College visit: Bennington College

As part of my annual spring tour of colleges, this past week I visited Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. I'd lived in Bennington briefly about 20 years ago, but had never actually visited Bennington College until this year.

Bennington is a small college of about 730 students with a charming campus filled with eclectic and thoughtfully constructed learning and living spaces. What stands out to me most about Bennington is its innovative curriculum. Rather than declare a traditional major, Bennington students develop an academic plan focusing on a single, challenging, often interdisciplinary intellectual problem or question. Students then embark upon an ambitious research process, including multiple internships, classes, and tutorials, culminating in a 30-60 page research paper as well as some sort of public-facing presentation or performance. Similar to a dissertation committee, a committee of faculty members works closely with each student to hone their research questions, ask questions of their own, provide feedback and support, and help direct the student toward opportunities after they graduate. Many Bennington students go on to graduate school to continue and deepen their research pursuits. It is an innovative, rigorous, and inquiry-driven approach to undergraduate studies, and the students I spoke to were extremely excited about the projects they had embarked upon.

The type of student most likely to succeed at Bennington is someone who is, or aspires to be, self driven in their intellectual pursuits, who does not expect a uniform or cookie-cutter design to their program of study. Students enrolling at Bennington don't necessarily need to be natural leaders among their peers, but they do need to be community minded. Bennington students are generally oriented toward helping to make the world a better place, and are people seeking to use their educational experiences to make a difference.

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