Bard College Simon's Rock

Date: Nov 14 2004
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I actually had a really good time at this school. I did very well academically, then did an enourmous amount of drugs and went someplace else. If you're not at all (AT ALL) susceptable to peer pressure and temptation, this may not apply to you as much as it does to most.

First problem with Simon's Rock: It's a drug mecca for western mass. Unless things are vastly different in the entire berkshire area, don't be fooled. This handy gray area Simon's Rock defines in higher education is also a handy gray area for trading between local highschools and colleges. This can be good or bad, depending on your lifestyle.

Don't be fooled into Simon's Rock is any more difficult than a real college. Any dedicated student will learn whatever they're going to learn, whether they're in Haravrd or Somalia. You teach yourself the things you actually want to know. Simon's Rock coddles its students in an incredibly merciful and forgiving environment, and it is actually something of a challenge to fail. Some of the teachers are wonderful, others are flakes, you get roughly the same mix as anywhere else, just fewer choices, and fewer consequences.

Everybody knows everything all the time. If you get in a torrid three week affair in the first semester, too bad, you have to deal with that person and everyone else's gossip for another year or two. It's a small college in a small town. There is no escape.

If you crave an escape from the snobbish and ignorant judgementalism of highschool, just give it up. There is no escape, because it's not a highschool thing, it's a age group thing. Simon's Rock scores a point here for not actively encouraging divisive and xenophobic behavior in its students, but don't be completely shocked when you find that all the highschool dropouts still act like highschool kids, except that they feel somewhat smarter than their peers, which is absurd. The classic equation for getting into Simon's Rock requires only one of the following: a good GPA, a good introductory essay, or a good sob story.

Simon's Rock, though it encourages more active learning than highschool, is about as far from reality as you can get and still be shy of A Seperate Peace. It does not prepare you for a real college, because the most bitter thing you learn in a real college is organizing your life around a whole bunch of people who don't particularly care about you or even know your name.

Finally, know that a lot of people snap very quickly. Usually, this is because of age, prior emotional instability, heavy drug use, and ego collapse. Sometimes, it's just because of the bizarre internal cults that develop just because there are no responsible adults. There's a joke amoung my generation of rockers that we should get together for a class action suit to pay for all our various therapy and institutional bills.

Would I do it all again? Probably, but if I went around again, it would just be to dispense with the illusion of self-improvement, since I could have just been a huge slut and gotten about the same academic fulfillment.