Independent Studies and Creativity

Here at Prescott College you’re given the opportunity to customize your education to an extraordinary degree, and one of the best examples of this is the independent study (IS). Through the independent study structure here you can design a class for yourself that encompasses elements of other classes you’ve taken but expands your education in a way that currently offered classes can’t. This manifests in different ways depending on the content area. Some Adventure Education students have used this unique system to create academically rigorous adventures for themselves involving ice climbing in the northern states or caving in Mexico. But the independent study is not exclusive to any one area. I am currently enrolled in an independent study to create a functional library for my future as a teacher, a comprehensive database of resources to help make biology and ecology relevant for my future students.

Artists have an especially fun time with the IS system, allowing them to create entirely new projects that have never been done before; some of which become classes in the future. My partner is currently working on an independent study in Dance, involving dancing every day for 2 weeks in a different environment each day. Today we utilized a computer as an environment, creating a Youtube playlist filled with advertisements to be displayed behind us by a projector, and entertaining assorted random people through Chatroulette. Dressed in aluminum foil, computer chords, and headphones, we did an interpretive dance about technology in modern society.

These sorts of projects are common here; innovation is something that we are encouraged to take part in, rather than pushed away from at our school.

If you have an interest in following a Prescott College Artist through the Independent study process, feel free to check it out here:

http://edanceproject.tumblr.com/


Sincerely,
Zach