Located deep in the boondocks of Indiana, the Essenson campus
was founded by James Essenson, a computer multi-millionaire who pulled
out before the tech-bubble burst. With his moneys, he founded twin academies,
one for Engineering and one for the Arts. Being a private school,
it allows the administration of the academies to accept students from
wherever they please, though the majority of those who apply are from
within the United States.
Essenson designed his schools so that each class would meet
once per week in three and a half hour spans. A student
only has two classes a day, one in the morning and one in the
afternoon. With a typical load of six classes four days a week,
this opens up two class-times for day-time studying. On Fridays,
students attend a day-long project session where they learn how
to apply their learned skills in structured settings. For the
Engineering Academy, projects include architecture, rocketry,
robotics, and holographics. For the Arts Academy, projects
include intensive literary study, theatrical performance,
writing, and film study. By the weekend, students are very much ready for a break from
their work. Unfortunately, Saturdays also feature Saturday tests:
three-hour-long exams to prove their educational prowess.
Not everything at the Essenson Academies are based
around studies. Essenson was sure to build a state-of-the-art
physical facility to build the students' bodies as well as their minds.
While many students take advantage of the facilities, many choose
only to do the minimum twenty physical education sessions that are required
per semester.
Rules are notoriously rigid at the Essenson Academies. For example, students are only allowed their cars on
weekends, unless a parental arrangement is made. While most students
live without their cars for five days quite easily, some have terrible
problems with the rule, feeling trapped in the forests surrounding the campus. Another rule,
lights are to be out campus-wide at 11:00 PM. Clever students often
dedicate themselves to finding ways around these rules.
Life at the Essenson campus has been far from normal since
its beginning. By its own planning, the school gathers a large group of intelligent teenagers,
deprives them of sleep, and works them for all their worth. With
such pressure, a "freak out" is a common experience
whenever a student's brain finally snaps. The "oppressive" Administration does its best to keep the kids from having
too much free time in which idle hands can find terrible things to
do. The teachers, notoriously insane in their own rights, also add their
part of assignments. The final addition is the side-by-side setting of a
left-brain dominated school and a right-brained one.
Things
are usually fairly interesting at both the EAE and the EAA.
Excerpts
from the Essenson Yearbook
Some Other Good Webcomics:
The Academy (but not THIS The Academy)