Trip reporting

We flew up to Boston for a day at Berklee College of Music, where my daughter will be attending in the fall. It's accepted student day, which is, I suppose, mostly an opportunity for the school to sell itself for prospective students who may be considering going elsewhere.

Let me note right off the bat that if whether or not to attend this school is a difficult choice for you, then you are in need of serious decision-making help. To call the place "different" would be an understatement of criminal proportion. If ever a place could truly be called "really unique" (which it can't, because unique means literally one-of-a-kind, a designation that defies veryness), it would be this school. In fact, the director of admissions said at one point that if this school is for you, it's probably the only place for you.

Unlike pretty much every other music school, Berklee is solely focused on contemporary music and the music industry. You can take a class in the music of Paul Simon, or Wayne Shorter, or Esmerelda Spalding, and there is a decent shot that they will show up at some point to sit in. Yes, it's that cool. I don't remember Hamilton College mentioning how many Grammys their alumni had won when I interviewed. Here it's 229 and counting.

Really, the first thing you need to get over as a parent is that you're not the one who gets to school here. Even though that isn't fair. Once you get past that, you see a school obsessed with long-term contemporarity, or whatever you want to call it. Anything new? We're there! School is a good place to do this, because in real life that kind of cutting edge focus can get you bankrupt far more easily than it can get you rich and famous.

The speeches were relatively short, and interspersed with performances by a jazz-rock student band. The band members then talked about their own experiences at the school, except for the drummer, who said his name and nothing else.

After speeches and tours, we went for an information fair, which, speaking of unfair, is completely unfairlike. It was a bunch of table of people with piles of paper to give out. No rides, no cotton candy. And yes, I know I've made that joke before but I like it.

Like pretty much all of these unfairs, this one was far too long, and most of the people at the tables were left talking to each other while the students and their parents massed around the housing and financial aid tables. Eventually, my daughter toddled off with some kids she'd been talking to on Facebook for the past few weeks, so my wife and I found quieter accommodations.

We eventually reconnected, had lunch at a nice coffee bar called Pavement Coffee, and then decided, reluctantly on my daughter's part, to walk around. We got about 150 feet down Newberry Street, went into a store, and have now been here for an hour. I'm starting to feel scammed at this point. I wanted to walk and all I've done is sit.

(2 hours later) We must have left that store at some point, because now I'm on an airplane on the way back to Philadelphia. But I don't know how it ever happened. Fortunately, there was a reasonable place to sit in that store, so I could watch the parade of nearly identically dressed 16-22 year-old girls walk in and out of the store. I saw 2 or 3 boyfriends and a couple of dads and moms, but everybody else was that narrow demographic.

It was crazy walking around downtown Boston. I don't know if any of you have heard of something called the Boston Marathon, but apparently it's a big deal. It was in the 40's and the number of people running by in little shorts was quite remarkable. 

All in all, it was a successful trip. Despite not having the chance to really have any kind of experience aside from the college stuff, it was worth going.