Has Anyone in the Fluther ever heard of St. John's College?

NY or MN? I guess I’ve heard of both…

I know someone who went to the one in New Mexico. She’s probably in her late forties now, so this was a while ago. We worked together: she was a writer, and I was her editor.

I remember her speaking very highly of the program and particularly of its purpose in teaching students not what to think but how to think. I had occasion to ask her about it because when she decided to change careers and apply to law schools, she asked me to read and advise her on her personal essays. We talked quite a lot about the school then, and I found myself feeling a bit envious, wishing I had heard of such a place when I was ready for college
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She was accepted at three of the top law schools in the Bay Area, was offered substantial scholarships, and subsequently got her J.D. from one of them. I have no doubt that her undergraduate education played an important role in her success.

We looked at St. John’s in MD as a school for my oldest daughter. We also looked at the University of Chicago, and Oberlin. I’m a big fan of “great books” education, which emanated from the University of Chicago, and Mortimer Adler. I think this is an amazing way to teach college. She did not end up going to any of these three schools, for reasons that had nothing to do with the schools.

I think that they are wonderful sources of a more traditional British classical education. One of my good friends taught in the English department there (NM) for several years before he moved to the upper school Eng. dept at the Quaker Independent day school in Philly that I was involved in. He talked about St. John’s with great admiration.

I’ve seen the Santa Fe campus. It is charming and low -key.The kids are pretty intense. They all have to study Classical Greek; and they read only original texts and not books about books.

Galicalled, thanks so much for your answer. It’s always interesting to hear about people who have come and gone from St. John’s. However, there are no departments at St. John’s. All the students follow the exact same course of study, with the exception of two elective seminars at the end of the first semester of their junior and senior years.

I also enjoy the low-key qualities of the Santa Fe campus, especially the proximity to good hikes. They have their own private mountain.

@aeschylus: I had forgotten that, (re. depts.) but my friend had a PhD in English Literature so he taught 11th grade English when I knew him. He was a wonderful teacher; we did send one student to St. John’s, NM, but the boy was a loner and unhappy when he graduated from our school. I don’t know what happened to him

Great birding on that mt., I bet. Other than looking at 500,000 hand-woven rugs and buying one pair of turquoise earrings, I liked the hiking and the birding best in SF.