the Big Apple, and they take every opportunity to get to know students in the program. Want to partner with the NYC Program to host an intern? Get in touch with us.

Host an Intern