By Willie Burnley Jr., Staff Writer, Emerson College
Every semester that I’ve attended Emerson College, I have had to worry whether my family could afford to send me back to Boston. Last summer was the worst. Due to a FAFSA error, our precarious grip on the college dream was slipping fast. My mother was already working two jobs, my dad’s hours were being cut by the government-induced sequester, and the three attempts we made at receiving enough in parent PLUS loans to offset my decreased financial aid all ended in rejection. On top of it all, tuition increased. Both of my parents turned to me during this crisis and told me I was going to have to figure out what I would do if I could not return to Emerson. Luckily, I solved my immediate problems. However, if I was going to invest so much of my family’s stress and money into going to college, I knew I needed to get the most out of my education as possible.
Issues of affordability are not unique to Emerson. Colleges and universities nationwide are increasing tuition to the point that higher education is starting to seem like a luxury in an age when having a degree is more necessary than ever. Especially at private institutions, this means the students roaming the halls are usually of a certain socioeconomic status. Perhaps you’ve noticed the economic privilege of your peers who can eat at restaurants all the time or have just felt, through conversations, the economic inequality that colleges are becoming more known for. Maybe you, too, have been reluctant to publicly question how much we get out of our classes and facilities because you would have to deal with the inevitable stranger who says, “Well, if you don’t like it, maybe you should leave.” Most people don’t want to be asked to leave every time they point out problems in a system or institution.
No, where there are problems, we innovate. We need to change an education system that is becoming a bastion for the economic elite. Until then, it is up to students to come up with solutions to our own educational woes and to put pressure on our administrations to change them. This is true at private institutions especially. Toward that end, I asked a few students how they thought their majors could be improved.
“Some courses are difficult for students and instructors because of experience level,” says senior Film Production major Mandi Hinrichs, referencing basic VMA classes in which the students who are experienced are held back by students who need more attention from instructors. “I wish there was something that could be done so that all students were getting the proper amount of attention required from instructors and so that we all felt we were getting our tuition’s worth,” she says.
Upon further questioning, we come to a consensus that there may be. Hinrichs suggests that “it would be beneficial for more experienced students to either test out of required courses or for teachers to help find some sort of alternative for those students.” Furthermore, she believes that information in VMA100 and VMA101 could easily be condensed into one course.
Conversely, sophomore Journalism student Bianca Joanie Padró Ocasio believes that the Ethics for Journalists course should be a semester long, rather than seven weeks. She thinks that it is important that journalism students not cut corners in order to meet their deadlines while in college, because it will affect the way they do the work going into their careers. Moreover, she doesn’t want students to forget this information as they move to the next seven week course.
“The change from Ethics to [Law for Journalism] is really abrupt and you don’t really retain as much as you should,” she points out.
Every semester that I’ve attended Emerson College, I have had to worry whether my family could afford to send me back to Boston. Last summer was the worst. Due to a FAFSA error, our precarious grip on the college dream was slipping fast. My mother was already working two jobs, my dad’s hours were being cut by the government-induced sequester, and the three attempts we made at receiving enough in parent PLUS loans to offset my decreased financial aid all ended in rejection. On top of it all, tuition increased. Both of my parents turned to me during this crisis and told me I was going to have to figure out what I would do if I could not return to Emerson. Luckily, I solved my immediate problems. However, if I was going to invest so much of my family’s stress and money into going to college, I knew I needed to get the most out of my education as possible.
Issues of affordability are not unique to Emerson. Colleges and universities nationwide are increasing tuition to the point that higher education is starting to seem like a luxury in an age when having a degree is more necessary than ever. Especially at private institutions, this means the students roaming the halls are usually of a certain socioeconomic status. Perhaps you’ve noticed the economic privilege of your peers who can eat at restaurants all the time or have just felt, through conversations, the economic inequality that colleges are becoming more known for. Maybe you, too, have been reluctant to publicly question how much we get out of our classes and facilities because you would have to deal with the inevitable stranger who says, “Well, if you don’t like it, maybe you should leave.” Most people don’t want to be asked to leave every time they point out problems in a system or institution.
No, where there are problems, we innovate. We need to change an education system that is becoming a bastion for the economic elite. Until then, it is up to students to come up with solutions to our own educational woes and to put pressure on our administrations to change them. This is true at private institutions especially. Toward that end, I asked a few students how they thought their majors could be improved.
“Some courses are difficult for students and instructors because of experience level,” says senior Film Production major Mandi Hinrichs, referencing basic VMA classes in which the students who are experienced are held back by students who need more attention from instructors. “I wish there was something that could be done so that all students were getting the proper amount of attention required from instructors and so that we all felt we were getting our tuition’s worth,” she says.
Upon further questioning, we come to a consensus that there may be. Hinrichs suggests that “it would be beneficial for more experienced students to either test out of required courses or for teachers to help find some sort of alternative for those students.” Furthermore, she believes that information in VMA100 and VMA101 could easily be condensed into one course.
Conversely, sophomore Journalism student Bianca Joanie Padró Ocasio believes that the Ethics for Journalists course should be a semester long, rather than seven weeks. She thinks that it is important that journalism students not cut corners in order to meet their deadlines while in college, because it will affect the way they do the work going into their careers. Moreover, she doesn’t want students to forget this information as they move to the next seven week course.
“The change from Ethics to [Law for Journalism] is really abrupt and you don’t really retain as much as you should,” she points out.
Finishing off my sophomore year as a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major, I have definitely noted some of the main complaints within my major. Firstly, there are far too many Literature requirements (eight for BA students and seven for BFAs). Furthermore, literature courses that could improve cultural proficiency such as African-American, Latino, or Native American Literature are much more difficult to take while staying on track than the required American or British Literatures, which come from a Eurocentric-lens. In short, students need more freedom to decide for themselves what is most enriching toward their education without sacrificing additional time and/or money.
No one wants to pay money to bullshit through required classes that they either aren’t actually going to retain anything from or that are not helpful toward their career goals. No one should have to participate in several organizations on campus just to make up for the education that they should be getting in classes. I know when I go home to my parents who are working hard so I can get a college education, I don’t want to feel like we’re all being frugal so that I can attend a fifty thousand dollar daycare with fancy toys.
As students, what we need to do is raise our voices and demand a chance to craft our own educations. What we can do to propose these changes is create a committee of students (possibly from SGA), faculty members, and administrators that can usher in student-focused changes to our major. We have the power to put these changes forward. Private institutions like Emerson College are both some of the most expensive, and have some of the least oversight as compared to public colleges. As such, each one of us has the opportunity to make a change here and, together, there is no way we can fail. The alternative, being undereducated undergrads when we try to enter our career fields, would be much more difficult to manage.
Willie Burnley Jr is a feminist, anti-racist, and all around anti-oppressionist who believes that societal progress is almost always made through active effort. He likes politics and anime, though not always in that order. Follow him onTwitter.
Images: Corbis
No one wants to pay money to bullshit through required classes that they either aren’t actually going to retain anything from or that are not helpful toward their career goals. No one should have to participate in several organizations on campus just to make up for the education that they should be getting in classes. I know when I go home to my parents who are working hard so I can get a college education, I don’t want to feel like we’re all being frugal so that I can attend a fifty thousand dollar daycare with fancy toys.
As students, what we need to do is raise our voices and demand a chance to craft our own educations. What we can do to propose these changes is create a committee of students (possibly from SGA), faculty members, and administrators that can usher in student-focused changes to our major. We have the power to put these changes forward. Private institutions like Emerson College are both some of the most expensive, and have some of the least oversight as compared to public colleges. As such, each one of us has the opportunity to make a change here and, together, there is no way we can fail. The alternative, being undereducated undergrads when we try to enter our career fields, would be much more difficult to manage.
Willie Burnley Jr is a feminist, anti-racist, and all around anti-oppressionist who believes that societal progress is almost always made through active effort. He likes politics and anime, though not always in that order. Follow him onTwitter.
Images: Corbis