<p>I have recently been reading some things about Oberlin that I really find interesting. My intended major is theater, and I like how prevalent the arts are there. I also really like their focus on social justice and a lot of the opportunities that exist there. However, I am a christian and tend to lean more to the conservative side (at least on issues like abortion ect.) I don't want to go to a school where everyone agrees with me - I want that dialogue with people from different view points. The thing is, I don't know that I won't the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I don't know how it would work out if i was the ONLY conservative on a very liberal campus. Can anyone offer any advice on this issue? Are there christian groups on campus and are the students welcoming to conservative students or would i be ostracized?</p>
<p>If I were you I would look elsewhere, to be honest.</p>
<p>I would have to agree with monydad. Things could work out, and its great you are so accepting, but many people aren’t. I think it is very possible you would be looked down upon, maybe even be ostracized a little by some kids.</p>
<p>First of all, you won’t catch flak at Oberlin for being a Christian – in my experience, there’s not a lot of anti-religion sentiment or anything like that. There are a few different Christian groups on campus (the Oberlin Christian Fellowship and Ecumenical Christians of Oberlin seem fairly active, among others), though I don’t know much about them. I would recommend contacting the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life: [Oberlin</a> College | Office of Religious and Spiritual Life](<a href=“http://new.oberlin.edu/office/religious-and-spiritual-life/index.dot]Oberlin”>http://new.oberlin.edu/office/religious-and-spiritual-life/index.dot). They should be able to answer your questions, and possibly put you in touch with current students.</p>
<p>As for being a conservative… you will almost definitely find it difficult. Whether it’s prohibitively difficult depends on how important politics are to you, how much you enjoy debating, and how willing you are to be a political minority. The vast majority of Oberlin students are leftist, progressive, liberal, or moderate (and most Oberlin “moderates” would be considered liberal anywhere else). We tend to like to debate, and so you will almost definitely find that your political views will be challenged if they come up in conversation… sometimes politely, sometimes not-so-politely, probably persistently. This is true for pretty much anyone at Oberlin who disagrees politically with someone else at Oberlin (i.e., it’s true for everyone) – but it’s especially true for conservatives, since there are so many Oberlin students who disagree with conservatism. This may or may not be a problem for you, depending on how well you tolerate aggressive debates and how committed you are to defending your views.</p>
<p>Oberlin is also quite socially liberal; abortion rights, sex-positivity, etc. are pretty mainstream. By and large, these issues aren’t seen as open to debate; there are so many LGBT students, for example, that voicing opposition to gay and trans rights would feel to many people like a personal attack. If these things make you uncomfortable, you definitely would not be happy at Oberlin.</p>
<p>There are not many conservative voices/outlets on campus, although apparently the Republicans & Libertarians Club has been resurrected. There is a big lecture series that brings high-profile conservative speakers to campus, but they tend not to be very well-received – for an example, you might want to read some of the Oberlin Review articles about Karl Rove’s speech on September 28.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, Oberlin is not all politics all the time, and there are conservatives who are happy here – though I suspect that many of them are in the closet, so to speak. Generally, they are people who feel so strongly about the academic and extracurricular opportunities at Oberlin that they are willing to put up with being in a political minority – or they really like to debate – or they’ve found a more moderate/apolitical circle of friends. If you are serious about Oberlin, definitely try to visit, and talk to lots of folks so you can get a feel for what it’s like.</p>
<p>Check out Washington and Lee University. It’s an LAC in the south and conservative. You’ll feel very comfortable there because almost everyone will agree with you. </p>
<p>You could also try Muhlenberg College. It’s not as selective as Oberlin but still a good, solid LAC, and the theatre program is superior to Oberlin’s. The theatre program is Top 7-10 in the nation, and is located an almost equal distance (less than two hours) between New York City and Philadelphia. It’s liberal, but to the right of Oberlin. At Oberlin, you have the left and the extreme left. At Muhlenberg you only have the left, and you have a lot more moderates and a few conservatives. The one “oddity” is Muhlenberg was founded under the auspices of the Luthern Church but the student body is about 1/3 Jewish. More students are Jewish than Lutheran or any other faith. No one knows exactly how that happened.</p>
<p>My d is not involved in politics and she loves oberlin. She has a wide variety of friends, con and non-con students. I would suggest you visit and see if it works for you. Maybe you could do an overnight. It is hard for other people to advise you about how you might react to a certain place. My D is also involved in theatre.</p>
<p>Four things:
1 - Even as liberal as Oberlin is, you would not be the only christian on campus; you might test that out by asking about christian student organziations on campus
2- Oberlin students - many of them quite liberal - also seem to be more libertarian in their outlook than students at other schools. On other words, they seem to be more accepting/ less likely to give someone who is different a hard time (I disagree with monydad here)
3- Students ALWAYS encounter some grief from other students about beliefs no matter where you go; going where you willl be accepted for who you are is, in my opinion, more important than whether the climeate of the school is in synch with your beliefs; that said, you can find schools that have a greater percentage of folks like yourself (e.g.,
4- visiting a school is a great way of getting to know how a school feels</p>
<p>Follow your dreams . . and love thy safeties :-)</p>
<p>There are a few conservatives around Oberlin, but Oberlin in general is a pretty socially liberal and accepting place and so I think that they would be more financially so. It depends what your comfort level is…the thing is that most people at Oberlin just expect everyone else to share beliefs on certain issues so you might hear lots of references to certain topics thrown around where it is assumed that the listeners are in agreement. But Obies are also open to discussion about topics and I’d like to think that most are pretty open-minded, though I’m not sure if that’s always true. I agree with other commentators above; it might help to visit to get a better feel.</p>
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<p>I think it was on this board that I read a concisely written sentence noting how you’ll always find someone who is further to the left than you are who’ll give you a hard time for not being liberal enough (at least on their pet issues). I am not as well-articulated as that nor have I ever been accused of being concise… That’s too bad for you because I couldn’t find the original quote.</p>
<p>I think that observation applies to most colleges. And it applies to finding people to the right of you, even if you lean conservative straight out of the box. In other words, all but a handful of people at most colleges are going to experience pull and be challenged for being too far to both the right and left. And that’s why the above comment by Kei-o-lei is so deadly accurate (imo). It’s how you get challenged, not whether it happens, that matters. Will those challenges tend to come in the form of taunts and ridicule and pressure to conform? Or will they come in the form of a series of dialogues where the challengers are as interested in you challenging them on their positions and most people are seeking a dynamic, diverse community, rather than a community that must gravitate toward a uniform point of equilibrium (which, coincidentally, happens to be where their personal political center is parked).</p>
<p>As others note, that’s something best judged for yourself firsthand – at every college you visit. And it’s something that has to be judged from your own perspective of what’s more important to you…as you may disagree with what **Kei-o-lei<a href=“I%20think”>/B</a> and I are suggesting. You may feel that it’s more important to be in a community that has a well-defined and highly compatible political atmosphere, so you’d need to visit colleges to see if that’s what’s being offered. Whatever you’re seeking, you should visit Oberlin to reach your own personal conclusion as to whether it will work for you on your terms.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>True to a point, but I do believe that Oberlin’s tends to have one of the most progressive and left-leaning student bodies compared to most colleges and universities, especially during my time there in the mid-late '90s. While students do experience being pulled in both right and left directions politically on most mainstream campuses, at Oberlin, the pull tends to be overwhelmingly to the left, especially during my time there. </p>
<p>In fact, I recalled one classmate who transferred from Berkeley to Oberlin because he felt Berkeley was “becoming too pre-professional and conservative” for his taste. </p>
<p>Moreover, most fellow Oberlin classmates who ended up at supposedly “liberal left” campuses such as Harvard, NYU, and Columbia for grad school felt the grad campuses were much more conservative than Oberlin. In fact, the ones at Columbia tend to laugh at how the mainstream media regards their grad campus as “left-leaning” as they tend to perceive Columbia’s student body…especially the undergrads on average as “right-leaning centrists with conservative tendencies”.</p>