Roberts Wesleyan University Rankings by Salary Score™

I wish to be as objective and fair regarding my review of Roberts. I have been an alumni as long as I was a student there, so I believe I am able to avoid emotional judgments and can focus on the reality of being a student there. As far as my degree program itself is concerned- I have been very successful in my career as a music educator. The knowledge I acquired as a music student has been invaluable within the classroom setting. I do not feel however, that we were not adequately taught the "how" to teach... Read More as well as we were taught the "what" to teach. I attribute this to the degree program treating music education majors more as "music majors" than as "education majors". There was a large emphasis on performance and not a lot on pedagogy, teaching techniques, navigating relationships with colleagues and administrators, writing lesson plans and creating units, handling student finances (as an adviser of a club at my district this is required), communicating with parents, documenting and maintaining student data, among other things. I am thankful that I have an extensive knowledge of the different instruments I teach and the ability to play them, but I basically had to figure the "how" part out on my own. I think since I graduated, there has been some shuffling of the staff in the department (in a good way) that perhaps has led to a more organized and cohesive approach to music teacher prep. My last semester Roberts' Music Department gained Dr. Dina Alexander, who was amazing and taught me so much in a short amount of time. She is an incredible source of knowledge, As for living on campus and the social aspect, all I can say is that thankfully college isn't high school, and you can pick and choose your friends and the people you want to be around. And also thankfully life after college gives you more opportunities to pave your own way, and the people who were good to you you can keep around, and the people who weren't, you can choose to wish well and part ways with. Friendships at Roberts can be challenging, but so can relationships anywhere in life. I would suggest looking into any work study programs possible- my final summer, I lived at Roberts for free and worked for the Grounds Department full-time. I was paid 40 hours a week and was able to save a significant amount of money by the end of the summer. I wish I had done that every other summer as well. I also worked about 20 hours a week during the school years for the housekeeping/grounds department. Roberts is expensive but if you work hard in and out of the classroom and have financial goals, there is no reason you can't find ways to minimize your debt. Finally- as for career services, when I was there they were not very helpful, but I honestly never expected them to be. If I want to get a job, I should be the one doing the leg work myself, and that's what I did.