Bard

Bard college was a fun college to tour. However I'm not sure what exactly I think about it it had its negative and positive aspects. I liked the artsy vibe of campus, its work ethic, and its environmental consciousness; however, lots of people on campus were smoking, there were extra time commitments outside of the regular school year for first years, and I've heard bad things about the economic standing of the college.    

I'm going to talk about the negative aspect of Bard first to that I can end this post on a happy note. I'm not a smoker and being on a campus where lots of people smoke would expose me to all the negative effects of smoke just seems like a silly idea and it also would make it more likely that I would start smoking and I don't want to put myself in that position. Next, while on the tour the tour guide talked about two programs for first years that involve coming to campus three week early and while it is good for academic development I'm not sure I want to give up six weeks of my breaks! Finally, I heard from a student on another tour who was transferring away from Bard, my father who read it in a academic journal, and a Bard professor that money at Bard is underfunded and that perhaps its funds are misused. This is not necessarily a huge problem but I think it is something that I should keep in mind.

Now on the positive side of Bard college. Like I saw at Oberlin there is an attitude of art and it seems like that art and performance seems to go on all the time. In fact, on the tour there was mention of a twenty four hour theater festival that seemed fantastic. There were also two different programs that showed me how rigorous academics at Bard must be the process of getting into a major and the senior thesis. Every student at Bard has to create a project and write papers about why they want to study a specific major before they can accepted into a major. Then at the end of each student's senior year they have a senior thesis which is a project that is a culmination of the of their work at Bard. These two things force students to work for their degree and that should keep them motivate: I want to be at a place where I will be motivated