Current Lehigh Freshman, Answering Questions

Colleges and Universities A-Z Lehigh University
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<p>Keeks, yes they do. I know a lot of engineering students who are greek, as I said.</p>

<p>Jeewanna, the Arts and Sciences dept. is at the very least decent, from what I have heard.</p>

<p>I’m not 100% sure about your second question but from what I recall, the academics office is willing and able to work with you on what you want to do. However the graduation requirements for various majors are pretty much set with the exception of electives. There’s some shard of a memory somewhere that’s bugging me though… maybe Lehigh supports people who want to pursue their own special degree? Like… Microbiological Reproductive Habits and Preferences… or whatever floats your boat. Look into it.</p>

<p>Lovely,</p>

<p>The first few weeks are very fun. Course load hasn’t ramped up yet and all the sororities and fraternities are beginning to sow their seeds for recruitment. Lots of parties. You’ll meet most of your friends and have some great times. I’m really looking forward to the start of next semester.</p>

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<p>Copaman or Mumof2boyz</p>

<p>My son was accepted to Lehigh and will be an engineering student this coming fall. While I love the school I am somewhat concerned about the partying, drinking and heavy Greek influence on the campus. I don’t see him as the frat type and he is not into drinking but does like to have fun and is a very social person. He is not in any way nerdy or geeky.</p>

<p>I’m wondering if he should consider the Choice housing. How are the Choice students viewed by the other regular housing students? Are they viewed negatively because of their housing selection? </p>

<p>How difficult is it to get into CHOICE housing as a freshman - are there a limited number of rooms and when exactly do you sign up for it?</p>

<p>Lastly, I know 80% of the class sizes are less than 30 students but does that also apply to freshman classes or are those mostly lecture-style with more students? Please give me a rough idea of how many students are in each of your classes.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>Flypilot - I shared your concerns as did my son. It was his only concern about Lehigh. To be honest with you, do not think Lehigh is any different in regards to drinking etc than any other college. I really think this is an old reputation that has normalized a lot over the years.</p>

<p>First of all, alcohol laws are strickly enforced in the dorms as well as at University sanctioned parties - the Gryphons do a really good job enforcing this in the living environment. Much of the underage drinking occurs in off campus situations as well as unsanctioned parties on the “hill”. </p>

<p>To ease our minds, we drove out there and went to campus at various times, he had visions or drunks staggering all over the place! One evening, it was a Thursday night 9pm, we walked up around the frat houses and all around campus and saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. </p>

<p>For him, CHOICE was a hard decision. He chose it for freshman year but was worried that it was going to be a bunch of misfits. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He has met a group of guys who are athletic, handsome, well rounded, intelligent, talented and fun. For him it has worked out wonderfully. He is not going into CHOICE next year - he does not have concerns about it at all now that he has seen what it is really like.</p>

<p>Basically, at Lehigh, people play hard and work hard. You are accepted for who you are and he has not been teased or made furn of for living in CHOICE. He is not a social outcast as some of the biased student survey sites have indicated. He participates in a wide range of activities and is loving his life at Lehigh. And by the way he has a 4.0 in Bioengineering.</p>

<p>Freshman year, I believe CHOICE will expand to the size warrented by who requests it - you will get in. Sophmore year, there is usually a wating list for CHOICE, so I do think it is a growing community and you will most likely see it expanded to accomodate the need. I think he said 30 rising sophmores who requested were placed on a waitlist. </p>

<p>Hope I answered some of your questions!</p>

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<p>I just want to re-emphasize one of the points I’ve made a few times in this thread: our definition of a good time is not blacking out. Parties are fun regardless of how much someone has to drink… Alcohol consumption boils down to personal choice. </p>

<p>If your son is a social person and simply doesn’t drink, he’ll be fine. He can still have a great time at parties etc., like I said, the social scene doesn’t revolve around drinking more than your body can handle and there really isn’t peer pressure to drink. </p>

<p>I feel like something that has emerged in this thread is a polarization of the residence halls. It seems to me like the opinions forming are this: you’re either in CHOICE, or you’re in a dorm that suffers from chronic hangovers and is extremely counterproductive to study habits. I want to go ahead and fix that polarization. 95% of residence halls are perfectly suitable for the majority of students. I only know of one residence hall -30 students in the entire freshman class- that is an Animal House… and that was partly the product of their gryphon, who is no longer a gryphon. </p>

<p>==========</p>

<p>Freshman year is a bit interesting when it comes to class size. I was one of 155 in my freshman Chem class… I am one of 20ish in my freshman English class. The larger classes are handled in an effective manner, where there’s often a lab associate with it - 30ish students with a professor and a few TAs.</p>

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<p>I certainly hope I did not give that impression. My son has many friends who live in non CHOICE housing and are very happy with it. The Gryphons do a wonderfull job!</p>

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<p>@Flypilot: I’ll be an engineering student this fall as well, and I had a lot of the same concerns as your son with CHOICE housing. However, from what I understand, it’s really just a quieter environment.</p>

<p>I’ll be doing CHOICE next year (I’m a girl) and in no way am I nerdy or a social outcast or anything. I’ve talked to a couple other rising freshmen and they are the same way. I also don’t really plan on joining a sorority (because I’m not a fan of cliques), and I feel like it might be hard to find a group of friends who won’t rush if I do regular housing. I’m hoping that CHOICE will introduce me to other students who don’t go greek, so I won’t be left behind when they join as a sophomore.</p>

<p>So, I’m really excited about next year and I no longer have concerns about CHOICE. I’m sure there will be a few people that will be hard-core studiers, but for the most part, I really think everyone will be pretty cool and fun!</p>

<p>:]</p>

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<p>Copaman</p>

<p>When I read reviews on other sites College P******, etc. there are comments about the Greek life dominating the social scene at Lehigh. People go so far as to say don’t come to Lehigh if don’t want to join a frat because you will have no social life. I just want to make sure there will be things for him to do if he completely avoids the frat scene and that he will still have a large circle of like-minded friends.</p>

<p>Bless you for taking the time to reply to all of the questions on this thread. It is very much appreciated!</p>

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<p>Mum, it isn’t you, no worries :)</p>

<p>Flypilot -</p>

<p>Greek life does dominate the social scene, I won’t lie about that… 90% of the parties are frat parties, the other 10% belong to sports teams. </p>

<p>That being said, I don’t feel like I’ve had to shut myself in my room this semester while my friends pledge. This past Saturday there was a “Battle of The Bands” in Lamberton Hall that was pretty cool. This weekend University Productions is having a comedian come to Lamberton. I hang out with non-Greek friends. I hang out with Greek friends when they aren’t up at the house. I go to rugby games and socials.</p>

<p>Your son should really dip his toes in to the frat scene though (IMHO), at least for the first few weeks, and here’s why: luckily enough for me, I had a couple of friends already when the first week or two rolled around (OAP preLUsion is awesome and I highly recommend it). Some of those friends have come and gone already - I don’t talk to them anymore and we don’t spend time with each other. The ones that I’ve kept --and the friends that I’ve made and stayed friends with-- were all people who I either went and partied with, or who I met at parties. I met my absolute best friend at OAP. It was the first week or two of partying with him that really cemented that. He and I both have some really fond memories to look back on and I feel that if we hadn’t gone out and bonded at parties we might not be as close as we are.</p>

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<p>Basically, as with everything else in life, college is what you make of it. If you sit in your room and expect entertainment to come to you, it will not. As long as your son is willing to participate, particularly during orientation and first few weeks, he will meet many kids and find lots of friends. He should go out, check out the parties (this applies to drinkers and non drinkers), free food, movies on the lawn etc… Mingling and meeting other students is really important during week one. Hopefully he will get an enthousiastic Gryphon who will make sure all of the students on his floor are getting out there and meeting people.</p>

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<p>How hard is it to get into a sorority? Especially the top ones</p>

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<p>Also, how strict is campus security?</p>

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<p>I don’t really know anything about the pledging processes for the “top” sororities and I’ll be honest I don’t even know which sororities girls consider “best.” It boils down to which sorority you like the most: the people, the social events, the philanthropic events, academic support, etc. all come into play. Whichever one fits you best is the “top” sorority for you.</p>

<p>That being said, the toughest part of getting in is getting a bid - without a bid, you can’t even begin to pledge (at that point, you’ve just got to be mentally strong, take the crap they throw at you, and make it through pledging, and then it’s Congrats, you’re a sister of [insert sorority here]). You’ve got to know a lot of the sisters well and you’ve got to be very friendly with them. That’s the basics. I wish I could help you more but recruitment for girls is way more structured than recruitment for guys… and I didn’t go through sorority recruitment so I have no idea what it entailed beyond making friends.</p>

<p>As far as campus security goes, that depends on like what you’re talking about. Gryphons vary - mine is pretty chill, but will keep us in line if he needs to, whereas my friend’s Gryphon would drink with them and go up to the Hill and such (was a frat brother, was removed from gryphoning 3 weeks from the end of 1st semester).</p>

<p>LUPD is not too terrible. If an on campus, non-official party is getting loud, crazy, and a little out of hand, they’ll bust it up. I’ve been in one or two of those and they weren’t bad. If it’s like really bad, a super crazy rage of a party, the fraternity might get in trouble. I have yet to be stopped walking home from the Hill, save for one night when I hadn’t been drinking and brought my SOLO of orange juice out with me. Obviously if you’re like belligerently drunk and go looking for the police, you’ll have a hard time, but if you’re like everyone else odds are you won’t have any issues. They say their first order of business is to keep everyone safe, and I believe them. --side note, my friend did get busted for smoking weed though, but he wasn’t very sneaky about it so I’m not surprised.</p>

<p>Help me out with the police question and maybe I can give you a better answer?</p>

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<p>I apologize if this was answered earlier in the thread.
Can you explain the makeup of the freshmen dorms? I know that you cannot pick where you live, but I also heard that the ED kids and those who choose coed housing tend to be in the Cents. Is this true? Are there any parameters to put down that might help you be put into M&M?</p>

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<p>I wish I could help you with this one, ice. It’s a bit of a crap shoot.</p>

<p>I was not ED. I put in for alternating M/F and did not get it. </p>

<p>I know that CHOICE this year was in Carothers, in Lower Cents. Upper Cents is partly also sophomore housing so I think the number of incoming freshmen up there will depend on the number of sophomores who live in Upper - not to mention Zeta is going to take over Thornburg (not 100% about which building actually, but I know Upper Cents for sure).</p>

<p>M&M is nice if you plan on going up to the Hill a lot. I have found that Upper is a much better compromise between the Hill and offcampus parties though.</p>

<p>Best of luck to you getting in to M&M!</p>

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<p>CHOICE is (also?) in Dravo, I’m 100% sure (I know two floors there are CHOICE housing). If you were ED there’s no way for you to get into M&M as far as I know. All M&M Students are Regular Decision and I believe some of us requested Co-Ed housing. Also, I’ve heard from a few Zeta members that they’re taking the Tech House next year.</p>

<p>Edit:
As for the makeup of each freshman dorm this is what I’ve seen personally and what I’ve heard from other freshman and upperclassmen:
Lower Cents is made up of ED kids. A lot of them are a bit odd/don’t care about school but obviously you’ll have that type anywhere you look.</p>

<p>Dravo, like I said, has CHOICE housing so some of the people there are quieter.</p>

<p>Richards is made up of people who choose their roommates, have allergies that require kitchens, and a lot of athletes.</p>

<p>M&M is known as the social dorm – people hang out in the lounges a lot the girls/guys on each floor definitely mix a lot.</p>

<p>Upper Cents doesn’t really have a reputation from what I’ve seen. It’s just ED kids…though I know a lot of guys there smoke (a lot).</p>

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<p>hey copaman, i was thinking about doing oap for prelusion. I know you go paintballing and river rafting, but I was wondering if there were any other activities that you do. Thanks!</p>

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<p>You do lots of other things but there aren’t any other real big ticket items. It’s only a three day thing, and on the first day you’ve got to meet everyone and get up there. Hanging out with everyone and the random things you’ll do make it awesome. HINT: They’re going to wake you up at like 6AM-ish with a megaphone. Do something to mess with them. We took the door’s hinge bolts off so that when they went “THIS IS OAP” and kicked it (handle rotated, obviously…), it flew off the hinges. Hilarity ensued. My friends in the big “dorm” up at the place moved a couple of bunkbeds in front of the door so the leaders couldn’t get in.</p>

<p>First day is pretty fun. Awkward (very awkward even for social people) at first but once you break the ice and get comfortable it’s fun. What happened for us was we basically moved in our rooms best we could in ~30 minutes, dropped our duffel bags in Ulrich, and said a quick goodbye to the parents (not much time for this). Grouped up by where they told us to go, and started icebreakers for like 2 hours. You’ll probably need it though. Loaded up the buses, headed into the Poconos. Once we got there we got to hang out for a while, played trashketball and soccer and tossed a rugby for a bit. Team building activities for a bit. More icebreaker-type activities later that night. I think the bonfire was that night but I’m not sure.</p>

<p>Second day was paintball which was freaking awesome. Not much going on that day but the paintball - it’s actually in NY so it’s an all day ordeal. People will hang out outside, in the cabins, etc. and keep it fun. At no point did I have time to sit and say “I’m bored.”</p>

<p>Rafting on the last day was a lot of fun. The rain was bad for us though. Expect to get pulled off your raft and then into the water by your friends. Splash fights as well. Sometimes the leaders will get into it too, which was fun. EVERYTHING you bring with you onto the raft will get positively soaked; bring a trash bag inside a sling pack and put a towel and valuables in it and make damn sure no water can get in.</p>

<p>OAP party that night. Try not to get too drunk, you’ll have Orientation the next morning, and the combination of Orientation and hangover, while amusing and funny with your friends, isn’t the best. Trust me. ;)</p>

<p>The absolute best part, and I can’t stress this enough, is having friends when everyone else has to sit through the icebreakers. It’s also really important for the first week of parties to have a buddy to go with. EDIT: to clarify: don’t go to parties alone! but going up with friends makes for great memories and will help to strengthen your friendships.</p>

<p>@phillipB22: Who do you think will get Delt’s house now? PIKE, Zeta, or like DChi hopefully…</p>

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<p>The only consistent rumors I’ve heard are Pike or the Marching Band (which I’ve heard a lot). Pike would be really nice, marching band? Not so much.</p>

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<p>God I hope not the marching band… I’m sorry to anyone who reads this thread and is interested in the marching band, but The Hill is The Hill. The Hill = Greek. The Hill =/= Marching Band.</p>

<p>Pike would be awesome. The guys there are pretty cool and it’s generally a good time, even if right now it’s in a cramped off campus house.</p>

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<p>I’m interested in the Marching Band, but I understand completely why one wouldn’t want them on the Hill. They’re not a sorority or frat… out of curiosity, why would they even be considered for having a house there?</p>

<p>o.O</p>