As applicants, don’t just sit back and wait to hear from colleges - start doing some more research of your own! To help you, today, we have Cstubbe2794 share her favorite courses at Emerson College in Boston, MA!
Book Publishing Overview: There aren’t many colleges that actually give you courses on what to expect in the publishing world. Many English majors just take literature and writing courses. At Emerson, there’s more of a focus in publishing, and this class is a great way to begin. My professor, Daniel Weaver, was a former senior editor at Penguin and shared with us the ins and outs of the publishing industry.
You are given two group projects during the semester and both are meant to mimic a publishing house. In one of them, roles were assigned and as a group, we would have to bid on a manuscript, and create a presentation that goes through the motions of publishing it. The other project is a book proposal, where we are placed in the author’s point of view instead. We must create an idea, write down the outline and at least one chapter, write up a design for how you as the author will promote it and a book cover design. I learned a lot in this class and recommend it for all those interested in going into publishing!
Arab Uprisings: This class was an interdisciplinary requirement for my honors program, but I’m so grateful I took it. It is a crash course in discussing the tumultuous Middle Eastern world without offending those who are actually from there. It helped that my professor was Syrian himself and looked forward to dispelling any backwards notions we, as Americans, might have about his home country. We focused on Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Afghanistan, with forays into countries like Iran and even documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Go into this class open-minded and unafraid to hear about the horrors the United States has done to other countries, and you will come out of it far more knowledgeable and perhaps a bit more cynical than you were before.
Novel Into Film: Getting into this class is like the Hunger Games of the college world. It is nearly impossible unless you have a lot of credits and a quick hand during course registration, but it is completely worth it. We read novels and then watched their movie adaptations, discussing why certain things had to change and why adaptations are the way they are. It is a literature course, so those without any knowledge in film can still take it and be completely fine, but it is also helpful for those who do study film. We had two big essays—one comparing our book of choice with its big screen adaptation, and a project where we had to pick a short story and adapt it into a short film. As a reader, I have always been wary of novel to film adaptations, but after taking this class I understand directors’ motivations and issues a lot more. It is a fun class that actually makes you want to read the assigned works.
Found these classes interesting? Check out student profiles from Emerson College here!
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