SUNY Alfred

The school itself is not a terribly bad one. It's average SAT score of 1100 indicating a decent school, not great, but a reasonably self-assured one. The problem only occurs when you delve deeper into the seemingly open and accepting front. The school is fairly small, 1-2 thousand kids in the entire school, much less to say in the engineering section. But when confronted with the idea of taking extra courses, they were astonishingly unforgiving. I wanted to take a main curriculum in the materials science and engineering school, while taking one or two courses in their art school, which is a rather better school than the engineering one. Instead of trying to figure out a way to work it into a schedule with me, they said that they could not do that, my taking art classes was not a feasible concept. I was stunned, but i sortof understood. two different schools, they don't want me to get a back door way into getting into the art school, or basic art classes. So i asked if i could simply use the forge. Just use the forge and anvil that they had set up there FOR the art school, but could i use it even if i was in the engineering school? the answer was no. In order to use the forge i would need to take a 6 year program, ultimately a double major in visual arts and engineering. That sounded ridiculous to begin with, why should i have to take an entire major in something i simply wanted time and space to do my own work in, no longer asking for classes. Also, i had asked similar questions at other schools, most of them saying that a double major in the same subjects could be worked out in a four year, or maybe a five year program, if i wanted a more relaxed schedule. Having to take a six year schedule was strange, but even more so because they were unwilling to bend in the slightest. Even with a lot of AP credits, she said i would still not be able to take a five year double major. That's ridiculous, as i said earlier. As a safety school, their unwillingness to try to make concessions made them immediately get crossed off my list, because they could not see that i was not bound for their school. The resulting internal conflict from visiting Alfred was multiple. Because it was teh school of both my father and mother, at least for a time, I found many different thoughts running through my head, these were the ideas of; age, children, parents, death, depression, pitiful attempts, and the consequences of failure.