<p>Hi! I am an international high school senior, and I am currently narrowing down my list of colleges to apply to. Bennington College is a possibility. I have read in various books, though (namely the Fiske & Princeton college guides), that Bennington does not have many off-campus activities. Is this true? And if yes, how do you think this will affect an international student that wants to expose herself to what the area has to offer? Thank you!</p>
<p>It’s pretty solidly true that there aren’t many off-campus activities. As of the last few years the college has been trying to improve its relationship to the town (Bennington is a economically depressed town for the United States - there’s quite a lot of poverty in the area, high unemployment, and the college doesn’t do a whole lot for the town, so the townies tend to, not entirely wrongly, see the college as kind of an ivory tower full of hippies and hipsters with too much disposable income) by doing more outreach and community service, but it’s been pretty mixed. The college has been running canned food drives and other fundraising activities for the Food and Fuel fund, but that’s been the extent of it. I graduated in the spring, so I don’t know the full scoop on what they have planned, but I wouldn’t expect a drastic change/increase in off campus activities - the President of the college (good ole Lizzie Coleman) doesn’t value the town-school relationship, so as long as she’s in place I wouldn’t expect drastic moves on that front unless it’s student driven, and there really isn’t a lot of student drive for community service. It’s not that Bennington students don’t care, it’s just…well, once you get up on the hill it’s easy to forget about everything at the bottom of the hill.</p>
<p>As far as “fun” off campus activities…let’s see, the school rents the bowling alley in town once a term for students, occasionally organizes trips to the mall in Albany (wahoo, shopping!), hikes in the area (which are often poorly planned, but exciting adventures regardless), swimming trips to upstate New York (the name of the park they go to escapes me now), but that’s about as far as it goes.</p>
<p>As far as the Bennington area, well, it’s what you make of it. There are some pretty fun things that happen in the area- the Garlic festival is something you can’t miss if you want a real dose of an American county fair - sno-cones and so many locally grown kinds of garlic, oh and artisinal cheeses and everything else you could want. In the spring there’s a big Mayfest in town that’s also a ball, or so I heard. There’s a lot of great hiking to be done, but you’ll have to make friends with someone with a car or be limited to the trails around town and in North Bennington. </p>
<p>North Bennington isn’t exactly a destination to look forward to, but it has its charms. A tiny riverside park, a local store that sells decent food , a tea shop, a pizza place with honest-to-god the best pizza in the universe and a solid, cheap little bar.</p>
<p>Bennington town proper is pretty similar. Good restaurants, a game store - catering to all of your video, tabletop and board game needs, some kind of kitschy shops that make all of their yearly income from leaf-peepers in the fall. The deal with Bennington is that unless you want to eat, there really isn’t anything to do in Bennington. Until you’re 21, at which point you can eat and drink - and there’s a great brewpub in town for both of those activities. </p>
<p>Interesting things happen in Williamstown across the border, and if you go a bit further to North Adams there’s MassMOCA, which is always interesting, but as an international student you’re going to have a hard time enjoying any of that until you make friends with someone with a car - which is probably only about 25% of the student body.</p>