<p>My son is not crazy about the gen ed courses at Roosevelt, but he has a ton of AP credits and will be done after this year’s two required courses. Other than that, he’s extremely happy. He is also very busy with his classes, freshman showcase, tech assignment and work study, but he’s got a social life and manages to go to the theater fairly often. After doing theater AND sports AND AP/honors classes in high school, I think he’s just glad that everything he’s doing is for one organization and in one place, rather than having to manage a lot of conflicting obligations. </p>
<p>Also agree with the ticket issue at Tisch. You have to be on top of things when tickets become available, both student and parent. It reminded me of a similar issue that has been raised here over the years, about kids being able to audition for shows at Tisch. I honestly have no idea if the process has changed now but it used to be similar, in that if you didn’t sign up quickly for an audition spot, you might be out of luck. There were mailing lists/listserve type processes back then and if your student didn’t keep on top of that, well, the spots may well all be filled. Another related concern was that some kids might have conflicts for audition times due to part-time jobs. I always was of the opinion that it was one of the risks students take if they have a part-time job. There will always be something that they will miss out on.</p>
<p>I think this discussion can be an interesting one for prospective students and parents but it will only be helpful to any significant degree if the school is identified.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that this discussion is most helpful when schools are identified, not to bash them (which no one has done), but to have an honest discussion and a point from which those reading can further research. </p>
<p>JKellynh17, what did your S not appreciate about the gen eds? Was it specific to that school, or would it likely have been an issue anywhere (as in he was ready to totally just concentrate on MT)?</p>
<p>Saratogaparent, why did your son not like the Freshman Experience class?</p>
<p>Well, it’s partly that he’d rather be using the time for classes in his major, but also that Roosevelt is not a very academically demanding college (the theater conservatory is fantastic, however), and he doesn’t feel like he’s learning much. He’s in acting rather than MT, just to clarify, the MT majors have to take the same classes. He also complains about the food in the cafeteria occasionally, but these are pretty nit picky things, and he is basically ecstatic to be there. </p>
<p>My D attends Coastal Carolina University.</p>
<p>My D is at Roosevelt/CCPA with jkelly’s son (MT Voice) and didn’t like her English gen ed either, wasn’t impressed with the teacher. She likes her English class this semester, however. Plus they only take one gen ed per semester and she loves all her acting/MT/dance classes.<br>
Getting to the cafeteria when it was open was a challenge for all the theatre kids because of rehearsals and other commitments. They are all trying to move off campus for sophomore year. There seem to be lots of student-friendly high rises in the area of the school, thank goodness.
All in all, she feels that she is where she belongs and loves living in Chicago! </p>
<p>momarmarino - Another option your D might want to consider is asking if she could take lessons rather than the piano class. My D is still a HS senior and I’ve seen some program already offer that, but even if he program doesn’t it might make more sense for her. At least she could learn something that way. </p>
<p>I have a pretty negative opinion on “class piano” anyway from my own experience. I was a music major (nothing to do with MT) and had to take 2 years of class piano. What a waste. I had a little exposure to piano prior to college (nothing close to what your D has) and I found the first 3 semesters to be largely a waste of time (probably the first half of the fourth semester too). Can’t imagine how boring that would be for someone with years of experience. My D has more piano experience than me (again, not as much as your D) and I’m encouraging her to look at the lesson option rather than the class option. Just a thought and maybe less of “making waves”.</p>
<p>My son is at Ithaca, but the comments I made earlier are applicable to all the intense programs, which is why I did not mention the school name. He is very busy and happy there. </p>
<p>I had mentioned that one thing I had learned was NOT to worry about any casting rules for freshmen, because they were too busy even to want to get cast. But as Momamarino commented, her daughter DID get cast in a mainstage production her first semester freshman year – but I think she was the only freshman to have a real named role. That was awesome for her, but truly, the freshmen who weren’t cast were NOT upset about it. And second semester it seems as if a lot more freshmen are involved in performances.</p>
<p>My D (at Hartt) wishes it weren’t part of the University of Hartford. If she could take the entire Hartt School and move it to a safer location with better food and nicer, quieter dorms, she’d be in heaven. </p>
<p>More MT-specific, she wishes the MT Chorus professor wouldn’t spoon-feed everyone their musical lines. These kids are taking ear training and shouldn’t need that level of support (and she claims this is a common complaint of upperclassmen who have completed 3 semesters of ear training and 2 semesters of keyboard skills.)</p>
<p>I was disappointed that her voice teacher doesn’t have keyboard skills (beyond pecking out a single melodic line) and isn’t provided with an accompanist. When D performs her prepared pieces, she has an accompanist, but that’s her first chance to hear the accompaniment. I hear this is just for freshman year – her voice lessons in future years will include an accompanist.</p>
<p>For my part, I wish there were something for parents of freshman & sophomores to see their kids perform in. Although sophomores are allowed to audition, it’s apparently rare for them to be cast (and difficult for them since the sophomores are performing shows for their own class concurrently with mainstage productions.) D says she understands the reasoning behind this and doesn’t seem at all annoyed/dismayed/disappointed. I’m also disappointed by the rivalry (may not be quite the right term) between VP and MT at Hartt. The voice teachers are either MT or VP – no overlap – even though some of the MT voice faculty are operatic soloists. Further, MTs are not allowed to audition for operas and VPs are discouraged (if not by faculty, at least by fellow students) from auditioning for musicals. </p>
<p>I fear this sounds like Hartt-bashing, and that’s truly not my intention. The performance quality of Hartt productions is <em>wonderful</em>, and D is ecstatic with <em>almost</em> everything. She continues to say that she had no idea she could be so happy at school.</p>
<p>dswinnh - Can you expand on what you said about the food being bad, area being unsafe, and the dorms being loud? (I ask because I’ve been accepted to Hartt but don’t know much about the living situation and such)</p>
<p>I am curious too since my D is auditioning for Hartt next week…</p>
<p>That’s in interesting comment about parents of freshmen/sophomores not having many opportunities to see kids perform. It seems many of us are focused on whether our child can audition, but strangely that “impact” to me as a parent wasn’t as obvious - of course we want to see our kids perform!</p>
<p>D and I were at Northern Kentucky in December and their director said that he created a freshman show and a freshman theatre/Broadway chorus because he saw they were losing kids who didn’t get to perform early on. Makes me wonder whether parents were saying anything to their kids about that. Also reminds me of the college sports teams where you see kids transfer schools because they aren’t getting playing time. </p>
<p>To respond to daniellececelia and bisouu: Let me first give a brief description of my D. She is mildly ADD in a form that makes her extremely easily distracted by sound. While she has no food allergies, she has a touchy stomach – especially if she’s feeling stressed. She is also a violent crime survivor, so she’s far more conscious of personal safety issues than your typical college kid. And she was <em>really</em> stressed when she first arrived on campus from some physical difficulties she was having at the time.</p>
<p>D had a difficult time with the food at UofH (Aramark): It goes right through her. She’s not shy about sharing her woes, and it seems that the food affects many of her friends similarly. My guess is that the majority of kids can eat the food with no troubles at all. Some percentage of the kids eat meals and discover that they need to quickly find a bathroom about 30 minutes later. For my D it was worse, she would need multiple trips to the bathroom, have stomach cramps for hours, and be unable to eat anything for about 24 hours because she was so uncomfortable. After 3-4 episodes like this over a couple of months, she simply stopped eating any school food. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any diagnosable food allergies, so I had to pay for a meal plan (as required by all living in the dorms) and she got moved to a dorm with a kitchen where she could cook (so I got to pay for groceries too!) </p>
<p>To lend some perspective to my tale, I happened to mention this to a young woman (recent grad school graduate) when I struck up a random conversation at an airport. She told me that all “dorm food” is like this: she & her roommates experienced this at both her undergraduate and graduate schools (neither of which were UofH.) If you do a google search (which I did), you will see there’s an urban myth that schools lace their food with laxatives. I don’t believe this for a second, but I do believe there’s something going on that some small-ish percentage of kids are sensitive to. I also don’t believe that all these complaining kids are drinking too much alcohol and eating way too much fast/fried food – though I’m sure that happens to some. (That’s the most common explanation I found on the internet to explain campus stomach woes.)</p>
<p>My D had some really unfortunate dorm experiences last year (which I’m sure are NOT typical.) In one of her dorm rooms, the floor above was excessively noisy. The RAs, and the first public safety officer she and her roommates contacted were less than helpful. But one day when D called to complain, they got an officer who came over to discuss it with the girls and had some constructive suggestions. Things got solved. It ended up that D had to move out of that room (for a different problem – one suite-mate was bringing home guys that she’d met on the internet that morning). D was moved to one of the 24-hour quiet rooms and I heard no complaints after that. </p>
<p>As for campus safety, there are some locations on campus where you are not within sight of any of those blue-light emergency boxes. I actually thought D was over-reacting until I walked with her back to her room one night when I was visiting campus, and I was a little unnerved by the dark little deserted path out of sight of any of those comforting boxes. Another thing that contributed to D feeling unsafe on campus was that she’d often hear guys talking and joking about how there must have been date-rape drugs in the drinks at some party because they couldn’t remember anything. D had attended classes at a different school where the only kids who thought they’d experienced date-rape drugs had encountered them at bars in a nearby city, but never on campus. She also drove past the aftermath of a murder on her way back to school one evening – she had forgotten to turn off to take the pretty (and safer) way back to school. (I forgot the name of the street you don’t want to travel – it might be Albany Ave??)</p>
<p>I will encourage you to remember that you shouldn’t pick a school based on the quality of its food. And I would encourage you to be conscious of safety at whatever school you attend. Hartt is quite near a very seedy neighborhood on one side (and absolutely gorgeous areas everywhere else.) And if your school is lucky enough to use Bon Appetit as their food vendor, count your blessings!! My D had no trouble at all with their food, and I actually enjoyed eating in the cafeteria when I visited her. Aramark is well-represented on worst-campus-food lists, though it also has a small presence on best-campus-food lists. From my internet searching, Sodexo (the other leading institutional food vendor) is considered worse than Aramark – or at least it appeared more often in the worst-campus-food lists. I can praise Bon Appetit as a <em>wonderful</em> food vendor.</p>
<p>I hope this is helpful. I feel guilty that I’ve written way too much about a relatively small part of campus life.</p>
<p>As a parent, the safety issue concerns me greatly. When the kids have late night rehearsals do they walk back together? Can they take a cab or other campus safety cars back to the dorms? I so appreciate your detailed report and thank you for taking the time to fill us in. I am sorry to hear that your D was a victim of violence in the past. </p>
<p>Safety is a huge concern for us as well. You can find many specific ratings for each school (dorms, food, safety, party life, sports, etc.) at ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. </p>
<p>My impression is that MT kids tend to travel in packs – always a good idea. My D is now living off campus, and she has not voiced any concerns about safety so far this year. Her off-campus apartment has motion-activated lighting and off-street parking, and it’s in a lovely residential section of West Hartford (though, of course, anything can happen anywhere.) I’d prefer that she lived in a place with other MTs and could travel in a small pack, but that will likely happen next year as she is hoping to share a house with other MTs and ATs. The MTs and ATs become a very tight-knit group over the course of freshman year, and it sounds like they tend to keep an eye out for each other. </p>
<p>She also has a (female) friend from high school who graduated from the program last year and never encountered any safety issues while at Hartt. </p>
<p>I know there’s a campus shuttle between HPAC and the main campus, and I think public safety is always on call if you’re on campus (where HPAC would be considered “on campus”) and need an escort (though you should verify this when you visit.) </p>
<p>My impression is that UofH needs to be considered an urban school where safety is concerned, but that it’s not any more dangerous than, say, Boston University or Univ. of Penn. Just don’t let the loveliness of West Hartford lull you into a false sense of security.</p>
<p>halflokum, you can benefit sooner than we did from the discovery my D made quite late in her NYU career – a free, non-credit program for languages. <a href=“http://speakingfreely.cas.nyu.edu/page/home”>Speaking Freely. </p>
<p>@SDonCC great tip!!! The language she wanted to take is even on the list. Thank you I will pass it on. Great :-)</p>
<p>^^ I LOVE CC! What great sharing of info!</p>