<p>I've heard that Rice is very apathetic about politics, and while there I saw almost no politically related posters on campus (although, maybe they were taken down for the centennial). The only signs I did see were a bunch of Obama/Biden signs at near by houses, and then one romney/ryan sign. I'm just wondering, exactly how much activity is there at Rice? especially around this time?</p>
<p>Well, I and a few of my friends just watched the debate, and I know there’s at least half of Hanszen that watched it and is talking about it. I know two groups on campus that are extremely active in politics, and I know a ton of students that are involved with the Baker Institute in some way as well.</p>
<p>You won’t see many posters or signs supporting anything around campus for the most part because there’s pretty stringent requirements on where we can post things.</p>
<p>While I’d say many Rice students are politically apathetic, there’s also a lot who are heavily involved. There’s political commentary in the opinion section of the Thresher (our newspaper) most weeks, and there’s a page running weekly until the election with dueling op-eds. In the weeks prior to the registration deadline, there were massive campuswide voter registration efforts.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t describe the campus as apathetic; it’s just a chunk of the population.</p>
<p>Rice isn’t politically apathetic, per se. I would say instead that there is a large population of Rice students that have political views but don’t share them to avoid controversy. Many times when a conversation has shifted to something like politics or religion, if it seems like it’s getting controversial then someone usually tries to change the subject. I think Rice students know that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and thus aren’t as vocal about trying to “shift” other people’s views.</p>
<p>My son was very interested in politics up until he got to Rice. Now he’s a junior @ Rice and when we saw him recently he said he couldn’t care less about politics and probably won’t vote in the election.</p>
<p>I think you should take the huge diversity of responses here to mean that it depends on who you hang out with 
All of my friends at Rice had quite strong political leanings (primarily liberal, though I am friends with some staunch conservatives), a huge interest in foreign affairs, and many volunteered for campaigns. The “Rice is politically apathetic” saying has always baffled me, but I may have just surrounded myself with political people</p>