Rebecca

What's wonderful about Vassar is that it's a small, cozy community where you can meet and really get to know a ton of people, and where people will know you. It's difficult to remain anonymous. Also, the administration is very responsive to student concerns. Because it's not a large research university, the environment at Vassar is all about the students (and not about, say, how prestigious a professor is or what's come out of the university press recently). That being said, some people can find Vassar too small, but it's just a matter of personal taste. There's no way to avoid running into people you know absolutely everywhere.

The town of Poughkeepsie where Vassar is located is nothing special. There's a sad lack of public transportation and no movie theaters or Target-type stores within walking distance, but campus activities tries to make up for the lack of things to do in Poughkeepsie. There is always something to do on weekends including movie screenings and parties sponsored by a college organization, and no one depends on Poughkeepsie for much of anything.

Almost everyone at Vassar is absolutely, head-over-heels in love with Vassar, which is nice because it means the people are content and therefore also nice. There are a few, however, who lament what we call the “Vassar Bubble,” meaning that our campus is too small and sheltered and there are not enough “real-world” experiences to be had. That is probably the most frequent complaint from students.

Vassar academics have a few qualities that are difficult to find elsewhere, though whether they are good or bad qualities is up to the individual. There are remarkably few distribution requirements; all you have to do is take a language (a semester of intermediate or a year of beginners), a freshmen writing course (which is not necessarily an English course), and a “Quantitative” course (which can be intro to Psych or economics or many other non-math classes). This appeals to a ton of people. However, there is a flip side. Because there are few distribution requirements, requirements for the individual majors tend to be pretty heavy. Each major is a lot of credits, and sometimes there are weird requirements. For example, I'm an English major and, in addition to making sure I get twelve credits including four 300-level seminars, I also have to make sure that two of those credits are in classes that focus on literature written before 1800, one class on literature written in the 19th century, and one “race and ethnicity” oriented class. Because there are so many specific requirements, students find it difficult to double major. When you get to college, you will be told that you have until the middle of Sophomore year to decide on a major and that, once you decide, you can change it as many times as you want. However, this is not entirely true. You can't discover you're in love with Anthropology second semester Sophomore year and then be an Anthro major; You won't have time to get enough credits to fulfill the major before you graduate. So, you don't have to know your major coming in, but it's helpful to take a variety of classes first semester freshmen year so you can begin to narrow it down and look at major requirements.

That being said, the classes themselves are great and I've loved almost all of my professors. They will definitely know your name and sometimes you get to know them on a pretty personal level; some students even hang with their professors outside of class. Most classes are pretty small, so class participation is key to both getting good grades and enjoying the course.

Students work hard, but not in an uber-intense, University Of Chicago type way. Academic work is just one kind of work that students do every day because almost everyone's involved in a club or organization. I have never had to pull an all-nighter, and it is definitely possible to go your entire Vassar career with out having too many late nights due to academics. It depends on how you manage your time.

Students are also pretty intelligent, as evidenced by thoughtful comments in class, but their conversations out side of class are seldom academic. That's not to say they're trivial. It's pretty common for students to talk about social justice, current events, politics, and other serious conversation outside of class, but you won't hear a whole lot of “according to Thoreau...” or things of that nature.

Academics at Vassar are 100% geared toward learning for learning's sake. No class is “job-oriented.” There is no business major or anything like that. It's a great idea, while at Vassar, to spend a semester doing field work or some sort of internship to get some practical experiences. Graduates do go on to do interesting professional things despite the lack of job-oriented classes.

The absolutely largest problem I have with Vassar is its lack of diversity- racial diversity, Socio-economic diversity, political diversity. A too-large portion of the student body is composed of wealthy white kids, most of whom are liberal democrats, many of whom are from New Jersey and New York state. There has been, however, an effort in recent years to remedy this problem, and each new class is a little more diverse than the class before it. There is also a large LGBT community and a fairy prominent international community, which helps make the student body less homogenous. And all the different “groups” of students interact with each other- there are few cliques or exclusive groups. The only cliques I've seen are a few sports teams and some of the drama majors, otherwise everyone hangs out with everyone.

Many students are very politically active, as evidenced by a wide variety of social/political activity organizations. Unfortunately, most students tend to agree with each other on political issues and, consequently, a Republican or conservative student might feel out of place here. It's also possible that a “preppy” student might feel a little weird because of how he or she will stand out on a campus composed of people who are anything but preppy.

There are a ton of clubs and organizations on campus, pretty much anything anyone could want. There are political groups, discussion groups, hip hop appreciation groups, horse-back riding groups, writing groups, singing groups, groups that distribute condoms, really and truly anything. I'd say student theater, a capella, and improv are the biggest extra curricular activities on campus. There are so many productions each semester, and a shockingly large amount of people are involved with these productions. Going to see one of the many singing or improv groups perform is a fairly typical beginning to a Saturday night. That being said, there are still a sizable number of athletes and some of our sports teams aren't half bad. However, sporting events are not very popular in terms of social activities.

The Vassar social scene is unique. A typical Friday or Saturday night might start with dinner with friends at a restaurant within walking distance. Dinner out, however, is one of the only things people do off campus. There is little-to-no bar or clubbing scene. After dinner, people might go see a play or concert or go to one of the weekly movie screenings. After that there is a bit of a lull in the evening until one of the parties starts. There is almost always a party- they usually start at ten, but people don't show up until 11:30 or midnight. Lots of these parties are sponsored by college organizations or dorms. Some of the big ones that happen every year are “Seven Deadly Sins,” “Shiva Rave,” “Harvest Ball” and, of course, Halloween. It's nice that there are no fraternities or sororities because that means that parties are usually campus-wide and completely free. On nights when there aren't huge parties, usually someone is throwing a small get-together in her dorm room or there is something going on at Senior housing. Many people engage in what we call the “traveling party,” which means you travel around to different places through out the night and can end up anywhere.

The majority of party-goers pregame these parties. Not everyone drinks and, if you like to dance, you don't have to feel weird going to the party sober. It's also entirely possible to find a group of substance-free friends, but it might not be a very large group. I find that there isn't any pressure to drink- no one will think less of you if you choose to stay sober. However, if you're uncomfortable being around other people who drink, you might have difficulty finding things to do on the weekends, and this can be frustrating.

The non-weekend social scene consists of having meals with friends and visiting people in their rooms. No one locks their door and often times people leave their doors wide opened, inviting neighbors to come in and chat. A social-staple is the “fellow group,” or the group of freshmen you live with during your first year who have the same student fellow (the Vassar equivalent to an R.A.). Those friendships usually last your entire time at college.

Before coming to Vassar, people told me with confidence that all the men are gay and everyone's a vegan hipster. I was also told that everyone's liberal, queer/gender-studies-minded, and "artsy."

There is certainly a large LGBT population at Vassar, but it is not as difficult to find a straight male as I was lead to believe. Also, the hipster population is tiny, but I guess it stands out on such a small campus.

It is definitely true that most people are liberal and it is not uncommon for people to talk about gender and sexuality in relation to almost anything, in any class or social setting.