Bates: The Big Picture
Bates is just the right size in my mind as most people know or know of each other but you can always meet someone new...If you want to get off campus, it´s easy to escape or find a friend to drive you down to Portland, Boston, or the other big two private colleges, Bowdoin or Colby. Also, the Bates Outing Club has a lot of hiking and climbing trips if you want to get in touch with nature... Not many people want to escape into Lewiston, town-college relations are bad, but what can you do about elitists who are out of touch with the working class reality?... There are plenty of opportunities to do community service-learning though, and it´s a shame most people don´t get to know Lewiston for what it is and appreciate it.
Bates admin is out of touch, The Turtle rarely comes out(except when Amandla, the black organization on campus led a diversity demonstration), but her husband is known for walking her dogs on campus...
People from the rest of the country don´t know what Bates is(master bates or motel bates jokes are common), but up northeast, it´s well known. Bates pride is up to the student, as for me, I know it´s one of those schools that gives a great education, but no one´s going to confuse it with Bowdoin, Colby, or upwards.
Bates Academic Life
Class sizes are amazing, I really feel like my professors care about what I work on and I´ve gotten plenty of recommenations from them. Language courses, of course, are a plus, because you are actually forced to speak in class instead of just writing and doing grammar. Plus, I´m writing a dream thesis that´s gotten lots of grants from the Abroad Office that lets me travel all over the country I´m abroad in at the moment.
Class participation depends on the class obviously a liberal arts education is what you make out of it... However, Science courses and professors are awful, but the Humanities are usually interesting and well taught. Sometimes, students are really tame and don´t speak out, but most professors know how to get us talking whether from a joke or an interesting topic. Watch out for the Gender Studies though..
A Bates education is summed up by its motto: Amore ac Studio, Love of learning, pretty much, you do what you want with it, just like how your thesis (essentially, a graduation requirement ) is
Bates's Student Body
Rich, white, liberal elitists from just right outside of Boston dominate because the College has got to make money somehow. However, the Admissions office is working hard to get diversity on campus, but a lot of minorities and poor kids still feel sort of marginalized on campus(can´t help the lack of cultural capital one has compared to upper white liberal elitists)...You see the tables in the dining hall form out by class and race as well as the typical college arquetypes: the awkward geeks (quite a lot of them), the rich white kids and jocks, and the articulate academic assholes. Most of us look like we care, but we really don´t do much of anything when it comes down to it because we know we don´t have much say in the academic or real world.
No one´s going to leave and become a famous alum (our most famous alum is one of the Gumbels) or get really rich (just look at our endowment compared to the rest of the NESCAC), but people use their education in their life for the most part and are happy for it.
Bates Student Activities + Social Life
Environmental Coalition sucked, no one really cares as much as complain about the environment...There´s a lack of action in most clubs, but of course it depends who´s in the clbu, but most don´t do anything
Bates Football is awful, everyone wants it cut except for the Football players and alums, it was once on SI´s and Espn Page 2´s worst football programs list and was known to have the one of nation´s longest losing streaks in collegiate football... No one really cares about sports fanwise, but there are a lot of student athletes and IM sports participation is big
People work hard, they party hard (no frats or sororities here though). People usually don´t sleep well, except on weekends..
Friends come through random connections, common interests, classes taken, and dorms lived in together, nothing out of the norm really
JA´s and RC´s are a disappointment, don´t expect them to help, they´re pretty inept, one JA actually hogged the dorm´s condoms to himself
