Bennington College

Date: Jun 11 2005
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
Ok where to start? I had never looked forward to anything in my life quite as much as I had about going to Bennington. That being said, let me tell you how my dream became a nightmare. Everything about Bennington is fake, hypocritical and sometimes down right fraudulent. First let's start with the perceptions that they advertise and the impressions that they try to cultivate in the minds of prospective students. They act like they are proudly one of the most liberaly minded colleges in America. Fact: They don't even pay thier employees a liveable wage. They are located in a state where a fair living wage is standard and all the surrounding universities manage to meet this basic need. Certainly there is never mention of a pay cut in the salaries of any of the well paid proffesors or that of the gargantuanly overpaid president of the college Liz Coleman. Her job might be more important than that of a single janitor, but in a liberal society it is a basic premise that even the lowest end of the community is an important part whose basic standards for living should be fair. In stead a lot of the college staff members are treated like dirt by an arrogant and self important administration. President Liz Coleman's can come off as being very snotty and its no wonder the college has left such a bad taste in the local communities palate.

Myth # 2: Bennington offers academic freedom. While this is true to a certain extent there are also many holes in this. My personal experiences were rediculous. I transfered in as a second term sophomore. I couldn't even get transfer credit for a journalism class even though i am a career minded writer. Right off the bat i had to write a plan essay. I had originally chosen writing/ political science as my concentration. At my plan meeting they told me that I had to drop the writing from my concentration, even though the only reason I had not been able to take a writing class that semester was because they were all filled up before registration. They told me to focus on political science. Several months later after my plan was rejected they told me that there was no such concentration as political science.

I invested a tremendous amount of energy working with one faculty member. Throughout, I was involved in extra curricular altruism. She told me that I had to follow through and spend a lot of time working on a project that I had started in my free time, but she wouldn't allow me time to work on it. She wouldn't even consider my request to get credit for an idependent study project after having spent countless hourse working on it outside of glass while still maintaining nearly perfect grades. Later this teacher categoricly refused to work with me.

Ok, that's bad, but here's the worst. I helped the local labor union organize a demonstration against the school for fair wages. The administration caved in right before a second demonstration. I was nearly the only student to really put myself on the line to help these working people with families. Nearly the day after we had won, I was hearing stories, rumors about bad things I had done. The source of these rumors was allegedly the new dean of students Bob Graves.

I went to talk to him to find out if this was true, as it seemed like a very imprudent thing for a man in his position to have done. He assured me that it was not true and that there were no problems between the two of us. A couple weeks later I came back to my room from class and was escorted off campus. This was already at night, and it so happened that on the occasion I had no money, no car, and no place to stay, and I couldn't get a hold of my parents to wire me money until the morning. I informed the Dean of this over the phone and crying, I begged him to stay at least the night. Apparently he didn't care if I would have to sleep in the gutter that night, because he didn't relent and show mercy. Luckily I had some great friends who were able to loan me money.

I was suspended by that lying, back stabbing, two faced weasil for trumped up charges, and I ended up having to drop out to avoid a permant black mark on my college transcripts. The charges against me were totally bogus, and though I had been warned of the danger by other students who had been there longer I never really thought that this liberal institution would penalize me for having a bleeding heart. The politics of the whole place have taken a swing to the right in recent years. One more note. I made some great friends at Bennington but there sure were of an aweful lot (a god aweful lot) of spoiled rich kids. I got the impression with these kids, that they're parents were dropping them off at Bennington to get them out of their hair as if it were a prep school or a summer camp. The school doesn't kick you out for failing classes… at least not if you pay full tutition. I paid almost nothing with grants and financial aid. I had to leave once I cost the school more money than I was apparently worth.

Make up your own mind about Bennington, I just thought that I should share my personal experiences at the school to at least give you an idea of what one possibility might be like. Sorry that my comment is so long, but this school makes me very angry.