<p>I was just wondering if anyone can speak on the effect that the conservatory students have on the feel of a campus. Someone on another forum mentioned how their child felt Ithaca was too athletic, and my first thought was "but it has a conservatory". I know I've been assuming that my son, not an arts guy but tends to bond with arts people, will find his people on any campus that has strong arts programs. By arts, I mean any of the creative kinds. But I'm wondering if it makes a difference if there is a separate conservatory vs being a part of the main college.</p>
<p>Conservatory students at Oberlin are fully immersed into Oberlin College. Same campus. Same dorms. Same dining halls. I think the biggest difference is that so few of the conservatory students do varsity sports.</p>
<p>I don’t think it makes much difference. Music people tend to bond with each other because they spend so much time together in class, rehearsal and study. They also speak the same language. The same goes for students in drama, fine arts and just about any other “labor intensive” major. And this is true whether it’s called a conservatory, a music school or a music department.</p>
<p>Most music programs will require that the student take so many music courses each semester even though you are in a college or university setting that the music students naturally stick together. Plus with rehearsal time and playing in clubs and outside groups even more time is spent with the music crowd. Son only takes one non-music course each semester plus gym. And in the non-music classes he usually sits with music students who need the same general ed class. He even drives his music friends over to the field house for the gym class. So your child will have ample opportunity to hang with the creative types wherever he goes.</p>
<p>D3 spent her freshman year in a dorm with nonconservatory students as her primary circle of friends but now that she’s a junior she finds she prefers to hang out with other musicians. They tend to understand one another better and they understand about rehearsals and practicing etc in a way that nonmusicians may not.</p>
<p>D has to take classes on the Case campus as well, but when it comes time to hang out, she’s always with other musicians- not necessarily singers, but conservatory students. It just happens that way…</p>
<p>Although DD hung out with a lot of “musi’s” as they are know at Rice and only lived with them after her freshman year, the residential college system helped her become friends with a wide variety of students since the “musi’s” were distributed across all of them and not clustered. Several became good friends that she has kept in touch with, met up with at alumni weekends. Even now some have visited her and stayed with her couple of years afer graduation. It was one of the features about Rice that helped sway her selection, not being isolated iwth just music students.</p>
<p>My son doesn’t go to a conservatory, but he does go to a school of music which is part of a major university. Most of his friends are not music majors, although a few are. He has actually developed a bit of an attitude towards many of the music majors and finds some of them a bit snobbish or sheltered or goody-two-shoes or overly dramatic for his taste.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago I met up with him at a high school marching band competition, he brought a couple of friends from college. One was a cheerleader, majoring in Hospitality Management, whom I had already met. I asked the other friend if he was a music major, “nope” was the answer, I asked him if he did marching band, just trying to figure out why he would have wanted to come to a high school marching band competition, he said he did in high school but explained that he had no interest in doing it in college. I later asked my son what the friend’s major was, and he said “fundecided”.</p>
<p>My D goes to Oberlin Con and has many friends (including her room mate) who are regular LA kids. At Oberlin, there is really no separation since the students from both the Con and the LA college live and eat together.</p>
<p>At Ithaca College, the dorms are not separated by major, so a music kid can have an accounting major roommate. I can’t imagine anyone thinking Ithaca is too athletic though. I live in the area and Ithaca College is not really well known for it’s sports teams.</p>
<p>Of course, you do get an awful lot of exercise walking up and down all those hills and stairs between buildings :)</p>
<p>It depends on the size of the school. For instance, I have attended a small, private university and the Con kids are very friendly and outgoing with everyone. This is the overall environment of the university though. However, the larger universities seem to be more major oriented/standoffish and that those of one major generally stick with those of the same/similar too.</p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I577 using CC</p>