an honest portrait of wesleyan, please

Colleges and Universities A-Z Wesleyan University
1

<p>hi, everyone. i'm a senior right now trying to narrow down my college choices to the ones i really honestly think i could see myself attending.</p>

<p>so while i am interested in wesleyan, i was wondering you guys could give me a completely honest portrait of what it's like to be a student there.</p>

<p>maybe you could answer the following questions?</p>

<p>1.) what are the classes like? extremely hard? fairly easy? there's not an open curriculum at wesleyan, right?
2.) i want to be a movie editor/producer/filmmaker. i know weslyean is semi-well-known for film. i am applying to schools known for film (usc, chapman, nyu, etc) too...how does wesleyan compare with those in terms of the department and post-grad connections in the entertainment industry?
3.) i'm a bi guy. is wesleyan bi-friendly? are all orientations well-represented there?
4.) does it get boring at wesleyan? i hear that the neighboring city doesn't offer much and that it can boring. true? false?
5.) what do people generally do for fun at wesleyan? i'm interested in joining a lot of student clubs. but i don't like drinking or doing drugs. are clubs big ways of socializing? how prevalent is drinking/drugs? are sports HUGE there? cuz i'm only into playing for fun.
6.) how is financial aid? i'd need a lot to go there.
7.) what is the typical wesleyan student like?
8.) does the small size ever make it boring/suffocating? like do you know everyone at the school within the first year and never meet anyone new?
9.) what major differences are there between wesleyan and other top lacs (amherst, williams, and middlebury in particular).
10.) how prevalent is religion at wesleyan? i'm an atheist and i hear that religious groups are very active at wesleyan. would i be accepted there?</p>

<p>and any other info about what it's REALLY like to be at wesleyan would be really helpful.</p>

<p>like is there any certain criteria i NEED to fit to be happy at wesleyan? (for instance, it's a lot better to be liberal at brown than republican.) does anything like this apply to wesleyan? thanks a lot guys!</p>

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<p>1) I mean, obviously it depends on the class, but most classes range from fairly to very rigorous, and from fairly good to amazing. There actually kind of is an open curriculum. there are no single required classes. There ARE distribution suggestions which are fairly easy (3 classes each in Humanities, Social Sciences and Math/Hard Science), but those are not required for graduation, just for honors (and for a couple of majors, film not included).</p>

<p>2) Unlike USC, NYU, etc, Wes’s film department is a Film STUDIES major. There are some production classes, and plenty of opportunity to work on student films both within and out of the major, but the main focus is film analysis, genre study, and history. We happen to think this makes people better filmmakers, if that is what they go on to go. Although out alumni base is not as big as say USC or NYU, it is quite influential – people in the business know of the “Wesleyan Mafia.” This Vanifty Fair article gives just a handful of the influential Wes alumni in Hollywood: <a href=“http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2008/09/wesleyanvanityfair.pdf[/url]”>http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2008/09/wesleyanvanityfair.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’m a Film Major – I think it’s an amazing program.</p>

<p>3) Wes is an incredibly open place, and the queer community in general is very strong.</p>

<p>4) Middletown isn’t exactly exciting, and if you want someplace with a lot of stuff to do off campus, Wes might not be the place for you. But I’m never bored (and I’m a senior) – there is always WAY more to do on campus than I have time for! And Middletown is good for what it is – it has a variety of restaurants, a movie theater, etc, so if you want to get off campus for an evening, there is stuff to do.</p>

<p>5) Anything and everything. While plenty of people do drunk and do drugs, that is far from the only thing, and there are very few people who ONLY do that. Student clubs are very popular, and there are always student performances, lectures, alcohol-free open events and the amazing film series to go to for social things that aren’t partying. There is also very little pressure to drink/drug, even if you do go to parties. </p>

<p>6) Wes is need blind, and promises to meet 100% of need. Some people love their Fin Aid packages, some complain they have a lot of loans. You won’t know until you apply.</p>

<p>7) Quirky, passionate, smart, laid-back. </p>

<p>8) I haven’t found this to be so. Wes is small enough that you will always see a few familiar faces when you walk to class, but large enough that you are always meeting new people. There are a variety of types of housing (dorms, program houses, apartments, houses), which means it’s not everyone in the dorms together the whole time, which means the campus is not as close knit as a lot of LACs – some people don’t like that as much, but it means way less of “everyone knows everything about everyone.” </p>

<p>9) Wes is generally more hippy/hipster/activist – in feel it is more like Brown/Vassar than the schools you mentioned. It’s film program is also in an entirely different league, IMO. </p>

<p>10) You have the wrong impression. While there are active religious groups, Wes is always on Princeton’s “Student’s Least Likely to Believe in God” (or whatever it is) list – I’d say over half the school is atheist/agnostic/undefined spiritual.</p>

<p>Generally, I LOVE being at Wes. It is fairly liberal – I know conservatives who love it here, but as I said, it’s a lot like Brown in campus culture.</p>

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<p>thanks so much, weskid! your answers were very informative.</p>

<p>also, what is it about wes’s film department that you think is so great compared to other top lacs? would you say wes’s film department seems a lot better than the ivies too? and for what reasons?</p>

4

<p>^^^</p>

<p>I think Wes’s film department is better than that of many Ivies, except those also known for film (Columbia has a very good department too, and I think maybe Yale does?). </p>

<p>The head of the department is a very famous film scholar, and very well connected in Hollywood (she is, for instance, good friend with Scorsese). Furthermore, we have gorgeous facilities (it has its own building with several theaters, the main one of which Scorsese apparently said was one of the best places to watch a film on the east coast). </p>

<p>And, in general, the department is very rigorous, and very focused on the analysis of film. At at least some schools where Film Studies is less of a big deal, film/media studies can be kind of lose/easy. And even when that doesn’t happen, the major seems to often become a kind of social studies-type major that, while potentially interesting, is not as useful to a future film maker as a rigorous study of how films work, which is what Wes-style film analysis is. Basically, from what I’ve heard from friends, at other schools a study of an action film might deconstruct it’s portrayal of masculinity; at wes, you study how action sequences are set up to be suspenseful, or whatever.</p>

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<p>^ahh, i think i see what you mean. so, at wes, you study more of the actual techniques of filmmaking whereas at other schools you might study the content of films more? </p>

<p>i’m not sure which would be more beneficial to me cuz i want to be a screenwriter mostly. hmmm…</p>

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<p>Kind of. It’s not just techniques, but how techniques relate to how the story is perceived, if that makes sense. As someone who is interested in screenwriting, I think it’s very useful – you learn a lot about narration, for instance.</p>

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<p>ah, i see what you mean. thanks! :D</p>

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<p>

I literally laughed out loud at this</p>

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</p>

<p>Fun fact: The only time I’ve seen a copy of the Bible at Wesleyan, it was being used as rolling paper. Interpret that as you will.</p>

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<p>Religion at Wesleyan is what you’d like it to be. The environment caters to the most devout and those just beginning spiritual development. Inter-Faith House is a program house designed to facilitate cross-religious dialogue, but every group is welcomed and encouraged to nurture their respective faiths.</p>