Visit #2: Bennington College

             
Well, it seems as if my first impressions of both Bennington the city and the school were correct. Overall, the score was nothing more than average and paled in comparison to yesterday’s Bates. There are some things that even gorgeous scenery can’t compensate for. Nonetheless, here were some specs!
 
1. Size - Once hearing that Bennington only had 700 students total, I understood why the campus was so small. With only 5-6 main buildings and a handful of dorm houses, that was about it. Bennington does win the cool factor with the fact that the school was a former dairy farm! The rest of the campus though was huge!

2. CAPA/VAPA - Bennington had 2 very interesting aspects: the Center for the Advancement of Public Action and the center for the Visual and Performing Arts. While VAPA wasn’t as exciting, CAPA was brand-spanking new and a really amazing idea. Its focus was to make students more aware of the issues that plague our world today and work together to come up with a fair solution.

3. The Bennington PLAN - I wasn’t too impressed with Bennington’s curriculum, perhaps because it resembled my high school’s too much. This is because students have no restrictions as to what they classes can take because at the end of their senior year, they have to demonstrate with a final project how all their classes helped culminate in their work towards their degree. Pretty much, it would serve as a repetition of my senior mentoring project (aka this blog).

4. Field Work Study - Now THIS was what really impressed me! Each year, students participate in this FWS from the beginning of January to the end of February by expanding their experiences by doing something (internship, apprenticeship, etc) that will help them in their major. For example, our tour guide is in design and went to Alaska and apprenticed under a man who earns a living in woodworking! This alone, just might persuade me to still apply to Bennington.

5. Lodging - No students live in dorms in Bennington. Instead, students share houses with about 30 other students. Besides the 3 new Modern houses which are above average, the other houses, Colonials and 70’s houses, seemed…quite frankly, a little old and run-down. Being the clean freak I am, I’m not entirely sure how that would work.


Either way, I’m really glad we visited Bennington. Just because, after finding out about Bennington online, I thought it was amazing! It was #2 on my list, but now…not so much. Bates really was much better :)