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There's a stereotype of Wesleyan students as a bunch of artsy social geeks, as well as far-left activists, hippies, hipsters, etc. It's definitely part true, but there are also plenty of athletes, some Greeks, hyper-achievers, apoliticals, hardcore partiers, and straight-edge kids. Everyone probably says this, but you really get all types.

I haven't been here very long, but I love Wesleyan so far. When I visited, I was impressed by how open and approachable everyone I met was, and that hasn't changed. In high school, I avoided talking to people I didn't know, fearing awkward conversations. But here, everyone has such an interesting perspective to share that I love meeting new people and hearing about their experiences.

The basics: Wesleyan's size is perfect-- not so big that you get lost in the crowd, but big enough so that you're always encountering new people. The academics are wonderful, although it can be a little difficult to get into popular classes. Tons of extracurriculars. Lots of social opportunities no matter what your scene is. It's hard to balance everything sometimes, but I'm never, ever bored.

One unusual thing about Wesleyan, as compared to other similar LACs, is that we're encouraged to get off campus and get involved in the community. For instance, as a work-study student, I get paid to tutor local elementary schoolers. Many (most?) Wesleyan students participate in some sort of community service.

The most interesting experience I've had so far was Snowpocalypse 2011. On Halloween weekend, it started snowing heavily, and electricity went out across Connecticut for three days. With our computers and phones dead and classes canceled, students congregated in the halls together, playing board games, eating perishable food, and just generally bonding. It turned what could have been a nasty situation into one of my favorite times here so far.

I'm a freshman, and it makes sense that I'd be in some larger introductory classes rather than upper-level courses. Also, Wesleyan's class of 2015 is unusually large, so it was pretty difficult to get into certain popular classes. That said, my classes range from a fifteen-person seminar in English literature to a 150-person introductory chemistry lecture. I'm also taking a Government course and a Sociology course that have about 30 people each. All of my professors are great; they are obviously scholars, but they're also very accessible. The other day, my Government professor mentioned offhandedly that he'd been invited to discuss Russian politics and foreign policy at a talk show in Washington D.C., but he'd declined because he had to grade the papers we'd handed in the week before. My chemistry lecture is my only class with a TA, and even then I could easily talk to the professor if I wanted to.

Students here are generally not competitive, but cooperative. We discuss the course material outside of class, not because we have to, but because it's generally interesting. People complain about the amount of homework they have and help each other if they can. Wesleyan classes are definitely geared towards learning for learning's sake, but there's also lots of resources for pursuing a career.

The general perception about Wesleyan seems to be that we are all liberal. Not everyone is liberal, but most of us are. There's a lot of diversity of thought here, though. There are apoliticals, socialists, libertarians, Green Party members, and plenty of independents. I know a few Republicans as well. Racially, the student body isn't, I think, diverse enough to merit our nickname "Diversity University," but it's much more diverse than my Minnesota public high school. I know a lot of international students. It's nice to get to know people that aren't exactly like me. There is definitely a large contingent of private-school kids from New York and California, but you do meet the odd Midwesterner or Southerner as well. And everyone interacts, regardless of socioeconomic background, race, geography, or worldview. That's one of my favorite things about this place. Also, this is a great place for LGBT people. When I visited Wesleyan last spring, I asked a student if there was a gay-straight alliance. He laughed and told me that "this school is one big gay-straight alliance." If you do not support LGBT rights, you probably do not belong at Wesleyan.

Basically, the people here are really intelligent, passionate, and fascinating.

There are more student organizations here than I can count, and a lot of them are very popular and active on campus. I love band, so I've joined the pep band and played in the pit orchestra for a student production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, which was scary because we only had two weeks to rehearse, but was also extremely fun and fulfilling. I'm also tutoring kids in Middletown for my work study. I tutor for six hours a week, and I love it.

Pep band is my favorite activity. We play at home football and basketball games and occasionally take a road trip to an away game. There's fourteen of us, and everyone's really close. Many weekends, we have pep band parties at our senior director's house.

The dating scene is what you make of it. Most people seem to be looking for hookups, but if you want something else, you can find it if you look a little harder.

Traditional collegiate things like frats and big sports events definitely exist here, but they're just one of the many facets of campus social life, not the central focus as they would be at a big 10 school. We in the pep band, as well as the athletes' parents, are usually the loudest fans in the stands at games. The frat parties are inclusive--they won't keep non-Greeks out, so you don't need to join one even if frat parties are your scene. If they're not, there's plenty of other things to do on a weekend--concerts, raves, hanging out in friends' homes, getting falafel or grilled cheese at the trucks that hang out here at night, or (yes) doing homework. If you come here, you will have to spend the occasional Friday or Saturday night doing homework to keep up. But not always.

At around 12:30 AM on Sunday October 30th, the power went out after it had been snowing all day. The emergency lights in our hall kicked on and we all congregated in our lounge--no one had gone out that night, because of the weather. We played Apples to Apples until 2:30 AM and then went to bed, expecting the power to be back on when we woke up.

Guess what--it wasn't. We all freaked out about this for a while, speculating about food, heat, and most importantly, whether classes would be canceled. Even for those of us whose computers were charged, the internet was out, so we had no way of knowing what was going on. Finally, a school official came to our dorm. She informed us that the power wouldn't be back for at least 24 hours, that the dining hall would have bag lunches available that afternoon, and that we should close our windows to preserve heat. Since the dining hall wouldn't be serving breakfast, we went to Weshop, the campus grocery store, to buy some supplies, and there was a mob of people there in their pajamas, all with the same idea. After we had gotten our bread/chocolate/applesauce/coffee, we went back to our dorm, Clark, and had a cereal party with all our milk and other perishable food. Everyone stayed in pajamas and tried to do homework while sitting in the lounge where there was more light. Our entire hall bonded that day like we hadn't done since orientation.

Sometime that afternoon, we were informed via text message that classes were cancelled for monday. General rejoicing commenced. We went to get our bag lunches and found that the line was already several hundred students long. Luckily, it was a beautiful, sunny, 60-degree day, although there was still snow on the ground. While we waited for food, we debated the relative merits of keeping each member of our hall, in the event that society collapsed and we were forced to resort to cannibalizing each other. I was deemed valuable because of my snow survival skills, being from Minnesota.

No one really did any homework that day. We sat in the hall and talked long after the sun set. We fretted and complained and were secretly happy.

That we're a bunch of pot-smoking, bleeding-heart liberals, and that everyone would participate in Occupy Wall Street or things like that.

It seemed to be the place that was most in line with both my personality and my ambitions.

You'll notice that many students have classy and/or unusual fashion sense. You won't see a lot of North Face. If you eavesdrop on student conversations, you're likely to hear about everything from the french fries in the dining hall to heteronormativity in American society.

They're very diverse. Most are absolutely fantastic, but some are tedious. Most are small but some are large, especially for freshmen. I'm interested in humanities, and most of my classes tend to be small and discussion-oriented. They're very difficult, but also fascinating.

Wesleyan has a reputation for poor sports teams, but that doesn't hold true across all sports. That said, it's by no means a sports school--there will be maybe a couple hundred students at the typical home football games. If you're looking for a scene where absolutely EVERYONE is there on game day, Wes may not be your school.