Emerson College Top Questions

Emerson is truly a great school, one of the best for communication and the arts. Lated in downtown Boston, you can't get a better location for colleg students. Emerson's size allows for very personal experiences in the classroom with your professors and classmates. Average class sizes are around 20. Students love living on campus and interact with the city around them. Emerson's administration, though strict, is very approachable and understanding. Even though Emerson shows very little school pride, there is a tight community and strong sense of appreciation for our work.

I love this school. It has so many unique things to offer, the dorms are great, (most of) the people are very friendly. I love living in Boston, because there are so many things to do here. But I've found that a lot of people at Emerson are stuck up and close-minded. It's supposed to be the opposite: everyone at our liberal arts school is supposed to be open to many new things. But they're only open to things they support. If I express my opinion here and others don't agree with it, they'll shoot it down immediately, not even allowing me to back up my opinion. They won't even consider my opinion because most people here think they are right and that's all there is to it, and that's the one thing I hate about Emerson.

Emerson is innovative, creative, and contemporary. The classes offered combine all forms of media and interactive tools into the lesson plans, making for a truly unique and enriching learning experience. The college attracts students who are “go-getters,” earnest young people striving to success and make a difference in their field of study. The best thing about Emerson is that it provides a free, expressive environment to exchange ideas. The professors serve as soundboards for our creative pursuits. If I could change one thing about Emerson College, I would want there to be more racial and socioeconomic diversity. There is a diversity of ideas and sexual orientation, but in terms of race, culture, and ethnicities, Emerson lacks. When adults ask me where I go to school, even the people most well versed in the country’s colleges will hesitate when they hear of Emerson College. The first time this happened, I shrugged it off. I said to myself, “Okay. Maybe that person just doesn’t know a lot about East Coast colleges.” The next time a person admitted to me they had never heard of the college, I began to see things more clearly. Emerson College is a fantastic communications school. This is unquestionable. However, the only people who know how good the college is or know of the type of student it produces are those in the communications field themselves. Ultimately, those are the only people whose opinion matters anyway, given that they are the people who will hopefully hire Emerson graduates. The most recent controversy at Emerson happened this month when two student Government Association members resigned because they feel like too much money was allotted to a certain committee. Otherwise, Emerson does not seem to get caught up in much controversy. While sports are not really emphasized at Emerson, there is school pride. Emerson College is a small community, so if you were to see someone walking somewhere in Boston with an Emerson sweatshirt on, it would not be uncommon to say hello. I was on a train once to a Worchester, a city outside of Boston, and ironically, I sat next to an Emerson freshman, whom I had not met before. I guess we all gravitate to each other somehow. I’ll never forget attending the Barack Obama rally in the Boston Common this past fall. I could literally see the Emerson dorms from where I was standing among the throngs of people. There was a tangible excitement in the air, as Obama’s voice bounced off of nearby buildings. People had journeyed to see him, and all I had to do was step into my front lawn. The complaint I hear most often is from my girlfriends. They constantly complain that they continuously fall for gay men at Emerson. This is either because there is a shortage of straight men on campus or because my friends have faulty “gay-dar,”but I believe it is the former.

The best thing about Emerson is the classes--you don't have to take general courses for your first two years, you jump right into your major. We're encouraged to get internships as soon as our second semester, and many kids do succeed at doing so. My complaint, and one that EVERYONE seems to agree with--Why is this place so expensive? Why is the financial aid so bad? It's irritating to see how much money we'll each end up spending over our four years here. According to Princeton Review, if it stays the same as it is now, we'll each pay approximately $119,000 over four years, not including housing or the cost of living. Emerson College is the perfect size. My biggest class I've had was about 45 people, and my smallest was 12. You'll find here that there will be some people you'll know and recognize, while some days you'll see someone completely new. When I tell people I'm going to Emerson, I have to say "EmersonCollegeinBoston" to get any sort of reaction. No one's ever heard of it in my small town, but here whenever anyone asks me where I go to school they're usually really impressed and interested to hear all about my Emerson education. When on campus, I spend most of my time in my room or in friends rooms. Boston is the ultimate college town. When there's nothing going on at our campus, we can pretty walk up the street to Suffolk or Berklee, or take the T to Northeastern or Boston University and find something going on immediately. Plus, Emerson is directly across the street from the Boston Common and The Public Garden--two beautiful and exciting areas. Emerson's administration is improving. I think it's been hard for them to keep up with how quickly Emerson has grown over the past few years. My class is the biggest Emerson has ever seen--they didn't expect so many of us to enroll, and ended up opening dorm space in two neighborhood hotels to keep us all. The administration is growing with the College. Emerson made Piano Row (the newest resident hall) a green building. During winter break it was authorized as an official green building. This means you cannot smoke within 25 feet of Piano Row. For the very large Emerson College smoking population, this has been a great issue of discussion. No one is very happy about it, except maybe for the Wellness Floor kids. There is a lot of school pride at Emerson, but it's not the traditional pride you might see in bigger universities where students are proud of their sporting teams. We're proud of our academics. Any student here could give you a personal story about how Emerson has changed their educational lives completely, and made it so that learning is enjoyable. Emerson College is unusual in the effect that it does not have much of a campus. You can't walk from the dining hall back to Piano Row on a Friday night without being surrounded by Gypsy Bar going folks or even seeing one of your professors smoking outside of the pub that's connected to the Walker building. I will always remember our snow day earlier in the year. There was white snow covering the streets and slowly falling from the sky, and the Steinway piano store was playing Christmas music outside. People were walking in the streets and through the Common. It was such a beautiful experience.