Oberlin College and Conservatory
Video Description: Oberlin Scenes
This silent video makes quick cuts, showing the green space and buildings around campus followed by students and faculty engaging in discussions, working in labs, and performing music.
The scenes include:
- An aerial shot of Finney Chapel and the center of the Oberlin Campus.
- A student is planting a plant into dirt.
- A trumpeter plays, viewed through the strings of a bass.
- A yellow converse shoe on the foot of a statue.
- The scenery of the koi pond in front of the Conservatory building.
- A timelapse of students walking between Mudd Library and Wilder Hall.
- An aerial shot of solar panels in a field.
- A student is seated on a bench in a museum gallery, taking notes.
- A student and a professor are sitting together at a desk conducting a science project.
- A professor responds to a student.
- Lab partners are doing an experiment while wearing lab coats and goggles.
- A professor explains a graph to two students.
- Two students and a professor crouch over an experiment in the woods.
- One student plays a drum kit while another plays alto sax.
- A conservatory professor gives tips to students in a jazz combo.
- The back of a conductor conducting an orchestra.
- A student writes an equation on the blackboard as a professor stands behind him.
- Someone wearing a suit gives a speech on a stage, in front of a map of the world.
- A student is working on their computer in a “womb” chair.
- A violinist plays in a bright, sunny room.
- A student reaches up with plant tweezers to trim a plant in a greenhouse.
- A coach is giving a speech to athletes.
- A tennis player serves.
- A close-up of a student’s fingers as they grip the rock climbing wall.
- Runners get positioned to start a race.
- Students play the trombone, bass and drums on stage at the Cat and the Cream.
- An aerial zooming out shot of Tappan Square.
The video then loops back to the beginning.
One college, one conservatory, one community. Infinite possibilities.
Admissions Visits
Now is a great time to plan a visit to see the Oberlin campus. Take a tour, attend an info session, and meet Obies in their natural habitat.
Oberlin prepares its graduates to change the world for good. In 2025, we’re celebrating a milestone of change for our campus:
We’ve achieved carbon neutrality!
Find Your Area of Study
At Oberlin, the options are nearly endless. (But you can narrow this list down if it’s helpful.)
Didn’t find what you’re looking for?
See the full lists of majors, minors, and concentrations here:
There are many great colleges and many great conservatories. There is only one Oberlin.
Academic & artistic excellence
We offer one of the world’s great undergraduate educations. We will cultivate your curiosity and help you master the tools necessary to engage humanity’s most vexing challenges, debates, and artistic frontiers.
Learning & Labor
It's not just our motto, it's our practice. Hands-on experience is a critical part of an Oberlin education. In research and scholarship, in creative work and performance, we make the connections between learning and doing, between imagination and action.
A restlessness of innovation
From the very beginning—as the first college to adopt a policy to admit Black students and the first to grant undergraduate degrees to women in a co-ed program—we have championed critical work that yields necessary progress: new discoveries, new music and art, new ideas, new ventures, new cultural practices and norms.
Find your people. Find your muse.
With its longstanding commitments to access, diversity, and inclusion, Oberlin is the perfect laboratory in which to study and design the world you want. You'll always feel that you belong here—we'll celebrate you just as you are, without compromise. We're a place where individual flourishing is a collective endeavor—we believe that it takes more than yourself to be yourself.
Photo credit: Matthew Lester
Faculty mentorship
Every Oberlin experience is a collaborative enterprise between students and faculty. Your faculty mentors—world-renowned scholars, artists, teachers, and citizens—will guide and push you, invested fully in your promise and in your future. They will challenge you to approach your education with a critical mind and a resilient heart.
An ideal location
In a quintessential college town in the heart of the Midwest, our picturesque location provides small-town charm and safety. It gives us lots of room to breathe and the freedom to explore and apply new ideas. Whether on campus, in the city of Oberlin, or in nearby Cleveland, you'll find an expansive menu of cultural, social, and service programming.
Ready to launch
When our students graduate, they land in the most interesting places. We do amazing, life-changing, creative work. Our alumni use their Oberlin educations to give the world more joy, hope, meaning, and justice—serving collectively as a global force for good. In every field, on every stage, Obies help people find the way forward.
“Not only are my teachers brilliant at what they do, they’re some of the most compassionate and supportive people I know. They’ve offered me invaluable guidance and pushed me in new creative directions that have ultimately made me a better artist and a better human being.”
Josh Augustin ’20