<p>Yes I like math and science...I'm not crazy about them. I do like them, I find the subjects pretty interesting.
But then again, I want to have a solid social life. I don't want another repeat of high school, which is what Caltech seems to look like...its as big as a high school.</p>
<p>Are there parties? Sexy chicks? fun people? I've come to realize academics aren't everything and connecting with people are as important...</p>
<p>PS: I've had some friends who go to Caltech and say its a pretty antisocial place.</p>
<p>Are there parties? Yes
Sexy chicks? Sure
Fun people? Of course</p>
<p>“I’ve had some friends who go to Caltech and say it’s a pretty antisocial place”</p>
<p>All the parties, sexy chicks and cool people won’t be going around searching for you. If you want to have fun, you’ll have to take it upon yourself to go out, find those things, and socialize. I don’t know who your friends are and thus don’t want to make any judgments, but in general, people that sit in their rooms playing WoW all day certainly may see Caltech as a pretty antisocial place.</p>
<p>Yes, there are at least 8 big parties a year (interhouse parties), and plenty of smaller parties. Each house also has more of their own events and stuff like that. You can always throw a party yourself too.</p>
<p>It’s easy to find people to hang out, chill, have a bbq with etc. But if you just sit in your room all day, you won’t be having much fun. Those periods do happen, usually when you’re really stressed out, but because of the kind of place Caltech is, usually you’ll end up getting dragged out of your room sooner or later.</p>
<p>About sexy chicks. Pasadena, and southern California in general, has some of the hottest girls around. If you mean does the campus have a bunch of girls who do theoretical physics while modeling on the side? Maybe one or two. But I wouldn’t bet on it. </p>
<p>One thing though. If you only find math and science “interesting,” you might not be cut out for Caltech. I find art “interesting.” I sincerely enjoy math and science. </p>
<p>If all you want are parties, sexy chicks, and fun people, there are a lot of places where you can get those, and have a lot more free time to pursue them.</p>
<p>Kamikaze does a good job of summarizing the rest.</p>
<p>While Caltech does have a decent social atmosphere (I definitely wouldn’t call it antisocial) it’s not the typical college environment. Most entering freshmen have not seriously dated, very few have had alcohol before, etc. </p>
<p>The best way to figure out if Caltech is right for you is to visit and talk to a bunch of different students. You’ll realize very quickly if it’s somewhere you want to be.</p>
<p>I’ll just point out that a very academic setting may actually help you connect with people. For instance, I’m sure there are some of us guys who’d say a girl who studies physics quite well and makes just some attempt to look good would be very attractive. Some would also describe an engineer passionate about his studies, and somewhat outgoing and friendly to be very fun, even if he doesn’t party very much. It largely depends on who you’re looking to connect with! By nature, many human beings are social, and even if there may be the few who’d prefer sticking to quantum computing and forget about people at least largely, I don’t think that’s going to be the norm anywhere.</p>
<p>True, and guys like this will find the dating scene at Caltech attractive. However, guys (or girls) that are looking for intelligent, experienced, attractive, socially competent members of the other gender may have a hard time finding them. As I said, the majority of techers have not seriously dated before, which creates an almost middle-school dating atmosphere. If you also fall into this category, that can work out well for you, but if you don’t, it can be quite frustrating.</p>
<p>This seems pretty harsh to me, but I am nobody to judge or know what it really is like. If it really is like that, it can definitely be rough, unless your definition of “experienced” and “socially competent” in the above are extremeley demanding! </p>
<p>I also might add that it would surprise me if many college students at any school have, in high school, “seriously” dated before. From what I know, many consider the early years time to fiddle around aimlessly, and not even get legitimately useful experience. </p>
<p>Admittedly, I have a bias that a lot of things get straightened out more by time, and what one does or doesn’t do in the years of middle and high school have minimal impact, as long as one has some basic social interactions and challenges oneself to some degree academically. </p>
<p>The image I was trying to build there was someone who studies physics well, is possibly not a blatant smooth-talker, and is nice and has good basic social-skills + looks decent. This is far from what would appeal to the masses, but I’d think such individuals are numerous enough and would be appealing to one another.</p>
By serious dating, I don’t mean serious as in looking to get married. I just mean actual dating. I guess I’m trying to point out that some techers have dating experience that I wouldn’t really classify as such (they had “boyfriends” or “girlfriends” but didn’t really date them). I think the large majority of high schoolers have dated in the fashion I’m referring to. In any case, there are plenty of techers who have never been on any sort of date at all; and this is the major problem with dating at Tech (in my opinion). Of course, being around inexperienced daters is great if you yourself are inexperienced (think safe environment) but if you dated a decent amount in high school you might be frustrated by the lack of similar people. To give a little context, I dated five girls in high school, but only one of them for more than two months (eleven months, in that case). I found that arriving as a freshmen at tech I had far more experience than most of my friends, regardless of their grade level. Almost all of the girls I have dated at Tech have had a similar lack of experience. In each of these relationships, the lack of experience was a big problem for me. </p>
<p>There are plenty of girls at tech that “study physics well”, are “nice”, have “good social skills”, and “look decent”. The rarest trait to find is dating experience (by far). </p>
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<p>Hahaha, I wouldn’t normally comment on that QuantMech (since I feel it’s a self-solving issue) but since you said it, I must say, well put.</p>
<p>Oh, well it looks like I just never expected there to be much dating in high school, period, for a fairly decent subset of high school populations, and it picks up largely in college. I went to a high school with plenty of social stuff going around, and maybe I was just blissfully unaware, but I’d say you dated quite a bit compared to what I noticed among people I knew. Well, I probably was unaware. Under my impression, the lack of actual experience would not have been much of a detriment to a fairly large subset of high-schoolers, but looks like there was a lot going on that I didn’t know about!</p>
<p>Also, QuantumArbiter might be well aware that some girls don’t think of themselves as “sexy chicks” but may just have posted the term for effect on an internet forum :)</p>
<p>You sound like a bad fit for caltech. I won’t sugar coat it - Caltech is likely to have the ugliest student body in the country. Caltech is a pretty boring place to be for many reasons. Most of the time people are working, there aren’t many people at tech, the people that are free usually do boring stuff, and a result of all of that is when you finally find a break in your study packed day there isn’t much to do. The life of a techer is monotonous, unchanging, and full of hard work. For those who are truly passionate and are willing to give up a normal fun care free college life for the life of a techer this does not apply. But in my experience a very large portion of techers are not like this. They like math and science but do not love it - perhaps due to constantly getting shat on with a never ending stream of work.</p>
<p>This is all true. Realize that techers who post mostly on this site are only a few who are motivated to post because they are a good “fit” for caltech. This creates bias and an inherent skew to what is presented about Caltech. </p>
<p>For example:
"Are there parties? Yes
Sexy chicks? Sure
Fun people? Of course</p>
<p>“I’ve had some friends who go to Caltech and say it’s a pretty antisocial place”</p>
<p>All the parties, sexy chicks and cool people won’t be going around searching for you. If you want to have fun, you’ll have to take it upon yourself to go out, find those things, and socialize. I don’t know who your friends are and thus don’t want to make any judgments, but in general, people that sit in their rooms playing WoW all day certainly may see Caltech as a pretty antisocial place. "</p>
<p>No just no. There are parties but when the ratio is as messed up as it is, and the girls are as ugly as they are (more so than the guys) the caltech party experience is not even remotely close to parties at any other school. I can think of some attractive girls at tech but out of all of em I would <em>maybe</em> call less than like 5 of them max sexy. Not even really. That compounded with the fact that there will be 100 guys hitting on them awkwardly makes girls develop a ***** complex because suddenly decent girls are hot **** and it goes to their head. Tech is soo small that if you do something with a girl, every person will know soon. There is no sense of anonymity to promote a hookup culture which hurts the sex life at tech even more. Also Caltech is objectively an antisocial place, from the perspective of the kid who plays wow all the time to the most social people. Most of the people I know who are actually normal at tech had better social lives in highschool.</p>
<p>All in all, Tech is a ****ed up place socially, if you have even a slight doubt of attending dont come. You don’t come to tech for the social life (people who are antisocial and “losers” in higschool flock to caltech and proclaim the place to be very sociable, but anyone of the few normal ppl at tech would disagree). You come to tech for the education and enviroment, which I think no other place can match.</p>
<p>I think that some people will enjoy the tech social experience, and some won’t. I also think the best way to figure this out is to visit. I know plenty of people who ARE satisfied with the social experience here (obviously, I’m not totally, but I won’t say I regret my decision to come). </p>
<p>Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, beholders are from Dungeons & Dragons, and there are D&D players at Caltech. Of course there are beautiful people at Caltech.</p>