Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts

Date: Sep 07 2008
Major: Journalism (This Major's Salary over time)
Don't choose ELC if you need any hand holding or want to go to college to figure out what you want to be when you grow up. In my experience, it's the perfect place for students who come to the school hoping to gain knowledge, not good grades and a perfect transcript for grad school applications. That's probably the most cliched statement these online surveys offer for ELC—that it's a place you go to grow, bla bla bla. But really, what is fantastic about this school and what makes it such a truly unique place is the opportunity and freedom students have to pursue individual courses of study and engage in rigorous, in-class debate. The faculty is, for the most part, brilliant—I've never had a professor who didn't challenge me and raise the bar for what I expect "school" to be like. I am majoring in Writing, particularly Journalism, and the well-connected people in career services have helped me land internships at top notch publications. The kids in the writing dept are smart and passionate—like anywhere else there are a few duds, and the courtyard is ALWAYS filled with smoking hipsters—but the writers are really good here. The social life is a little tricky—if you live in the dorms your first year you'll have an easier time making friends. It's not so much that people are mean, it's just that in NYC, when everyone's living such a busy life, it's often hard to make those initial bonds that happen routinely at big universities with campuses and greek life and what not.