Simply raising academic standards doesn’t necessarily provide a more “rigorous” or “challenging” environment.,I don’t know how “welcome” higher academic standards are here. The goal of creating greater competition is just as much a detriment as a boon to the Emerson community if one remembers that this is an art school.

Simply raising academic standards doesn’t necessarily provide a more “rigorous” or “challenging” environment. As a senior looking back, the beauty of Emerson has been the permission to fail amongst my peers, not the desire to be better than them.

The true challenge and rigor of Emerson has never been in the grades, but in the work I’ve been able to create because of the people I’ve been surrounded with. In fact, Emerson might be more appropriately viewed as a talent draft than a college; that is, Emerson’s purpose seems to be selecting a choice group of amateurs with the goal of allowing them to turn into professionals on their own terms.

While having a rounded liberal arts education seems crucial to those terms, this institution tends to breed achievers over scholars, and in no way do I see that as something in need of change. Of course, Latin Honors and Dean’s List represent a small percentage of the student body and realistically most students will never know the difference.