We have a series of colleges we plan to visit now that Eric believes he wants to pursue Criminal Scene Investigation as a major. We visited NYS colleges including St. Rose in Albany and Hilbert in Hamburg.

We had a decent trip out to Hamburg to visit Hilbert College.  It felt like a long drive though it was under 4 hours, even stopping for a quick dinner.    Hilbert college is a very small (950 students) college founded by the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, which I is a cross between the Franciscans and the St. Josephs, same Sisters of St. Joseph who founded St. Rose in Albany.  While St. Rose seems to have distanced itself from their origins, Hilbert embraces them.  Though there are no nuns on staff (except as something of an advisory “CEO” ish kind of position), there is still an emphasis on Charity, social consciousness, community, character foundation.   It impacts the curriculum some in that everybody has to do 10 hours of community service before you can graduate.  Being small, they emphasized how they know every student by name.   Eric said he liked the CSI program.  Most of the instructors worked in the field, and apparently still have strong connections.  We heard a lot about internships and employers coming on campus and seeking out Hilbert graduates and a 96% post graduate placement rate.  The dorm rooms were HUGE and doubles have their OWN BATHROOMS! It seems very unlikely there is a drug problem on campus.  On the down side, it is about 50% commuters, which means the campus was VERY quiet on Saturday.  

Next up are SUNY Canton, Herkimer Community College, SUNY Morrisville and Alfred.