*the best thing about reed is its roster of unique events and traditions you won't find anywhere else, like noise parade (exactly what it sounds like); fetish ball (again, exactly what it sounds like); RKSK (Reed Kommunist Shit Kollective, a group responsible for various forms of mischievous fun, included but not limited to: supplying library with stuffed animals for late-night cuddling; kommunal borscht; giant skrabble (winners often receive spliffs); kommunal umbrellas for use during rain season; random couch/hammock placement; the sunny day vodka lemonade kart; and most importantly, kommie bikes--cheap kid's bikes spray painted red and left around campus to use at your convenience.); couches on the lawn; and above all Ren Fayre, the end of the year celebration of out and out craziness and bacchanalia involving lots of insane projects, many of which are burned/destroyed ceremonially, Thesis Parade (burning of seniors' thesis drafts), champagne showers, music, nudity, drug piñatas, fire, and sometimes a moon bounce! best time of the year.

one thing i'd change: people's condescending, hipper-than-thou attitudes.

size: a bit too small--i thought that's what i wanted, but a few hundred more people would be nice.

reed reactions: a lot more people have actually heard of reed since it was dubiously dubbed one of the "new ivies" by newsweek. i get questions about the academic rigor, portland, and of course, the drugs. one kid i met at a party senior year asked me where i was going and when i told him i was headed to reed, he said, "awesome. i mean, they smoke a lot of weed there, people are crazy." then he paused and said, "but wait, don't you have to be, like, really smart?" i told him that on the rare occasions i am not partying, i actually read and stuff.

place on campus i spend the most time: tie between the library and the student union, as grungy as the latter is (it's charming).

town: yes a college town, but more accurately an urban lite city. the food here is great--more thai, vietnamese, and japanese than you can try--and there are some great quirky neighborhoods complete with vintage stores, record stores, bars, all sorts of cool crap. good music scene too--unless you're under 21. when your favorite band comes to town, you probably won't seem them until they come back after your 21st birthday.portland is not an all-ages friendly city, or even much of a 24-hour one even if you are. coming from a big city like chicago, portland sometimes doesn't feel like a real city at all--it's very new, unsettlingly clean in some parts, and doesn't have the same kind of diversity.

reed administration: a mixed bag. there are some great folks intent on preserving reed's uniqueness and defending student interests...and some who aren't. but the administration does go out of its way to involve students in important decisions involving new policy, professor appointments, and more.

school pride: yes and no. in many ways i am proud to call myself a reedie and share weird stores that my friends at university of illinois might not even believe. i am proud of the focus on learning rather than performing. but it's a love-hate relationship, and i think most students would say the same. somtimes you love reed, sometimes you fucking hate it.

everything is unusual about reed. but we do have in-door plumbing.

experience i'll always remember: my first renn fayre. just not the actual order in which my experiences occurred and some other hazy details about that weekend like how i ended up asleep on a bean bag in the basement laundry room.

hell yes professors know your name.

my favorite class: so far, my art history class that took us to Florence (on reed's dime!), and my freshman hum 110 conference for the great class dynamic and the best professor i have ever had (in spite of subject matter i dislike).

least favorite class: spanish 212, first semester of hum 210 this year because of a bad class dynamic and one of the worst teachers i've ever had (in spite of subject matter i liked, that class was like banging my head against a wall for an hour and 20 minutes. instead of a conference, it was like playing 21 questions with the even less funny woody allen of early modern european history).

how often students study: if you possess a strong work ethic, minimum 5 hours a day, often past 2 AM. if not, only slightly less or you're screwed. not studying is not an option. not studying enough is also not an option. the workload and academic expectations are enormous--prepare for the onslaught or you WILL be crushed. no, really.

class participation: in conference-style classes (the format of most courses at reed), class participation is very common. the idea is that everyone is there to learn from one another, and that's not possible without class participation.

intellectual conversation outside of class: yes yes yes. and sometimes too much. i enjoy a good philosophical jaunt or discussion of 19th century russian lit as much as the next person. but there was a period of time last year when if i so much as heard the word "foucault" leave your mouth, you had to be thrown out of my room immediately. to this day, my room remains a "foucault-free zone." i need some humor with my serious academia. plus, i'm just really tired of foucault.

competitiveness: kind of--no student actually sees their grades on anything unless they request to see them, an option the majority of students don't exercise until it's time to apply for grad school. my experience with competitiveness has more to do with my own intellectual standards for myself. the only real competitive streak regarding work is who has more of it and who is under the most pressure.

my major/department: the art department. you probably should look elsewhere if you want to be a studio art major, but i really like most of the staff, the facilities are decent considering the size of the school, and projects are often more complex than basic technical training. i made a large scale installation entirely out of lollipops for my intro studio final. the art history department has some great teachers but can be a mixed bag. the emphasis is on the theoretical, which i like, but this often limits the areas of focus available to study. i would love to study near eastern art for my non-western credit, but the non-western professor specializes in china, china, and ore china. my intro art history class wasn't spectacular for the same reason: i couldn't care less about ancient greek vase painting.

socializing with teachers: yes it is common here, depending on the teacher. i've had a dinners at professors' houses, and sometimes hang out with professors when i see them around. that kind of relationship of equals--as in, i am not having lunch with an authority figure so much as an interesting friend who doesn't talk down to me--is what makes the faculty great. in a way, picking a major is like joining a department. but i have encountered teachers intent on maintaining their personal distance as professionals--and i think that misses the point.

academic requirements: intense. students generally only take 4 classes at a time because so much work is involved. kind of a bummer that you can't dabble in as many fields as at other schools. in order to take on a heavier course load, you have to go through a petition process. graduation requirements consist of distributional and departmental reqs, neither of which are actually all that outrageous, though i still fear taking a science course here (tough on science majors, tougher on non-science majors, and brutal on art majors). the standards of excellence, though, are incredibly high. academic rigor and serious scholarship are not taken lightly--do not come to reed if you do not want to or cannot handle intense intellectual discourse.

educational emphasis: 110% on learning for the sake of learning. though reed sends out more grad students and phd-earners than almost any other liberal arts college in the nation, if that tells you anything.

student groups: queer alliance, black and african student union, asian student union, activist organizations, etc.--plenty of similar organizations here. reed bends way, way, way to the left, bordering on pinko sometimes. i have not been personally involved in any political-ish group, but they are a presence on campus, and they are active. the feminist student union and the new men's feminist group, mr. fakk, are pretty vocal, and sometimes controversial. but not in any divisive or harmful way. difference of opinion and debate are not just tolerated here, they are revered. unless you're a republican. as for religion, their is a multi-faith council and a chaverim, and the christian group is called "oh for christ's sake." i think that's pretty telling.

normal kids would feel out of place here. the types interested in frats and sororities and mega team sports. probably extremely observant or orthodox religious kids. ver conservative students who might be offended by the slightest hint of nudity. people who crave a more typical college social scene. however, if your are a biracial atheist transgender student interested in stopping the oppression in burma and metaphysics, come on over!

another important note: reed is sadly not very racially diverse at all. it's largely white, with some asians, few black students, and even fewer hispanic students, though there are a surprising number of international students from places like bulgaria and algeria.

what do students wear to class? what don't they wear to class? i recommend that you abide by the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rule (even if some don't). at the very least wear pants. that's the best rule of reed dress i can think of. only applies in class.

yes different types of students interact, but visible groups do emerge over time.

most reedies come from california or the pacific northwest, followed by new york, the midwest, and probably the international scene before it even gets to the south.

there is not a great deal of socio-economic diversity because reed is so pricey. however, with the little endowment reed does have, they provide full rides to a fair amount of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. on the flipside, this means that the lower-middle/middle class students (like myself) often do not receive the financial they need or might get more easily at a different institution. but i would say most of the people i know come from rather privellaged backgrounds.

students are keenly aware of current sociopolitical issues and active as well. reed has a history of radical liberal activism, and that tradition is slowly being rekindled (even if it means unplugging our coke machines).

LEFT.

RKSK, ethnic/religious groups, socially-/politically-minded groups, motorized couch collective, poi (fire dancing) are all popular. also any group that provides the student body with free food (e.g., ladie's pie society, bagels and schmear, CAVE (pro-meat group), fire on the mountain (wings), and the gentleman's ice cream collective thing).

students do leave their dorms open, their stuff out in the open--even valuables. sometimes computers and i-pods and other stuff only morons would leave out in public get stolen, but the honor principle speaks pretty powerfully in terms of respect for others' possessions and for creating a safe, trusting community. if there is the potential to cause harm to another person, just DON"T.

athletic events are not popular. unless they are the drink-ups that occur pre- and post-rugby match. theater productions are popular and plentiful, as well as other random performances (like the regional break dancing competition we host every year or the sex worker's art show, to name a couple of favorites). guest lecturers are usually well-received, too, though it varies--Dan Savage and Dr. Demento are recent favorites.

guh, dating. mostly in 3 camps: 1. in a serious monogamous relationship that just happened; 2. polyamory (meaning "free love," '60s style); 3. or not much--there are not a lot of just dates.

i met my closest friend in the dorms, and my other good friends on a class trip. meeting people here can be hard sometimes.

awake at 2 AM on a tuesday, you're in the library frantically trying to finish your reading before campus security bounces you from the building when it closes at 2:15.

how often people party: seasonally. more partying occurs when the weather is nicer, and then it is pretty frequent. during the rainy, bleak months, less so. i think 40's night may have disbanded, but used to be celebrated every wednesday night in the quad with many 40 oz. cans of cheap beer and even worse malt liquor. generally speaking, the mental exhaustion caused by work practically necessitates fostering a corresponding chemical/party exhaustion.

"greek" at reed means only "athenian" or "spartan."

last weekend i went to a few reed arts week exhibits and lectures by artists like paper rad and cat chow, stopped by masquerade ball, worked the saturday night bookstore shift til 3 am, and spent sunday sleeping/working/eating.

there are actually lots of great events on weekends sponsored by all sorts of different groups. the grey fund (an endowment left to the school by the lat betty grey specifically and only for purposes of fun) not only hosts cool outdoors and cultural trips throughout the semester (chocolate tours, kayaking the columbia river, china town eastern medicine tours), but also hosts bands, speakers, workshops, film screenings, etc., all of which are substance-free. as open as the drug scene is here, it's plenty easy to avoid--a lot of people here spend their weekends without chemical enhancements of any kind, with the exception of caffeine. and then there's always just renting movies, going to a show, or doing something in portland. getting out of the reed bubble.

wait, off campus? there's a world "off campus"? in other words, getting off campus is important, even if it's just to get groceries, dinner, or walk around. learn the bus system, use the bus system, love the bus system (even though portland's trimet public transportation kinda sucks).

the stereotype of "weed college" is pretty prevalent--and they don't call it that for nothing. the fact is, drug culture plays a large role in our social lives. that said, partaking in the chemical bacchanalia really is a choice--no one is going to pressure you into doing drugs if you do not want to or aren't comfortable (for the most part).

there's also a myth, perpetuated by the school's own prospectus, that reed is a place full of open-minded, liberated, intelligent, friendly students, that there aren't really cliques, that socializing here is easier for awkward nerds/dorks/freaks--and to some degree it is easier, but people here can be just as judgmental, exclusive, and bitchy as high school. cliques do exist here, and often in extremes (stoners, artsy hipsters, science nerds, ravers, etc.), and if you don't necessarily fall neatly into one of these groups, the middle ground can be hadr to navigate.

as for the hype surrounding drug use at reed, yes, much of it is justified. you can pretty much find anything here, including a few things i'd never even heard of before coming. and you can always find someone who's tried them. as damning as that may sound to some, the fact that reed's drug culture is so out in the open and upfront about itself tends to create an environment of concern and understanding, both among students and faculty, rather than one of fear. nobody's afraid to call campus security if a friend should pass out at a party because they're here to protect us, not punish us. i think many other schools could take a cue from this radical concept of taking care of your students rather than reprimanding them. as stupid as i know this will sound, if i were to drop acid for the first time, i'd rather do it here than anywhere else. i know there is no such guarantee of safety when taking drugs, but to do it in a place where people--and i mean even students and staff you've never met--will come to your aid if you should fall out of a tree and break your arm when tripping on a sunday afternoon. and for the most part, people won't look down on you for it.

anything you see going on here--from weed to coke to all kinds of fun hallucinogens--is going on at every big ten school in the country, plenty of other liberal arts colleges, and of course art schools. the drug scene here is really no worse than anywhere else--it's just not underground.