At first glance, Senator Kerry’s choice of New York University as the location for a major critique of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war seemed ideal. The university’s large student population is historically left-leaning, and its Greenwich Village campus was the site for some of the region’s largest anti-war protests.

Yet among the hundreds of students who waited in long lines to hear Mr. Kerry speak, many said he did not excite them as a candidate and they would vote for him only to oust Mr. Bush from office.

Most students called Iraq and the war on terrorism the most important issues of the campaign, saying that in a race that has focused intensely on the past, they were eager to hear how Mr. Kerry would deal with the continuing insurgency in Iraq.

“I want to understand what he would do as president,” said Javier Martinez, an NYU senior studying politics and history. “I don’t feel like I’ve heard. There isn’t really a solid plan attached to him.”

While Mr. Kerry offered additional details yesterday on how his Iraq policy would differ from the president’s, Mr. Martinez said it wasn’t enough.

“I felt that I was missing something from his speech,” he said.

Other students said they felt Mr. Kerry’s speech was strong and gave them a more favorable impression of a man they had previously seen only from afar.

“I really liked the speech,” said John Carrion, a junior from Chicago. “It made it a lot more real to me.”

Mr. Carrion said he supported Mr. Kerry primarily because he thinks Mr. Bush has failed in Iraq, where more than 1,000 American soldiers have died since March 2003.

“Now that it’s gone on so long with very little progress made means something needs to change,” Mr. Carrion said. “There are just so many people dying.”

For Lucy Panza, a junior who is a member of the NYU College Democrats, the war made Mr. Kerry an easy choice for her, even though she did not support him in the primaries.

“Bush’s handling of the war goes against every moral and ideological instinct that I have,” Ms. Panza said.

She said she’ll vote for Mr. Kerry despite his pledge to continue the war on terrorism, which she believes is misguided.

Students said Mr. Kerry did well yesterday by avoiding talk of Vietnam, which has remained a heated topic in the campaign.

“I don’t think that particularly matters right now,” said a sophomore, Jan Messerschmidt, referring to attacks from partisan groups on Mr. Kerry’s war record and on Mr. Bush’s service in the National Guard more than 30 years ago.

“It really turns me off, actually,” Mr. Messerschmidt said. “I think it turns a lot of people off.”