Worcester Bargain Education & Arts Mecca
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11/5/2010
Though I don't live there, Worcester is a first class bargain for a great first class education! Worcester has at least 10 great colleges and universities in this city, with all the benefits of Boston professors that also teach just 45 minutes away. Including also is University of Massachusetts Medical School, and another example, Worcester State College teaches what I was told as the same Business program as Harvard University for a heck of a lot less money! Also, wereas Massachusetts is so small and the proximity to Boston is so close, many of the Professors that teach in Worcester Schools are educated and teach in both Worcester and Boston colleges, so the teaching and programs are very similar to the Boston schools. Worcester as a one time great industrialized city has outperformed most the country with Technical education. The former Worcester Technical School is arguably the absolute best technical school of its kind in the USA. Once having the very highest standards and examination for entrance, this school was perhaps the strictest and best school of it's kind putting out the brightest technical students in the world! Some of the greatest engineering wonders in the and best buildings in the world are built by this schools graduates. Worcester, as a city was unfortunately pushed aside by Bostonian Politics of years past, even main roadways diverted away from the city because it was obvious Worcester had the instinctive ability to outperform the States capitol of Boston. This city was built by classical immigrants for almost every nation in Europe and prides itself at large on it's great cultural diversity. There is no better place to get Italian food than Worcesters own little Italy; Shrewsbury Street. A city not too big but not too small Worcester; I sometimes believe has angelic forces inplace to keep it small and maintain its small city charm and dignity. By way of its educated and open minded citizens screams of Invention and the Arts.
The negative is city planners seem to allow developers to underdo things, rather than overdo like the really great larger cities such as Florence or Rome have a tendency to do. A very small example was this beautiful train station renewal project we saw...in front was a huge beautiful grassy rotary (circular drive)...in the very center what literally screams out for a beautiful huge fountain; they install a very small but expensive clock, barely visable to passerbys or traffic. This is the awful mentality of underdo that can kill a great city!
The Tree lined streets are beautiful, the restaurants are wonderful, people where great, museums excellent, but this is a city that desperately need to first acknowledge who they are and believe in themselves as a city and stop perceiving themselves to be underdog to Boston, or anyone for that matter.
In this writers opinion, Worcester far outweights Boston in so many ways.
This is an awsome flexible business friendly smaller city of great diversity and of very unique flavor and character that could easily become one of the greatest cultural arts and educational centers of the world!
Fran | Celebration, FL