Hey all!
I am officially a member of the Reed College Class of 2019! And I am looking for help matching myself with a dorm. I was wondering if someone could give me a quick run down of the pros and cons of the dorms. Thanks for the help.
Dorms like the nOg, Random House and Mad Science are good for their communities: even if you fail to find friends quickly, you will most likely find them among your dormies. The con is that the housing is not superb for these theme communities, which makes sense because otherwise people would join just for the nice housing.
Unthemed dorms, then, are just a hit-or-miss in terms of finding a community. At some dorms it is conspicuously absent.
Here is my list of mostly unthemed dorms that are top-notch:
- Bragdon (drawback: does not have ACs)
- Anna Mann (drawback: does not have ACs)
- The Grove (drawback: on one edge of the campus, so getting to the library/ETC/perhaps classes can be a chore)
Actually, aside from the Spanish House and the Grove, no dorms have ACs.
Middle-of-the road dorms:
- Sullivan and Naito (kinda far, rooms are small) disclaimer: sullivan 2nd and 3rd floors are sub-free.
- ODB (noisy, old, it can be hot during hot days sometimes, close to everything, social center)
Blah:
Everything else (Foster Scholz MacNaughton)
You are not eligible for language housing or the canyon/garden house stuff so I have not included either.
My freshman lives in Foster and it’s a dump. That said, Reed dorms are relatively nice compared to other colleges. Most freshmen get divided doubles so you have your own space, and the rooms are spacious. As far as the Grove may be from classes, you can’t get any nicer digs and “far” on Reed’s small campus isn’t that far. Those who reside there and walk to class through the rain may beg to differ, but if I were an incoming freshman, I’d pick the Grove followed by Anna Mann.
The Grove and the spanish house, as the newest dorms on the campus, are the nicest, yes. That said, psych majors do not enjoy living in the Grove, nor do people who seek activity and noise. The Grove is a nice hotel, with the occasional train noise shaking you awake.
Like, some people actively choose to live in ODB/Anna Mann because some of the rooms are GIGANTIC, and that, at least for me, would take precedence over ACs, which go mostly unused over the year given that there is heating in all of the dorms. The summers and the early fall/late spring semester time are the only times when the AC seems important.
In all honesty, there are no absolutes in that different people prefer different things in terms of housing. I, for one, think that the only dorms that most Reedies think of as a dump are Foster, Scholz, MacNaughton and the cross canyon dorms, which come alive and are loved only for their theme communities.
@International95 Can I apply for both themed communities and a non themed community like Random House, Anna Mann, and Bragdon? I really liked the Kerr section of ODB and the jokes on the walls of Random House seemed amazing. Also, even though high school has kind of sucked the life out of my reading schedule, if I plan to read a lot more, and I like the idea of being in a community that reads a lot, would I be good for Random House?
Originally I was interested in Mad Science, but it’s in FSM, and Outhaüs looked cool, but I hear it is more frat like than the other dorms (If you could even consider a Reed dorm frat like), and Naito didn’t look too cool to me.
You can, but they will consider your theme interests first. Just apply to be in RH. It is chill. I wouldn’t say that Naito is a frat, though. lol. They just drink all the time and have a cult of sorts. Also I heard that if you put the same dorm in all of your preferences, you will more or less get that dorm (probably except Anna Mann).
Like if you are like me you will always find an excuse not to read, especially if you take classes that assign lots of reading. You can also choose how deeply you want to engage with the HUM reading/readings in other classes, so this may take away from pleasure reading time. This sort of engagement may involve rereading the text, going through unassigned secondary sources, analyzing the text for poetics etc. I did this for readings that interested me, like Thucydides. Also if you take stuff like intro sciences, which are not that hard assuming you have an above average ability level in the sciences, you could definitely schedule your time around reading books, and being in a community that does that would definitely be encouraging.
In any case freshman year allows for a lot of free time. It is really not that hard.