Written by David Cartledge, Julie Yu, Jett-Le Tran Le, and Sandra Rivadeneira
As sophomores and juniors took on the PSAT, and seniors college workshops, the freshman class visited seven different colleges based on their homeroom. These field trips have been a tradition for several years. Holland house was the only house to visit one college: Gordon College; Boyle house was split up, half of the students went to Anna Maria College and the other half visited Eastern Nazarene College; Jenkins house went to Rivier University and Mount Ida College; Brunelli house went to Bentley University and Merrimack College. This field trip provided an opportunity for Malden High School student to see exactly how college runs and the different opportunities offered. It allowed them to get excited about college, the freedom to roam around campus, the large range of classes to choose from, and much more. Choosing your future career is not an easy decision, so informing students about options at college helps them think about college early.
Merrimack College is a private college in North Andover, Massachusetts. Merrimack offers over one hundred academic programs in business, education, science, engineering, and liberal arts. The majority of academic classes are located in the center of campus, while the dorms, stores, and cafeteria are around the outside of the campus. The tour guide had showed the prospective students places where the students attending the college relax, have meals, and hold events and she explained that the school wants the students to be active and get to meet new people. They have a lot of majors for students to chose from. They have monuments for students to see while they walk to their classrooms. They also have an all you can eat buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Students may also go to the cafeteria in between eating hours and snack. The students at Merrimack College have a four by four system, meaning that they take four classes for four credits. The students are required to complete sixteen credits over eight semesters in order to graduate and due to the college’s four by four system, in which the students take four classes during each semester. In order to graduate from the college you need to get one hundred and twenty eight credits.
The Jenkins house freshmen took a trip up to Nashua, New Hampshire to take a tour of Rivier University. Rivier University is a Catholic college named after the “blessed” Anne-Marie Rivier, and was originally titled Rivier College until July 1, 2012 when it was declared a university. Rivier’s most popular majors include Nursing and Education. Other more popular major opportunities include business, criminal justice and political science. 70% of the campus is female and the other 30% is male. A large number of the professors on campus are nuns, and the school has it’s own chapel on campus. Since the university is a religiously based school, all students are required to take religion classes in order to graduate. As the freshmen toured the school, the tour guide showed them buildings like the dormitories, which are assigned by year, and the library. Freshmen were also shown one of the classrooms that are used for nursing majors. The room included hospital beds and machines that college students can place dummies in and practice medical procedures such as surgeries and childbirth. The guide also explained the types of internships students at Rivier were encouraged to enroll in. She talked about her own internship at a local school with kindergarten students. At the end of the field trip, freshmen were welcomed into the dining area and allowed to take what they desired from a menu with a large variety. The trip concluded with everyone helping themselves to desserts and getting on the school bus for a 45 minute drive home.
Holland House traveled to Gordon College in Wenham Massachusetts. Malden High freshmen visited the main building. the Ken Olsen Science Center, which was mainly a science department, with the auditorium on the first floor and the second and third floors were all the science/biology classes. Gordon College is a Christian school that is dedicated and devoted to God; they all gather twice a week to worship in the A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel. On the right side of the church is the Lane Dining Hall where the students are provided with a wide variety of food options, along with a coffee shop. The seating area toward the left has flags from many different foreign countries along with quotes on the wall written in many different languages with clocks from many different places around the world. Their unique display shows the diversity among students, even though they are all Christian. Although some buildings had more information than others, the trip to Gordon served as a very valuable experience for the freshmen.
Eastern Nazarene is a religious college in Quincy, which students arrived to via public transportation, by taking the orange line from Malden Center to Downtown Crossing, then swapping over to the red line until arriving at Wollaston. Eastern Nazarene was founded in 1900 by Bertha Munro, the college’s first dean. When one first walks onto the campus, they see Gardner Hall, which is an administrative office for the college. To their left is the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene, which is a church that is open to both students and local families. There is a big front lawn in the middle of the Campus which is nice for the students and the public to to use. The students at Eastern Nazarene seem to have a variety of different activities at their disposal during the year, including easy walking access to Wollaston Beach. Every student at the school is also given a free membership to the YMCA, which is a short drive from the school. The college has both girls and boys dorms, and students are only allowed in each other’s dorms on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for a certain amount of time. The lunch at Eastern Nazarene had a very large array of options to choose from. They have salad, ice cream, pizza and many other things that you could choose from. They have an all-you-can-eat option on the upper level of the cafeteria and on the ground floor they have a coffee shop called the Hebrew Cafe, which serves Starbucks drinks. They also have a fast food area across the hall, which is open for later than the cafeteria.
