Thank you for the suggestion about Reed College. I’m surprised I didn’t research it more/heavily consider it my senior year of high school, but I like the intensely academic nature of the college, location/weather and the religion and math departments. However, I hear the political nature on campus is very intense. From the research I’ve done, it seems to parallel the political environment of the college I’m currently at. I appreciate a wide range of political viewpoints, but what I don’t like is when politics disrupts a student’s ability to learn and attend class (i.e. strike that happened last year at current college). Reed seems to have a similar culture of “no dissent.”
Yes, I have reached out to St. Olaf since publishing my original post. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to do so!
About foreign language requirements, are you talking about higher education (masters and PhD level)? Right now, I’m not taking any of the four languages you mentioned that go with religion, but I did get my fl requirement at my current college out of the way with a higher level course in the language I took in high school. I’ve never heard of math requiring a fl. I heard for a math study abroad to Germany I would have to learn German, obviously, but nothing about fl to “advance” in the field. Also, if it counts for anything, I took advanced Russian last year.
You’re right, Reed is MUCH more political than Haverford.
Yes, wrt FL I mean for the PHD. So you still have time to work on some of that.
(Note that while the knowledge expected is purely “reading”, it’s very hard to solely “read” a language without an understanding of or at least a feel for its cultural or historical inferences, especially wrt Religious topics. For math it’s less important, since the papers will not include much if any implied content or references that obscure your understanding of the article. I would assume 2 semesters of a FL+graduate reading courses would suffice for Math, but for Religion, much higher proficiency would be necessary to conduct any research whatsoever, which is one of the many reasons why students typically need 2 years past the BA to get to a high-level PHD program in Religion. Basically, starting with a language useful for your PHD right away should be a priority. If you HS language isn’t useful, look for an intensive program in one that’ll be useful. Many colleges offer a “3 semesters in two” intensive format. In CA, the Monterey Institute has topnotch teaching but I don’t think it’s open to civilians (the French course is 36 weeks and the Russian course is 47 weeks. Both reach the same level of proficiency because French is considered a Level II language and Russian a Level III language).
The current Math PhD that I know said that all of the programs he applied to required students to pass a math reading proficiency test by the beginning of year 4, in one of French, German, Russian, Chinese or Japanese (and in some places Spanish or Portuguese). Your advanced Russian will probably get you most of the way there- just add the math-specific vocab.
Not sure that I agree with the statement: “Reed is MUCH more political than Haverford.”
Haverford students seem to be very concerned with political correctness–even to the point of interfering with their & other students’ academic education.
It was acrimonious and far from what you’d expect from a Quaker college but the strike only lasted 2 weeks and had demands that made sense.
Reed’s blockade/strike was none of those things. It started with something that could be reasonable and quickly turned just plain odd and ugly (uglier than what happened at Haverford).
Keep in mind we’re talking teenagers and young adults, so moderation isn’t their quality. That’s why youth propels us forward, often against adults’ wishes, but it’s also rash, without nuance and full of certainty. It comes with the age (18-20s), with the +'s and -'s of it.
Reed and Haverford students would all tell you they take their education very seriously which is WHY they had a strike BTW.
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At her school one wouldn’t declare a concentration, they’d just take classes in that area. She did receive a certificate (like a minor) in museum studies, which was more of an art history topic than a history or religion (all 3 majors offered). I think most majors required 45 credits in that major, with several core classes required but a lot of room to take whatever appeals. A lot of the courses in all those majors were shared, and you could sign up for religion 3045, and that would be the same course as History 3045 and maybe Art History 3045 - just pick which type of credits you wanted. A class used for your major couldn’t be used to fulfill an A&S core requirement or a Univ. core, it could be used for a minor. It sounds more complicated than it was.
6 posts were split to a new thread: Feedback on Haverford, etc