Mary Sherhart
B.A. Liberal Studies, 1999

Mary Sherhart chose Antioch because it offered a relevant academic experience.

"I had finished my junior year more than 10 years prior to enrolling at Antioch," she says. "Although I could have finished in one year at the University of Washington, the classes would have been distribution credits in science and history in large lecture halls with teaching assistants. Antioch offered a way to utilize my experience as a nonprofit manager and professional musician though prior learning credits and small classes with other mature students."

"Just accomplishing a B.A. also meant a great deal to me psychologically."

She earned quite a few credits for her life experience.

"Being forced to organize my prior learning in a readable form illustrated to me just how much I knew and had accomplished. This was 100 percent more valuable than taking science classes at the UW," she says.

She concedes Antioch isn't for everyone.

"It is a great place for self-motivated and well disciplined people with lots of meaty life experience under their belts. It is an intense experience," Sherhart says, "with much self-examination, interface with many strong opinions and exposure to different ways of thinking about the world."

After concentrating on arts management and ethnomusicology for her B.A., today Sherhart is a producer and teacher as well as a professional vocalist.

As with other B.A. graduates, Sherhart says independent study was a highlight of her Antioch experience.

"I was able to do master's level work in topics relevant to my work, one of which was with the chair of the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology. The experience was extremely affirming," she describes. "The only down side to the independent studies was the challenge to keep the work focused and manageable. My natural inclination was to go too broad and deep simply because I was so curious. My adviser Sue Woehrlin helped quite a bit in this regard."

Among her best memories? "Conducting interviews with about 50 people in the music business (musicians, archivists, composer, producers) in the U.S. and Europe as part of an independent study," she says, adding that getting together with her degree committee was another.

"The degree committee process gave me more confidence about myself and my work than any other single experience in my life," Sherhart says.

"Just accomplishing a B.A. also meant a great deal to me psychologically. I went on to do a major musical production that I'm quite sure I would not have considered prior to my Antioch experience."

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