Bennington College Top Questions

Addressing academics at Bennington requires the explanation of two seemingly simple words that, when combined, strike fear into the hearts of graduates and students alike: PLAN PROCESS. (*cue dramatic music*) If you are interested in Bennington College, you already know that you are interested in "designing your own education." Or do you? If you are interested in designing a math-free education, a music-only education, a never-write-another-essay education, FORGET ABOUT IT. BENNINGTON COLLEGE HAS A CURRICULUM AND AN AGENDA, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER SCHOOL. Perhaps more valuable than figuring out whether a school is an academic fit, figure out if it is a philisophical fit. Bennington College believes that its students should be richly. liberally educated. President Coleman believes that it is no longer enough to educate students as future thinkers, but as future and current world citizens. As such, a Bennington education emphasizes breadth AND depth, as well as interdisciplinary thinking and problem-solving. Students are expected to contextualize their educations, and be prepared to defend them. The Plan Process is the means to that end. Through the plan process, students clarify, question, contexualize, and eventually defend their educational choices. Unfortunately, the process is far from perfect and far from smooth. Few students experience the perfect balance of questioning, clarifying, defending, and contextualizing, and considering one's educational future is at stake, the fall-out can be scary, painful, frustrating, or simply ineffectual. The balance is that, having come through it, students can withstand anything, with confidence in their choices and desires.

One of the major parts that I love about Bennington is that for me there isn't a very big difference between academics and play at Bennington. I feel that lots of things that I go to for fun are parts of other people's studies. For example, I went to see a reading of a play that was written and produced by a friend for her senior project. It was a really fun night! I don't know if I could pick my favorite class. For me everything just ends up fitting together. Example: This semester I took a lit class where we read writers diaries along with their work... then I took a documentary video class, a Spanish II that was not only a Spanish class but also a Spanish film study class (we watched movies in Spanish and learned how to discuss them in Spanish.) and I took an electronic music class. I ended up being very inspired by Virginia Woolf and a paper I wrote about memory for that class. I took that idea and created a sound piece on memory which I then used as the soundtrack for my documentary on memory. Talking about movies in Spanish also added to how I viewed movies and helped with how I thought about making my movie. So for me, I love when everything fits together like that. Also, Professors are very easy to meet with. They always have office hours and if you can't make an office hour you can set up an individual meeting. I recommend taking full advantage of being able to talk one on one with professors because it is a great way to learn and push yourself to think even more. They always offer a viewpoint that I didn't think about before meeting with them individually.

The classes are great. The professors are great. I majored in Teaching, History and Philosophy. I've had classes with every social science professor and teaching professor. I enjoyed at least one class with each. The classes are small, and discussion based, so you don't get the Peanuts "wah wah wah wah wah-wah" from some guy in a lecture hall. Of course this means you have to study and do the reading. Participation is huge. We don't have tests, so your papers, if you go into the social sciences like I did, will be worth quite a bit. Also - no grades. You'll get written evaluations on everything, which will tell you candidly what was good or bad about your work. You'll get to know your professors well. It's weirdly rigorous at Bennington. I feel as though the courseload wasn't horrendous, but the material was difficult. I never had to pull an all-nighter, but then again I was satisfied getting Bs. (You can get grades, and the school reccomends doing so. I had to so as to be eligible for Grad school.)

Bennington currently has no core curriculum; this means no Math 101, Introduction To Literature, etc. The school has just recently incorporated "Design Labs" into its curriculum, classes focused on solving real world problems, and sometimes involving cross-disciplinary work. The expectation is that all freshmen are required to take at least one design lab, choosing one from several options. A Bennington academic "journey" looks something like this: your first year, you are encouraged to explore all your interests, taking various classes. (You're also set up with an academic advisor the day you arrive on campus-- you can always switch advisors later on, which happens frequently and isn't a difficult process.) Your sophomore year, you write what we call a PLAN ESSAY. (This is our way of declaring a major.) Every sophomore writes a plan essay, saying what he wants to focus in on during the remainder of his tiem at Bennington. This essay might include some classes he wishes to take, and suggestions for future field work terms and a senior project. All of these essays go to the dean's office, and the dean sets each student up with a plan committee, three faculty members who specialize in what the student wishes to study. This plan committee meets with you throughout the rest of your time at Bennington to go over how you're doing, making sure you're doing advanced work, and giving you guidance about classes, etc. It's just the right combination: while there's no hand holding, you know that you have the support of your plan committee while being in charge of your own education. Bennington is really for self-motivated students. While there's a healthy sense of competition, I think people are working for themselves, and doing their own personal best. Bennington students are always working, always busy, whether it's choreographing, writing, reading. I very rarely have "tests" like I did in high school: final projects usually come down to creative options, or papers. Discussion is a huge part of almost every single class. The biggest class I've ever had was almost 40; the smallest was 7. Last time I checked, the Bennington teacher to student ratio is currently 8 to 1. Work and play really start to blend at Bennington; people are doing amazing work for classes that you might not be able to do at a more typical school, (i.e. giant puppet shows, documentaries about the Bennington security office, illustrating children's books, etc.)

All my professors know my name. Everyone talks in class, and not just to the teacher. In fact, usually to each other. There are intellectual conversations going on all the time, everywhere. Sometimes, I'll get out of Philosophy, only to be thrown back into another philosophical conversation and debate during lunch! I have personally loved the music classes on this campus. Right now, I'm in a small jazz ensemble as part of someone's senior project. It's really hard, but its wonderful to get to work with just students and create something, and have that count for credit. The Bennington college academic experience is truly unique. If you want to come here, you NEED to sit in on a class to understand it. You can sit in on an academic course, but since you probably won't have done the reading, that won't help. I would suggest coming to an arts course, particularly a music one. Participation in class is really abundant, and you'll probably get the chance to join in, if you want to!

I have a really good relationship with all of my teachers. Classes are generally pretty small so the teachers know everyone pretty well. Class participation is common, but every class has shy students. I think one of the goals of Bennington is to encourage students to NOT be so competitive, which is why we don't have grades, unless you ask for them. I think people either love the Plan process or hate it, it depends on what you are studying and who is on your committee. I would say the education at Bennington is geared more towards learning for learning's sake.