Colleges That Change Lives : Evergreen State College
In his book, Colleges That Change Lives, author Loren Pope profiles 40 schools. In that list, The Evergreen State College is one of two public schools talked about. Pope deems only 40 schools in the country worthy of being classified as life-changing, and only two (only two!) are public. That’s just a whole rant I can’t go into right now about public schools and standardized education and being a number, faculty who must publish or perish, etc.
I graduated from Evergreen State in Olympia, Washington 7 years ago. Disclosure – I only spent my senior year at Evergreen. Pope’s book aims to help college freshmen avoid the circuitous-path-taking scenario that my college career became. (It bordered on epic.) Pope wrote the book and profiled those particular schools in the hopes that kiddos choosing a college will be armed with some solid info and options and will hopefully begin and end their undergraduate career at one school. It’s entirely possible that if I had started at Evergreen as a freshman instead of finishing there as a senior, I may have stayed at one school throughout my college career. Too bad I suck at taking advice.
You Get What You Give
Here is the grand, sweeping declaration that I feel I can make about Evergreen: you will get out of it what you put into it. I do not believe that to be true of the majority of the schools out there. I’ve attended several, and know of what I speak. Most schools have a check-list which an undergrad is expected to complete. Do everything on the list and please stay inside the lines while you do it. They stamp their name on your forehead at the end, and shove you out into the world. Educated in the nuts and bolts, but not necessarily having a clue about the big picture. How does the world work? A standard Bachelor’s-wielding 20-something might not know. Fortunately, being in the real world requires knowledge of red tape, long lines, catch-22s, and memorization of your social security number; all skills you will know inside and out by the time you graduate from Check-List U.
Getting Down to the Business of Education
Evergreen has somehow managed to cut through the red tape so that the faculty and the students can get down to the business of education, which seems like such an obvious goal for an institution of higher learning, but you’d be surprised. I spent 20% of my time at other schools filling out forms or waiting in line or covering my ass or hacking my way through the jungle of red tape and misinformation and those effing catch-22s. At Evergreen, maybe 2% of my time was spent doing the paperwork part of college.
So what do you do with your time at Evergreen? You learn. The faculty at that school will stay with you as far as you want to go with something. Coloring outside the lines is not only allowed, it’s encouraged and commended. I worked harder at Evergreen than I had at any other school ever. I was so exhausted and so happy. It was completely different than anything else I had ever experienced. Finally, a place where I could use my powers for good, not evil. At Evergreen, there was no weeding out, no survival of the fittest. Cooperative rather than competitive doesn’t mean its easy; it means you can do more, learn more, grow more, go a hell of a lot farther.
Base Camp
Here’s what Evergreen is: the most stellar base camp ever. They have everything you could possibly need to get up the mountain. Including some badass guides (the faculty). For any given quarter at Evergreen, you’re required to make it halfway up the mountain. If you want to do more or go farther, your supplies will be replenished and your guide will stick with you until you decide it’s time to head back.
I always felt a little selfish at Evergreen: it seemed to be all about the students and the faculty and never about the administrative machine. I realize that that’s the way it should be, that schools should cater to the reasons they’re there: the teachers and the learners. But you’d be surprised. I want to be optimistic and believe that colleges and universities are there for higher learning. It just ain’t so. It’s all about money. Finding a school that has education as its first priority is rare. If you come across a school like that, put your money there.
Getting Your Money’s Worth
Tuition sucks. At least hand it over to a school that will give you something real in exchange for it. Here’s my defining Evergreen moment. I was in a coordinated studies program that combined art and science. We were studying all aspects of light. I’m a science girl, so I’m obsessed with the tiny picture: the world on a microscopic level. I made some random comment within earshot of one of my instructors about how interesting it would be to look at objects under a microscope, study the visual images, and do a series a paintings based on the patterns I saw.
My instructor treated my comment as though it was an actual request. She sent me over to the building that housed the school’s scanning electron microscope. Do you now how expensive an SEM scope is? I asked, they told me, and I immediately repressed that piece of information because it scared the crap out of me.
I’m pathologically honest (my husband’s phrase), so I told them several times that I was “just a student” and gave them many opportunities to deny me access to this beautiful machine. They looked at me like I was an idiot for pointing out the obvious (isn’t everyone here a student?) and proceeded to teach me how to use the scope. I learned, they gave me a “driving test” to make sure I wouldn’t break it, then they told me to come in and use it whenever I wanted. What?! This logic may seem faulty, but being allowed to use the school’s equipment at Evergreen made the huge amounts of tuition I’d paid out at other schools finally worth it.
Coordinated Studies Program
Here’s how Evergreen works: You are either doing coursework as part of a Coordinated Studies Program or an Individual Learning Contract. Coordinated Studies Programs are designed by one or more faculty members. They can continue for one or several quarters. The program scenario was bizarre to me at first, as I was fresh from standardized Check-List U, where art is art and science is science and never the two shall meet. There’s a reason those subjects have entirely separate departments on opposite ends of campus.
At Evergreen, they’re big on college reflecting reality. In the real world, everything is mixed up and combined. The programs make the general ed requirements a hell of a lot more interesting. Taking botany, anthropology, math, writing, and history so you can learn to sail a boat along the Northwest coast is ridiculously more fun than taking all of those courses as separate, entirely unrelated entities. Isn’t math better when you’re learning it so you won’t get lost sailing a damn boat?
Designed by the students for the Students
If for no other reason, Evergreen may very well border on life-changing because of this: the Individual Learning Contract. It’s Evergreen’s gift to humankind. The Coordinated Studies Programs are designed by faculty. The Individual Learning Contracts are designed by the students for themselves. That’s right. The best quarter of all time I (surprisingly) designed myself.
No one I tell this to ever believes I actually received college credit for this. I made a list of the things I really love to do. It was akin to making a Christmas list which I never thought in a thousand years I’d ever see materialize beneath the tree on Christmas morning. I took my idea for a quarter-long contract to one of the instructors I’d had two quarters. She knew I had a good work ethic, and blew me away by saying she thought my whole list was do-able and, furthermore, she’d be happy to sponsor me. Holy crap.
Here’s what I spent the happiest quarter of my life doing: I took a road trip from Seattle to the Deep South. Drove up and down and all around the Mississippi River and through several Southern states. I shot over 700 black and white photographs, mostly of architecture, old plantations, etc. The South is a different world for a girl from California. I read Southern literature and non-fiction. I kept a travel log and a journal, both of which I turned in to my instructor as the writing portion of the curriculum. I traveled around the South for 6 weeks. Drove back to Seattle. Printed up about 40 of the shots, framed them, had a show at Evergreen in time for my family to see when they came up for graduation.
How to Change Your Life
I still can’t believe I was allowed to do that: photography, road trip, reading, writing, Deep South, all for school credit. And to prove that you get out of Evergreen what you put into it, I worked harder that quarter than I ever have at anything else, ever. I was exhausted and it was stupid how happy I was. I absolutely recommend making sure you get to do that once in your life. You owe it to yourself to be that happy at least once, to know what that is so you can find it again. And knowing what you’re capable of is just a damn good feeling. Maybe it isn’t that Evergreen the school can change your life, it’s that Evergreen shows you how to change your own life.
Posted by Alexa Harrington
College |College Tips
Yeah–no real pithy exchanges here, Alexa, was very inspired by Evergreen–and it truely seems like an inspiring college. Sonoma State University was no such place. It is in Rohnert Park,–a place, to quote the wikipedia– “is a city in Sonoma County, California…population was 42,236 at the 2000 census. It was an early planned city modeled directly after Levittown, New York and Levittown, Pennsylvania.” And it feels very much like Levittown–albeit a more Brie and Brioche Levittown(Due in part to the proximatey to Sonoma and Calistoga.)
I spent much of my first two years doing the same thing as many people do–drinking and smoking. Curiously–however it was not wine and Gouda(smoked)–but rather Shafer–and weed.
And in this drug induced haze–I did pursue an education–in a program called the “Hutchins Program.”
http://www.sonoma.edu/hutchins/pages/academic/forms/_applying.htm
The program is a two year long program consisting 8 holistic 12 unit class involving science, philosophy, religion, literature etc.
The class is taught in seminar form with each class having 12 students. We would meet three days a week and discuss the great books and how they were or were not related to science philosphy western thought etc. The professors were there to keep the themes fresh and relavent.
I learned a bunch there. The point is that Sonoma State University could provide the same kinds of experience that this Alexa individual had. It may not be on the list of the top 100 etc–who knows maybe it is?–but it was a great way to pass a couple of years of college. It challenged me and stuff…
Junior and Senior years I sobered up — but the point is–the point is this–
You get out of it what you put into it–yes. But if you can find some weird program like this Evergreen–or Sonoma State University–via Hutchins–you may get to get more out of it–cause there is more to get out of it.
Private schools–a distinct possibility if you have the means–cause some of them may have more to get out of them…
I was there. At ESC back in the day. Tail end of a good thing. I believe in the education, I believe in the experience…but. I have since worked with the administration of the college — they are power-hungry, conniving personnel. Trust me: they don’t embody what you are learning; they don’t personify what the faculty are espousing.
It can break your heart. But, really your money — tuition — is essentially supporting a crooked administration. Seriously. Board of Governors, Alumni Relations, Administration — I saw it firsthand: they are out to abuse power, and fly in the face of what this instituion, and Charlie McCann are all about.
Get your education, and get out. Don’t give them another cent.
Seriously.
hey I was thinking about going here. It seems that there is a lot of positive feedback for Evergreen, but are there any negative aspect going there that you found?