Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts '12
New School for Social Research, MA candidate in Economics
Cape Cod native Alexander Gleason had never heard of The New School before a friend who graduated from Parsons The New School for Design suggested that he check it out. Coincidentally, someone else had recently given him the book The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner, who happened to be a New School faculty member. After touring Eugene Lang College—The New School’s four-year liberal arts college for traditional aged students—he was sold. "My parents looked at me and said, ‘This is where you belong.’ That’s how I came upon The New School and Lang. And I fell in love with it."
A student representative in politics in Massachusetts, who started a food drive which lead to his community’s first food pantry, Alexander has continued to stay active in both New York City politics and on campus governance. As an RA, he leads academic activities that help students build skills that they can transfer to the classroom. "Lots of colleges promote the ‘college lifestyle,’" he said. "The New School allows you to focus on your education."
Alexander entered The New School knowing he wanted to take advantage of the Bachelor’s/Master’s Program. He took graduate-level classes in political economy, labor economics, and public policy, among others as an undergraduate and has chosen to continue his education in the master’s program in Economics at The New School for Social Research. He was particularly drawn to The New School’s heterodox approach to economics. He said, "I love that you can learn four, five, or six perspectives on what other universities take as a for-granted conclusion."
"Having an opportunity to take graduate classes as an undergraduate—to balance those things—gives you the opportunity to really learn about yourself, to learn the kind of person you are, to learn how to prioritize, and to learn a whole new skill set. To put it bluntly, it gives you what Robert Heilbroner would call a worldly philosophy. And a real world education."