We asked Catherine...
What are the academics like at your school?
Academics at Emerson are incredibly informal. The teachers usually go by their first names and communication is easy and honest. Students at Emerson are usually very focused on their major so any general requirement classes are ignored and not taken seriously. The school doesn't try very hard to make them any more interesting either. The main nightmares are Expository and Research writing, you can get out of Expository with credits from highschool but you've got to take a semester of Research writing unless you're in the honors program. I've hear tons of complaints about research writing, but I think it all depends on the teacher and the class topic, the topics range from Technology (gross) to Travel Writing, which i've heard is great. I'm in the honors program so my classes are very different. My first semester honors class was focused on literary analysis. We read tons of articles by psychoanalysts like Freud and Melanie Klein and also a lot of historical pieces. We read about 6 novels and used to articles to analyze the texts. Ok that sounds really daunting but it wasn't bad at all, in fact from what I heard it was a lot easier than the Expository and Research writing classes as far as the amount of work. Second semester you do the same thing plus a writing class which focuses on a 20 page paper about anything you want which you have all semester to write. I've been really happy with the honors program. I feel like it's a good addition to my acting major, because my brain would have probably shriveled up if i'd just done vocal warmups and yoga poses. The acting teachers are amazing, they are honest and encourage honesty from students. They know what they're talking about, all of the teachers have amazing backgrounds and credentials. Amelia Broome is a goddess, get her if you can. You go through phases with the acting program here, I get burnt out easily on some of the more abstract techniques and it can be hard because you don't feel like you're ever "acting" in class. The good thing about that is all of the acting opportunities outside of class. Their are hundreds and hundreds but you have to take the initiative to find out about them and go to auditions, no one is holding your hand, it's the real world.