For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admission representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Owen Bligh, Senior Associate Dean of Admission at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Providence College?

The Development of Western Civilization program that all of our students take is definitely the cornerstone of our liberal arts core. It’s 16 credits and covers from antiquity and ancient Mesopotamia all the way through modern times. It’s one of the largest classes a student will have (about 75 students per section) but that’s because it’s team-taught by faculty from history, literature, philosophy, theology, and more. The interdisciplinary way that students explore the development of the western world is a new type of thinking for many of them. As the program nears its end, faculty from throughout campus are brought in for colloquia related to students’ academic interests. It’s a hard program…there’s no sugarcoating that you’ll definitely have days you struggle with it…but the majority of our alums look back fondly on it.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at PC?

We certainly don’t view it as a negative, but since many students do during the college search, I think that students who have no clue what it is they want to study or pursue are ones who do particularly well at PC. As an institution, we’re built for exploration. There’s no programs that you needed to apply into as a first-year student to ultimately study. The various schools are really for administrative purposes and it’s quite common to see a finance major studying philosophy and a theatre major taking a quant class. While there’s certainly exceptions, the silos that so often exist within higher education don’t seem to on our campus and it’s a great place for students who are not just solely focused on studies in one area.

When people come to visit Providence, RI, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Downtown Providence is incredible and there’s so much to do, but if you want the true experience of living on our campus then you can’t go wrong with The Abbey and Newport Creamery. The Abbey is a no-frills sports bar with some of the best burgers you’ll ever have. Newport Creamery is famous in Rhode Island for their Awful Awful’s, basically their version of a milkshake. I don’t know how they’re different than a regular milkshake, but they definitely are and you’ll have to try for yourself! Both are walking distance from campus. If you’re set on exploring downtown, don’t miss the internationally-renowned WaterFire!

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Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Providence. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]