<p>What are weekends like for those who do not wish to drink every weekend? Can anybody speak from experience on this? </p>
<p>I am deciding between Bowdoin and Brown and love both academically, so I’m trying to decide on social fit and where I can imagine myself most happy (I’m visiting both in the coming week).</p>
<p>Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>i didn’t drink at all when i went to bowdoin. i found like there was a lot to do. first, there are a huge number of outing club activities every weekend that take you off campus and into the maine wilderness. second, portland was a quick drive away for a night out for dinner, a museum, or a show. brunswick itself has some great restaurants and movie theaters. bowdoin often brings in some really fantastic performers every weekend, and, if that’s not enough, portland has a great alternative music scene. (portland’s a lot like brooklyn, actually, only smaller and on the ocean). beyond all these, though, there was the work, which i personally found a lot of pleasure doing, so at times i found myself in a quiet library on saturday reading faulkner. </p>
<p>brown will have more options, although i didn’t find it to be any drier than bowdoin.</p>
<p>Bump this up</p>
<p>It’s too bad no current students have replied, but I’ll give you some of my observations based on what I’ve seen on CC and at the admitted students open house (did you go to one?) My S will be a first year. At the open house a panelist at the parents-only session lives in the chem-free housing. She is in the first-year dorm that is half chem-free (Bowdoin increased the amount of chem-free housing this year due to increased demand for it). She and other chem-free kids go to parties where others drink, but she does not feel out of place. (She chose chem-free dorm because it was likely to be quieter and cleaner – students pledge to not bring the effects of alchohol back to the dorm.)</p>
<p>On the web site, look at events calendar to get an idea of what’s going on on campus. There are many no-alchohol events. There was a reference in something connected with a reaccreditation study about the increasingly diverse student body creating a demand for more alchohol-free activities because many of the students do not drink.</p>
<p>So, what was your impression after visiting the two schools, if you’ve finished? Students answered pretty direct questions openly on the panels, so if you visited, I hope you asked about the things that concern you.</p>
<p>this is discussed in the thread “drinking problem”. the social life at bowdoin is very diverse. you can go to parties and not drink. you can do whatever you want</p>