Flexible Colleges - The Open Curriculum

  One of the worst things about high school, if not the worst, is being required to take classes that you don't care about or are good at, especially if they distract from what you probably should be focusing on, or stress you out, for no sake other than graduating.
  Sure, not everyone knows what they want, and there are some basic things everyone needs to know, but throwing buckets of information at hormone-crazed distract-able teenagers and then expecting them to know all of it, even after deciding they don't care about it, will only make them hate things more. Teenagers do that...
  I know plenty of people who despised topics such as science or history as a whole, because of their high school experience, who then found out in college that certain areas of these subjects actually fascinated them. (Of course there are considerably many ways in which the public school system is broken that we shall not delve into right now).
  While many colleges continue the trend to some extent, most people agree that this feeling of restriction and overwhelmed-ness decreases significantly in college, flexibility remains important for a lot of people who don't fit the standard school model, and there is actually an existing philosophy that some of you (especially if you're like me), may consider educational paradise.

  Thought up in 1850 by Francis Wayland, the fourth president of Brown University, the Open Curriculum is a teaching philosophy that -- on its most basic level -- a person should only have to study what they are personally interested in. You choose your focus, and you focus on it, rather than having a focus and other classes everyone has to take. Of course, in order to get a legitimate degree, some classes have to be taken to fulfill major/minor requirements.

  There are three general levels of flexible curricula: 1. The Core Curriculum, which are the specific classes that all students must take. 2. Distribution Requirements, which are the guidelines about the number of classes a student must take in each academic area. 3. The Open Curriculum, which has no requirements other than completing eight semesters and a major. Naturally, you can encounter combinations of the above.

  The idea behind this philosophy? A student should have, as Wayland put it, the freedom to "study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose." (You may insert "she" or any other pronoun where appropriate). While some colleges believe students should have some set guidelines to their education, others (such as Brown U), believe that students should be able to take control over their own education, so they can explore and develop their interests more freely.

   Still, despite this mode of education being the norm in Europe, and having proven results both academically and psychologically, it still isn't too common in the US. While different people function better at different levels of flexible curriculum, it would be nice to see more schools implement the policy, or provide options like it, so you don't have to be in the top 7% of your school to have a shot at it. (OK, I may be exaggerating, or I may not be, I don't have that data).

If you want more information about the Open Curriculum, or schools that employ it, here are some nifty links for you to check out, (which also double as my sources, yay)!

-Brown's Explanation (they put it much better than I do :P )
http://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/what-open-curriculum

-Brown's Curriculum:
http://www.brown.edu/academics/college/degree/curriculum

-Student Explanations (warning: may contain bias, obviously):  http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/155733-what-is-the-open-curriculum.html

-List of Most Flexible Schools:
http://collegelists.pbworks.com/w/page/16119530/Open%20Curriculum%20-%20schools%20with%20more%20flexible%20curricula

-A top 9 of Most Flexible Colleges:
http://www.hercampus.com/life/9-most-flexible-colleges-country

-The ACLS, BLS, and PALS Open Curriculum (for more fun reading):
http://theopencurriculum.org/

Good Colorado Schools for Film Studies

This is a weird first post!
One of my friends has been looking into these, and because I will find any reason to procrastinate semi-productively, I came up with way too many ideas :)

Here is a list of my top picks for Colorado schools to study Film at:

Art Institute of Colorado
http://new.artinstitutes.edu/denver/Programs/Digital-Filmmaking-and-Video-Production/916

Colorado College
https://www.coloradocollege.edu/academics/dept/filmandnewmedia/

University of Colorado Denver (minor only)
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/english/Programs/Minors/Pages/FilmStudiesMinor.aspx

Colorado Film School
http://www.coloradofilmschool.net/classes/index.html

Aims Community College
http://www.aims.edu/academics/comm-media/index.php

Colorado State University

http://communicationstudies.colostate.edu/undergrad

University of Colorado Boulder
http://film.colorado.edu/

University of Colorado Colorado Springs
http://www.uccs.edu/comm/undergraduate.html

University of Denver
http://www.du.edu/ahss/mfjs/programs/undergraduate/index.html

Colorado Film Institute
http://coloradofilminstitute.org/

Red Rocks Community College
http://www.educationnews.org/career-index/film-schools/

The italicized schools are those commended for having good film programs.
Don't forget to look into the school as a whole, as well as the programs :)