This Week’s College: Emerson College Boston, Massachusetts
One of the odd things about Emerson is that while it’s called a college, it offers Master’s degrees and PhDs as well. But it is primarily a college and its focus is on its undergraduate teaching. A medium sized college (around 4,000 students total), Emerson is located in the heart of the theater district of Boston and cozies up right to the Boston Common (think Boston’s Central Park), so it’s no surprise that theater, performance and communications take center stage at Emerson.
Emerson was originally established as a school of oratory and it hasn’t left that mission entirely. Today though its focus continues to be to explore and to push the boundaries of communication, art, and culture, and thereby to contribute to the advancement of society. To this end, Emerson has several performance venues, multiple radio stations, and other arts spaces and outlets. In addition, it has a campus in LA (in progress) and one in the Netherlands.
Emerson prides itself on creativity (it has a whole section of its website devoted to it). This is not the school for people who are interested in the right answers or who feel most comfortable in classes where they don’t have to solve a lot of problems. Emerson has a list of funky grads which spans from the likes of Jay Leno and Denis Leary to Seth Grahame-Smith and Bobbi Brown.
Students here are pretty independent and while freshmen live on campus, most upperclassmen live in the city (and many a little ways away where it’s cheaper in places like Allston-Brighton or across the river in Cambridge). Cars are not allowed (you won’t want one because parking is horrible anyway and public transportation is easy). The city of Boston is definitely part of your campus, it is your campus so you need to want to be in a city. You need to be adventurous. Greek life is virtually nonexistent (in the low single digits) and while there are sports, that’s not a major thing here. Students here are poised, confident, and, like most performers, a little dramatic.
Pros:
One of the odd things about Emerson is that while it’s called a college, it offers Master’s degrees and PhDs as well. But it is primarily a college and its focus is on its undergraduate teaching. A medium sized college (around 4,000 students total), Emerson is located in the heart of the theater district of Boston and cozies up right to the Boston Common (think Boston’s Central Park), so it’s no surprise that theater, performance and communications take center stage at Emerson.
Emerson was originally established as a school of oratory and it hasn’t left that mission entirely. Today though its focus continues to be to explore and to push the boundaries of communication, art, and culture, and thereby to contribute to the advancement of society. To this end, Emerson has several performance venues, multiple radio stations, and other arts spaces and outlets. In addition, it has a campus in LA (in progress) and one in the Netherlands.
Emerson prides itself on creativity (it has a whole section of its website devoted to it). This is not the school for people who are interested in the right answers or who feel most comfortable in classes where they don’t have to solve a lot of problems. Emerson has a list of funky grads which spans from the likes of Jay Leno and Denis Leary to Seth Grahame-Smith and Bobbi Brown.
Students here are pretty independent and while freshmen live on campus, most upperclassmen live in the city (and many a little ways away where it’s cheaper in places like Allston-Brighton or across the river in Cambridge). Cars are not allowed (you won’t want one because parking is horrible anyway and public transportation is easy). The city of Boston is definitely part of your campus, it is your campus so you need to want to be in a city. You need to be adventurous. Greek life is virtually nonexistent (in the low single digits) and while there are sports, that’s not a major thing here. Students here are poised, confident, and, like most performers, a little dramatic.
Pros:
- A specialized school means you will get to really delve deeply into your passion
- If you’re a city person, Boston is a fabulous starter city: reasonably sized and has a lot going on
- Private, so cha ching!
- A quirky place for a quirky set, this could be a great home for some folks!
- Boston is a college town so lots of other students all over
- Because it’s specialized, you might not find out about things you really are interested in like sciences
- There is no campus feel
- Not at all a traditional college feel
- Boston is not a cheap city (and it’s getting more expensive all the time! My mom sold her house in 10 minutes, I kid you not!)