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Colleges and Universities A-Z Wesleyan University
21

<p>@andalusia</p>

<p>hehe. i wish there were more of a rave scene here. there really isn't one at all, but people definitely do roll here; it's just a question of planning **** correctly so you have a big party to go to like the sex party or whatever at eclectic, rather than just sitting around the dorm (unless of course that's what you want). i have friends who went to NYC frosh year several times and went to real raves, rolling and all, but that's tough to do unless you have a car or a place to crash in the city. dance parties here is pretty much usually gonna be you and your friends in a dorm room unless it's psi u/eclectic or some senior's house, but i hate psi u so usually for me it's ended up being at random people's houses. you just kinda show up get wasted and listen to whatever they have on, which usually consists of older school hip hop (think 3 6 mafia, jay Z of black album vintage; anything from about 9th-10th grade or so) or, sadly, britney spears. i'd say the most representative artist from your list would be daft punk though, easy. </p>

<p>flying_pig is right though if you're looking for an active rave scene you'd be best off in a city. </p>

<p>@ealgian</p>

<p>if you read my other posts you'll find that i address your question pretty specifically in terms of the student body. summary: you are going to feel under attack if your views are not very pronouncedly left-ist (not just liberal; LEFTIST). as for professors i would say that, absolutely, a large number of them have specific agendas to advance. certain departments kind of invite that. fgss springs to mind ( friend of mine felt she was 'punished' in her FGSS class for not toeing the professor's line); sociology, anthropology, AFAM, american studies...the people in those majors, students and profs tend to have very set views on politics and society and, i'll tell you right now, they are going to gang up on you. if you have any illusions about political diversity at wesleyan just look at the campus reaction to mytheos holt, 'nuff said. dude gets called a bigot, a racist, a nutcase etc. every time he writes a column, even if he's writing about the ****ing budget crisis. if you don't want that to be your experience then beware. i admit he's provocative but people really take their hatred of him to another level. political intransigence varies by individual professors, but, like i said, in certain majors you are definitely going to see an agenda advanced.</p>

<p>this comes from someone who has definite progressive leanings, btw. i'm a fiscal moderate and mainstream (i.e. not leftist) social liberal, but i feel like i can't speak out at all here for fear that i'll be treated the same way as mytheos.</p>

22

<p>Ealgian, I'd wait for another response too, because Mr_Pimpateer loves posting dramatically discouraging and/or inflammatory things. From what I've heard, if you go around trying to push conservatism on other people, that won't be appreciated at all, but if you're open to learning new things/viewpoints and you're a normal "Obama democrat", I don't think you'd have much of a problem. Mytheos is very actively a conservative -- writing pieces for the Argus and things. While some people appreciate the dialogue he brings, some are obviously upset by his views. Being a normal democrat who is open to learning about new, more progressive, viewpoints would NOT be the same as being a conservative who goes around campus actively campaigning.</p>

<p>Something I've found though is that while a certain degree of liberalness is assumed, there is always a LOT of dialogue on campus. About everything. There's bound to be someone who shares your viewpoint (as long as it's somewhere from moderate to radical, I'd say). It's not like everyone believes in one radical set of beliefs, and if you deviate from that you feel like an outcast.</p>

<p>I'll let someone with experience respond, though.</p>

23

<p>Thanks for the responses to my question. I've read some of Holt's columns and they are interesting but not my cup of tea. I don't take issue with people having any sort of bias as long as it does not manifest itself in a professor spewing personal beliefs during a class where the beliefs have no relation to the subject material.</p>

<p>Call me picky or principled, lol. </p>

<p>One of the wonderful aspects of IB at my HS is that there is dialogue without disparagement. From what I have read about LACs, Ivies, etc. that sometimes is not the case.</p>

<p>If more CC users who are at Wes/going to Wes could comment on this it would be much appreciated.</p>

24

<p>Haha, I love Girl Talk too. I just think it's weird when people play his albums at parties and think that's sufficient for dance music. </p>

<p>Thanks for the responses though! I am still waiting to hear back from more urban schools, but Wesleyan offered a full ride so I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to actually be there. Lol, and I'm not going to base my decision on the lack/existence of a rave culture. If anything, it'll be interesting to see how everything comes together in a non-urban setting.</p>

<p>Thanks again.</p>

25

<p>Hey Flying_Pig,
My S is a sophomore at Wesleyan and doing a double major in philosophy and music. In the Music Department, all activities are for full credit, unlike many music programs where performance counts for less. So his piano lessons, chamber music and singing in Collegium were each given the same number of credits as the music history course he's taking this semester. He's going to end up with a lot more than 32 courses under his belt by the time he graduates. Even with all his philosophy classes and music activities and classes, he has time to take two courses in other departments every semester. There are no minors at Wesleyan but lots of students do a double major.</p>

26

<p>I should have thought to ask you, Skie! Thanks.</p>

27

<p>on rave culture: I have a bunch of friends who go to raves off-campus several times a semester. Most of them are graduating, though... And some of the big ravers graduated in the last two years. For some reason, I just don't know that many underclassmen, though, so that could just be me.</p>

<p>@ealgian: "In your personal experience, have you ever had a class where the professor forcefully/extensively addressed political issues unrelated to the subject material?"</p>

<p>I actually agree with MrPimpateer for the most part on this one. Most people at Wesleyan are pretty liberal. Not everyone, and conservative opinions are usually tolerated and listened to with interest by most of the student body (when they're not as intentionally-antagonistic as Mytheos often is - not that his opinions are so crazy, but he does kind of try to get the Wesleyan radical liberals angry, and he often succeeds). But when Obama won the election, the entire campus was pretty much one giant party - this <em>is</em> a liberal Democrat school with the occasional anarchist-beyond-the-two-party-system thrown in. (I actually know quite a fair number of libertarians, too, but hardcore traditional Republicans with conservative <em>social</em> values are hard to come by here).</p>

<p>Like MrPimpateer said, there are some departments where professors <em>will</em> throw in their opinion during class (usually related to the class subject matter, though; I haven't seen it thrown in completely unrelated). It's usually not a big deal because those are the departments where everyone agrees with them anyway - sociology, FGSS, etc. As a soc major, my professors in the soc department have had liberal leans and haven't really tried to hide it. That said, I think they're right, and pretty much everyone else in the classes seemed to, too. That's not to say that there wasn't any room for debate, and certainly some professors were challenged on their opinions occasionally. And as MrPimpateer said, there are some departments where this really isn't an issue. I recommend looking through the faculty pages of the departments you might be interested in majoring in, in the social sciences - you can get a pretty good idea of where the research interests lie, and, somewhat consequently, what their political leanings are.</p>

<p>That said, professors I've had <em>love</em> it when you challenge them. There are exceptions, I guess - a couple of arrogant professors who believe they're right and no one should challenge them - but most of them really encourage original and critical thinking. My Soc Analysis class (required for the major) was actually almost all about that - reading other sociological works and then critiquing them. It's a valuable skill to have and I do think it's encouraged by Wesleyan as a whole.</p>

28

<p>More questions:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Is it possible to spend four years at Wesleyan without ever taking a math course? </p></li>
<li><p>Is it easy for underclassmen to get involved in writing for The Argus, and maybe even Wesleying?</p></li>
</ul>

29

<p>I second (z)'s first question in #28. I hate math :p</p>

30

<p>From your point of view and experience, what are the strongest departments at Wesleyan?
Also, how is the math department there?</p>

31

<p>Thanks for the response, MadJoy.</p>

32

<p>(z): it is very possible to go thru Wes without a math course. remember, there are no requirements here, only general expectations. for the natural sciences/math aspect, you can get by with only sciences and no math (i.e. physics, chem, bio, astronomy, etc.)</p>

<p>if you want to write for the Argus, I'm sure you'll be able to... most people I know who wanted to join are on the staff. compared to other college papers (especially LACs) it's very good</p>

33

<p>For Wesleying, pretty much you can just e-mail the blog with the reasons you want to be a contributor, and you can be. The recruitment process is going to be a little different starting soon (when you start blogging, you can make a post, but it has to be approved by a higher-up blogger... and after a little while, we give you full posting power) but it's still pretty informal and whoever wants to blog, can blog.</p>

<p>As for the Argus, yeah, I don't know anyone who really wanted to do newspaper who wasn't able to whatsoever. I like the Argus. But I will admit it's not always as professional and up to super-high journalism standards all the time - but on the other side, it's really designed for the student body to read, and most students DO read it, I think. The Wespeaks (letters to the editors, ish) are extremely popular ways to express opinions from silly/funny/trivial to quite serious.</p>

<p>1J0A6L6: See the thread a few posts down where I talk about the math department in detail.</p>

<p>People who didn't like math and wanted to not take it: You definitely don't ever have to take a math class at Wes, and plenty of people don't. (You're supposed to take one Natural Science/Math course as part of the General Educational Expectations, but it's easy to fulfill that with something not very strenuous if that's what you're looking for.) But!! Math is great, you should do it. Especially college math which is generally much more awesome than high school math.</p>

34

<p>I've never taken a math class at Wes. I liked calc when I took it in high school, but math is really not my thing. So I took three science classes to fulfill GenEd expectations (madjoy is mistaken-- you are supposed to do three, not just one). They make this very easy by having science classes that are designed for non-science majors. Some other schools make you take a crazy hard intro course with lab to fulfill science requirements... which would have been awful for me and a lot of other people.</p>

<p>And as for "journalism" on campus-- seems like Wesleying is now a lot more elitist than the Argus ever thought of being. Argus standards are pretty low and they're always begging people to join, so you can totally do that if you want.</p>

35

<p>what's the deal with gen ed expectations anyway? I know it's 3 courses in each area, but it's only for receiving the honors designation and not for graduating, right? how many people do or do not do this?</p>

36

<p>correct- you can only get honors if you complete gen eds; it's not a graduation requirement. however, most students wind up completing them because Wes encourages you to explore the curriculum, and you wind up completing them without even realizing it. your major will result in at least one of the 3 areas being filled, so it's at most 6 classes, which is nothing</p>

37

<p>Is it easy to put together a schedule at Wes without classes before, say, ten a.m.? Waking up early makes me grumpy.</p>

38

<p>
[quote]
Is it easy to put together a schedule at Wes without classes before, say, ten a.m.? Waking up early makes me grumpy.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Depends on your major. Chem majors in particular, get screwed in this department, since all three years of basic chem (inorganic/orgo/pchem) are at 9am. A lot of language classes meet at 9am as well.</p>

<p>If you really try you should be able to mostly avoid 9am classes, but you'll almost certainly have to bear them at some point in your college career.</p>

39

<p>Kinda off-topic here, but how's the dating scene? haha.</p>

40

<p>flying_pig</p>

<p>you don't know me and you don't know anything about me other than what i write on this stupid website during late night study breaks. i'm a double major in 2 social sciences, one of which is Government. additionally i've been at Wesleyan for several years already, didn't study abroad or take a semester off or anything. my point is basically that I know what the **** I'm talking about, both from having been at wesleyan for a long time and from having the specific educational background to understand exactly what type of arguments and affinities people have on this campus when it comes to the political and social spheres.</p>

<p>as someone who spends all day reading about political theory and the way that theory has worked itself out in reality over the centuries, i am seriously ****ed off by the lack of political diversity and political thinking on this campus. </p>

<p>not only the lack of it <strong><em>es me off; rather, it's the proactive squelching of all non-leftist discourse by ad hominem attacks and character assassination which really gets to me. not that i'm a conservative myself, but i acknowledge the value of such things as DEBATE and DISCUSSION and FREE SPEECH and other means by which the proper course of action can be revealed via dialectical methods. in fact i thrive on dialogue- i love to argue, i love give and take, and, surprisingly, i love being proved wrong. i'm a very moderate guy who favors often-complex solutions to complicated questions. however, how can i air my complicated views if, rather than people responding to them in an equally moderate, rational, and measured way, i know that instead i'll be called a racist, a bigot, an *</em></strong>**, a corporate stooge (this is aimed at SDSers mostly) and ostracized without the meat of what i've said ever being addressed?</p>

<p>thus you begin to understand the situation, the full measure of which is necessarily impossible for you to comprehend due to the fact that you DO NOT GO HERE YET. mytheos certainly is guilty of trespasses of his own, ideological and rhetorical both, but the vehemence of the attacks on him by the gigantic wesleyan Leftist left (which outnumbers conservatives on this campus by a factor of approximately 9,000,000,000 to 1) belies the threat posed by even his most deliberately provocative articles. </p>

<p>have a nice day</p>