Name: Colleen Terrell, MA ‘19
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
College: Stanford University; University of Pennsylvania

I chose Bard Graduate Center for an MA because it’s the only place that offered exactly what I wanted in a graduate program: academic training that would help me write about craft media for public audiences in an informed and engaging way. The BGC’s curriculum facilitates a solid grounding in the history of decorative objects (including craft), and its faculty, students, and guest speakers model many different ways of thinking about them, from a full range of disciplinary perspectives. As an older student jumping fields with one advanced degree in hand already—a PhD in comparative literature—I value both the BGC’s openness to interdisciplinarity and its wide-ranging institutional curiosity. The BGC not only supports but encourages asking how many different stories can be told about an object, and as a would-be craft journalist, that’s been incredibly stimulating. My previous academic experience also has taught me to appreciate the depth of the BGC’s commitment to its students at both the masters and doctoral level; its small class sizes, exceptional resources, variety of experiential opportunities, and incredibly close network of colleagues and alumni have made for a profoundly rich educational and professional exploration. The BGC is a unique place, and I can’t imagine having gone anywhere else.