<p>"oops. someone doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. re:chicago at least..."</p>
<p>OOPS - I TAUGHT at Chicago, and have my graduate degrees from there....Oops.</p>
<p>446:</p>
<p>History. G-d we could talk and talk and argue. It was the 1960s and early 1970s. Civil rights. The war in Vietnam. Migrant workers. Rock n roll. Youth rebellion. Ideas and issues were everywhere.</p>
<p>As to sophomores--many/most first year students are too scared or overwhelmed with college to do much more intellectual than go to class. But by the time they're sophomores, they've figured out the system and how to survive. They feel more comfortable. They have also discovered ideas and can't seem to get enough of them. Ideas are everywhere, in the books they read, in their teachers' lectures, in their discussions with classmates. These ideas often challenge firmly held beliefs received from their family. Discussions about ideas go on and on late into the night. It like sex and the young never think anybody else ever did it (or had these ideas) before them.</p>
<p>It happens at every college where there's a dorm or a place for people to gather and talk and argue and philosophize. </p>
<p>It's developmental and it's invigorating and it's a good thing.</p>
<p>mini, perhaps it was your abrasive personality that didn't rub well with people, and your social experiences came to reflect that..... there was an abundance of beer and illicit substances (to say the least) at my overnight at chicago. there were several parties going on each night, i met a lot of really cool people, and as far as theater, arts, and the other stuff you mentioned, they devoted all of their extra time and energy into those things, be it:</p>
<p>crew, UT, writing for a publication, football, there was even a girl who was currently serving on the chicago city council....</p>
<p>"They do have them, but in much smaller quantitities. And the students like it that way, or at least don't feel they're missing much, which tells you a lot about who they are." not one of the 20 or 30 people i've talked to on campus matches this description. they were all normal college students (i live in charlottesville,va, so that is my point of reference). and if i happened to have met the only 20 or 30 undergraduates on the entire campus who are th complete opposite of what you've written, then i'll eat my words in september, ok?</p>
<p>JohnWesley HAD posted a little dig at my previous dig at Wesleyan-style shout-down-Anne-Coulter intellectualism. His has disappeared. He's a good poster and I welcome his digs. But it is gone...</p>
<p>Ah, not quite, john. For one thing, we weren't trying to "pose" as anything we weren't--we didn't affect an intellectual look...no tweed sport coats, no pipe smoking, no prep school outfits, no berets, no Continental charm, no Junior Year Abroad...just standard middle-class stuff. And we had a heck of an array of viewpoints, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, Catholics, Jews, Greek and Armenian Orthodox...not many Protestants, I'll admit. My brother was in the artsy/Jewish crowd at Emerson College, and we gladly went to parties that they held. In fact a few of the jock-ISH types became stoners who worshipped Jerry Garcia and could barely leave their dorm rooms in a normal state, and they were accepted as such, and not drummed out of the corps. You'll note that Jesuit colleges don't have frats, so social isolation by party lines wasn't easy to pull off.</p>
<p>Carleton is hardly a school with much of an emphasis on sports. They're division III and really unsuccessful in everything but ultimate Frisbee. The impression that I've gotten from visiting several times is that students are passionate about the classes they take and discuss them outside of school hours, but that they still make time for fun. In fact, fun seems to be combined with intellectual discussion. There also is a larger conservative contingent than at Grinnell, Swarthmore, and Oberlin, although the campus as a whole does have a liberal air. I'd encourage you to look more closely at Carleton if you want intellect without the pretension.</p>
<p>Well TG446, since you insist. :p I will say, that for someone who professes freewheeling intellectual inquiry, you seem full of assumptions. It might surprise you to know that Anne Coulter is not exactly a Wesleyan role-model. Most discussions at Wes, when they take place face-to-face, are calm and courteous exchanges. But, put a wall of anonymity between two people and it <em>can</em> become just like any Internet conversation, escalating into a lot of useless posturing. </p>
<p>Wesleyan is rightly proud of its tradition of tolerance and diversity. That is why the administration made the supremely unpopular decision several years ago of banning anonymous chalk messages on university property, because it wasn't conducive to an atmosphere of tolerance and in some cases created an atmosphere that was completely hostile to it. Instead, I would invite anyone to examine the online pages of the completely student-run newspaper, The Argus, if they want an idea of what political (and other) discussions at Wesleyan are like. And take a look at Ampersand, the humor section that is published once a week. None of it is censored. People do disagree. Vigorously. And no one skewers Wesleyan quite like Wesleyan students themselves -- so, fire away. ;)</p>
<p>It wasn't Anne Coulter-ish intellectualism I was referring to, it was the type of intellectualism that doesn't allow someone like Coulter to speak...that "shouts her down." </p>
<p>I think that's how a lot of more conservative folks (and the OP, for that matter) see colleges like Wesleyan...places where conservative views aren't even allowed to be voiced: even a moderate like John McCain got jeered at the New School graduation...as if he hasn't earned the right to speak.</p>
<p>I'd guess at Wesleyan you think the opposite is true at more conservative or religious colleges. But I don't see much of that. I heard Jimmy Carter, Frank Church, and Eugene McCarthy speak at Boston College, and there were no jeers at all. Pro-choice Condaleeza Rice spoke at the recent BC graduation and the pro-lifers didn't fuss, but the liberals wanted to shut her down for her politics. The first theology class I took at BC was taught by a Lutheran lady. The second was taught by a Jesuit who had a group of Mormons tell us all about their beliefs for one entire class session. They were received with the utmost respect. Plenty of professors were atheists. Half of the psych dept. faculty was Jewish. My frothing-at-the-mouth Berkeley-educated sociology prof had a TA from Israel, and my intro philosophy courses were taught by an atheist hippie-type. In other words, I didn't see anybody prevent freewheeling discussions, especially in the shout-them-down manner. Just imagine the uproar at Wesleyan if Rumsfeld tried to speak there.</p>
<p>OK, I like having two discussions at once here--the "closemindedness" one with TG and JW and the "intellectual debate engrained in all aspects of school life" one.</p>
<p>As Leshachikha said:
The impression that I've gotten from visiting [Carleton] several times is that students are passionate about the classes they take and discuss them outside of school hours, but that they still make time for fun.
<em>In fact, fun seems to be combined with intellectual discussion.</em></p>
<p>Could any one vouch similarly for other schools?</p>
<p>You can find people like that at every school. When I visited the school I'll be attending, I had a long talk with some education majors on socialism.</p>
<p>I think these types of discussions happen @ every school. I remember when I went to visit WUSTL for one of their scholarship finalist weekends and some of the other prospective freshman and I were up all night having intellectual conversations and debates about things I could only dream to discuss with people here @ home. This really got me excited about going to college and being around other intellectuals, and the fact that the discussion came up after we had come from a party was even more enticing, showing me that there was a great social life and party scene, but the campus had a way of fostering complex thinking.</p>
<p>TG - I dunno. You seem to know a lot more about Wesleyan, Swarthmore and Brown than I do. What do they teach you up there in Boston, mental telepathy? All I can say, is that if your idea of intellectual engagement runs toward hearing Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, John McCain, Frank Church and Jimmy Carter up front and personal, I have no problem with that -- as long as Boston College is paying for it.</p>
<p>I think this is your responsibility. As the thread is demonstrating, there are discussion-oriented people at many good colleges. It would be up to you to find those people.</p>
<p>So, go to a good college. Right off the bat, keep your eyes and ears open in your dorm--and make a point of taking classes in the fields you want to discuss. Go out of your way to meet and chat with people in those classes, and voila! you'll soon find your roommates and discussion mates for the next four years.</p>
<p>
[quote]
...repeat so much stuff I've already learned.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And don't discount St. John's College (either location). The great books teach anew, every rereading. At 17 years of age you have not exhausted them.</p>
<p>Saint Olaf College has a Great Books program. Here are some more:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thegreatideas.org/schools.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.thegreatideas.org/schools.html</a></p>
<p>intellectualism can indeed be found anywhere. when i stayed at W&L (where i'll be attending next year) overnight, i expected to see nothing more than madras, pink lacoste, topsiders/wallabes, and jungle juice. i was very pleasantly surprised, however, when i had a couple of stimulating intellectual discussions with both students and prospective students: the difficulty of translating the Odyssey from the original Homeric Greek and the value of a Jesuit education (in high school) were definitely not two things i expected anyone there to be willing to discuss. but they were. my point is this: any college campus, no matter what the stereotypes associated with it, can offer what you're looking for. i found it in only one night at a college in which i never expected to.</p>
<p>There seems to be enough anecdotal evidence here to cast some doubts upon Post #2's claim that "...most of the more intellectually oriented colleges are going to be predominantly liberal...."</p>
<p>I'll use my telepathic powers to guess that the OP would still like to know which colleges are "stiflingly politically liberal"...by which I think she means, "At which colleges is the liberal agenda so entrenched that opposing views are barely heard?"</p>
<p>(By the way, JW, I ddn't offer up those political figures and the Mormons as examples of the great intellects tha BC attracts, but rather as examples of the broad array of voices that are heard there without the supposedly dogmatic and closed-minded conservative Catholics trying to shut them up.)</p>
<p>Beware of arrogance. I have had and overheard some really interesting conversations with and by the bus drivers here in Madison. Incidentially a few of them earn over $100,000 per year.</p>