I went on my first college tour today. During my freshman year I had accompanied my sister on all of her college tours, so I had built a large context of what to expect when I started my tours. I had actually signed up to go on the Eugene Lange tour of The New School, but the people there weren't checking off on lists so I just ended up going to Parsons because that is the school that I would prefer applying to next year. The tour was very generic, but had the New School twist on it and I really fell in love with the school.
First off the tour itself was tiny. I remember that the tours at Northeastern and Boston University were huge. You'd start off in this huge auditorium and it'd take half an hour to split up into groups for the walking portion. Here the intro was in a tiny room and two minutes after it finished, our group was already on its way to the first stop.
Our tour guide was also something that sold me on the school. He was the kind of person that is a learned leader, not a born one. I consider myself someone like that, and the best example I can think of in STAC is Shiana, she can lead a group, but because she learned how to, not because it was just something that came. I could tell that Elias, our guide, had this quality because of the way that he talked, he was quiet, but in the loud kind of way. The reason I liked this so much was because it reinforced what he talked about in the school. Freshmen in Parsons spend that year working more on talking and think about their art. So what I got from him is that after a year at Parsons, he learned to talk, and that was expressed in his tour guiding manner.
Next, there are the buildings. This shouldn't be something so significant in a college decision, but it's extremely hard to ignore it. Everything is beautiful. Not only do the buildings themselves have the modern looking Bauhaus style, but the interior design is an even larger accomplishment in my mind. In their newest building, where we spent about half of the tour, and where we were told a good portion of our classes would take place, each floor had a beautiful design. Their new auditorium was this fantastic space with moving walls to convert it into a number of different areas, from a runway to a stage. Added, there were these wonderful section where the walls and ceiling were painted solid bright colors. The whole thing felt like a playhouse for the mind. I could get ultra creative in a space like that, and I think that's part of the reason why they spend so much money to make these buildings.
What won me over academically was their freshmen year studies. You don't choose a major until your sophomore year, and that relieves me from a lot of stress. I don't know exactly what I want to do, and it's nice to have options. I can apply with basically anything that I make in STAC, and choose something completely new to major in. The program that I'd want to do at their school would be Design and Technology, but I know very little about design or technology now. I am seriously worried about going into anything computer related that requires some sort of portfolio, but I can apply to the school with paintings and films and still go into what I want to do.
Lastly, the Dual Degree program. I like a lot of things, and I have put effort into a lot of things, so I'd feel really bad if I had to give them up, mainly Spanish and French. I love language, and it's something that I'd seriously consider studying if I could put it in a larger context, like study abroad programs. I kind of have a plan set out for Parsons. I'd major in whatever art major i decide upon, and then minor, or double major in French, and take advantage of the Paris campus that the New School has and study there for a while. Spanish is something that I enjoy, but I don't worry about forgetting the language like I would with French. I'll always be speaking in Spanish, I even talk to myself in Spanish, but without a French class I know that I'd forget almost everything I'd learned because I'd have no one to speak with.
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