This week’s college: Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts (A College That Changes Lives)
If you are interested in changing the world, Clark is a school you want to look at. It’s got a lot to like right off the bat. It’s a College That Changes Lives school. It’s also a Business Insider top 5 schools for students who want to make an impact on the world, and it’s a Princeton Review school for Colleges That Pay You Back, as well. Their accolades don’t stop there, but rankings and prizes are not a reason to choose a school, as you well know by now (or should if I am doing my job properly!).
Clark, founded in 1887 as a graduate institution and its main focus at that time was psychology. In 1902 they opened their doors to undergraduates, but were still famous for their focus on the mind. The first president of Clark was also the founder of the American Psychological Association (as in APA style for those playing at home). In 1909, in fact Sigmund Freud came to the US and made his famous “Clark Lectures” during which he introduced psychoanalysis to the United States. Clark is still incredibly strong in this field, but it’s not their only strength. They also boast a terrific geography department and the very first human dimensions of climate change programs.
Clark’s cutting edge research has included things people know and take completely for granted. Wind chill? Clark research. Heard of the Goddard Space Center? Goddard did his research at Clark. The Pill? Clark. Chemical double bonding… You get the point.
One of the most unique aspects of Clark is the LEEP program. LEEP stands for Liberal Arts Experiential Learning (LE+EP). This is a program that every student at Clark goes through (although some students are also awarded a Presidential LEEP Scholarship) that interweaves your education with advising with experiences and a capstone project so that when you leave college you have both the academic skills you need to be successful and the soft skills, workplace skills, and experience you need to be competitive. All students take a First Year Intensive, classes like The Ripples Effect of Arctic Ice Melt, Should Morality Play a Role in Art, or Explore Global Threats: From AIDS to Zika. As you go through your time at Clark and continue to take classes, decide on a major, your advisor will talk to you about what kinds of experiences you can be looking for. The LEEP Center (which is also the Career Center) then helps match you with the projects or helps you design something you want to be doing usually by the end of sophomore year. Work in tandem with your academic and LEEP advisors, you’ll continue to develop your experiential learning and your academic interests to design a final capstone project by the end of your senior year.
With seven different multidisciplinary institutes along with multiple majors and minors, Clark offers some extremely unique ways to study. Their institutes are particularly creative and draw many of the 3,000 students who attend (there are another 1,000 graduate students as well, putting the enrollment in that middle sized sweet spot). The Mosakowski Center for Public Enterprise seeks to focus on the public good and social issues weaving together everything from environmental policies to education, access to healthcare, and human development. The George Perkins Marsh Institute focuses primarily on the human-environment interaction exploring disciplines like industrialization and globalization, risks and hazards, GIS, resource management and environmental policy. The Higgins School for the Humanities allows students to examine topics from multiple perspectives by drawing on several different disciplines. The Clark Labs encourage students to see their work in science as multidisciplinary and provides cutting edge tools like their IDRISI GIS and Image Processing software to visualize what they are doing. The Adam Institute for Urban Teaching and School Practice challenges students to engage in urban schools in Worcester and become involved in teaching and learning in an urban setting while making an impact on children’s lives. The Hiatt Center for Urban Education’s mission is to engage practitioners, community members, youth and students to promote counter-narratives, to examine new media and multiliteracies, participate in inquiry, and research. Finally the Strassler Center for Holocaust Studies looks not just at the Jewish Holocaust in Germany and Europe, but at various kinds of holocausts: the Armenian genocide, Cambodian, and Rwanda. It’s no accident that nearly a third of students here major in the social sciences. Clark provides an incredible education for students who want to study these sorts of disciplines in this kind of broad perspective way.
Another major area of study at Clark are the arts. Clark has several areas you can take advantage of and their media studies are excellent. They offer screen studies, media, culture, and the arts, theater arts, studio art, music, and art history. But because of the LEEP approach, you won’t just study theory. You’ll explore all aspects of these disciplines from play writing (this is an especially good program) to stage management, from filmmaking to editing and sound.
Clark is a DIII school. They have no football, but they do have basketball, women’s crew, soccer, swimming, and cross country. There is (it’s in New England) club Ice Hockey. They also have Quidditch, Capoeira, Snowboarding, Karate, and Tae Kwon Do. There is no Greek Life here. As far as Student Life goes, Clark boasts over 130 different clubs (this is impressive for a school of this size). Everything from Youth Outreach Worcester to Students Advocate for Feminism and Empowerment, from Sinfonia, a student run strings group, to Model United Nations, from the Ballroom Dance Team and Club to the Herban Gardeners, there is something for everyone here. Jazz ensembles, Yearbook, creative writing, politics, knitting, and more are available.
Housing for first years is mostly “traditional style” meaning you and a roommate along with communal baths, lounges, and kitchens. Dana Hall, however, has some suite style housing in and amongst the traditional style and has a mix of student ages. Freshmen live entirely in Bullock and Wright dorms which are devoted to their needs and their development.
Is Clark for you? Do you want to “Challenge Convention and Change the World?” Then this is the place to do it (it’s their motto after all). Are you passionate about your world and your place in it? Are you looking for a place where you can gain experience and have unique access to programming custom tailored to you? It well could be.
Pros:
Cons:
If you are interested in changing the world, Clark is a school you want to look at. It’s got a lot to like right off the bat. It’s a College That Changes Lives school. It’s also a Business Insider top 5 schools for students who want to make an impact on the world, and it’s a Princeton Review school for Colleges That Pay You Back, as well. Their accolades don’t stop there, but rankings and prizes are not a reason to choose a school, as you well know by now (or should if I am doing my job properly!).
Clark, founded in 1887 as a graduate institution and its main focus at that time was psychology. In 1902 they opened their doors to undergraduates, but were still famous for their focus on the mind. The first president of Clark was also the founder of the American Psychological Association (as in APA style for those playing at home). In 1909, in fact Sigmund Freud came to the US and made his famous “Clark Lectures” during which he introduced psychoanalysis to the United States. Clark is still incredibly strong in this field, but it’s not their only strength. They also boast a terrific geography department and the very first human dimensions of climate change programs.
Clark’s cutting edge research has included things people know and take completely for granted. Wind chill? Clark research. Heard of the Goddard Space Center? Goddard did his research at Clark. The Pill? Clark. Chemical double bonding… You get the point.
One of the most unique aspects of Clark is the LEEP program. LEEP stands for Liberal Arts Experiential Learning (LE+EP). This is a program that every student at Clark goes through (although some students are also awarded a Presidential LEEP Scholarship) that interweaves your education with advising with experiences and a capstone project so that when you leave college you have both the academic skills you need to be successful and the soft skills, workplace skills, and experience you need to be competitive. All students take a First Year Intensive, classes like The Ripples Effect of Arctic Ice Melt, Should Morality Play a Role in Art, or Explore Global Threats: From AIDS to Zika. As you go through your time at Clark and continue to take classes, decide on a major, your advisor will talk to you about what kinds of experiences you can be looking for. The LEEP Center (which is also the Career Center) then helps match you with the projects or helps you design something you want to be doing usually by the end of sophomore year. Work in tandem with your academic and LEEP advisors, you’ll continue to develop your experiential learning and your academic interests to design a final capstone project by the end of your senior year.
With seven different multidisciplinary institutes along with multiple majors and minors, Clark offers some extremely unique ways to study. Their institutes are particularly creative and draw many of the 3,000 students who attend (there are another 1,000 graduate students as well, putting the enrollment in that middle sized sweet spot). The Mosakowski Center for Public Enterprise seeks to focus on the public good and social issues weaving together everything from environmental policies to education, access to healthcare, and human development. The George Perkins Marsh Institute focuses primarily on the human-environment interaction exploring disciplines like industrialization and globalization, risks and hazards, GIS, resource management and environmental policy. The Higgins School for the Humanities allows students to examine topics from multiple perspectives by drawing on several different disciplines. The Clark Labs encourage students to see their work in science as multidisciplinary and provides cutting edge tools like their IDRISI GIS and Image Processing software to visualize what they are doing. The Adam Institute for Urban Teaching and School Practice challenges students to engage in urban schools in Worcester and become involved in teaching and learning in an urban setting while making an impact on children’s lives. The Hiatt Center for Urban Education’s mission is to engage practitioners, community members, youth and students to promote counter-narratives, to examine new media and multiliteracies, participate in inquiry, and research. Finally the Strassler Center for Holocaust Studies looks not just at the Jewish Holocaust in Germany and Europe, but at various kinds of holocausts: the Armenian genocide, Cambodian, and Rwanda. It’s no accident that nearly a third of students here major in the social sciences. Clark provides an incredible education for students who want to study these sorts of disciplines in this kind of broad perspective way.
Another major area of study at Clark are the arts. Clark has several areas you can take advantage of and their media studies are excellent. They offer screen studies, media, culture, and the arts, theater arts, studio art, music, and art history. But because of the LEEP approach, you won’t just study theory. You’ll explore all aspects of these disciplines from play writing (this is an especially good program) to stage management, from filmmaking to editing and sound.
Clark is a DIII school. They have no football, but they do have basketball, women’s crew, soccer, swimming, and cross country. There is (it’s in New England) club Ice Hockey. They also have Quidditch, Capoeira, Snowboarding, Karate, and Tae Kwon Do. There is no Greek Life here. As far as Student Life goes, Clark boasts over 130 different clubs (this is impressive for a school of this size). Everything from Youth Outreach Worcester to Students Advocate for Feminism and Empowerment, from Sinfonia, a student run strings group, to Model United Nations, from the Ballroom Dance Team and Club to the Herban Gardeners, there is something for everyone here. Jazz ensembles, Yearbook, creative writing, politics, knitting, and more are available.
Housing for first years is mostly “traditional style” meaning you and a roommate along with communal baths, lounges, and kitchens. Dana Hall, however, has some suite style housing in and amongst the traditional style and has a mix of student ages. Freshmen live entirely in Bullock and Wright dorms which are devoted to their needs and their development.
Is Clark for you? Do you want to “Challenge Convention and Change the World?” Then this is the place to do it (it’s their motto after all). Are you passionate about your world and your place in it? Are you looking for a place where you can gain experience and have unique access to programming custom tailored to you? It well could be.
Pros:
- Medium sized nice for all
- Lots of undergraduate research opportunities
- LEEP Program is amazing for customizing learning and experience
- Interdisciplinary programming invites students to see multiple perspectives
Cons:
- No football or Greek Life
- Urban school in an urban community (don’t get me wrong, Worcester is great!)
- Social sciences and environmental are huge here so it’s not really a place for say engineering
- Students here are passionate about what they do so you have to be too