<p>I'm considering CalTech and actually visiting this weekend but I was wondering what the social scene is like. I'm looking for a place where there isn't a lot of party and almost no use of drugs/alcohol so I was wondering if anyone (especially current/former students) could give me any insight on this?</p>
<p>My friend, 
Let me tell you a secret about colleges - no matter how small or large; no matter how techy or liberal, college will have parties, alcohol drinking, and drug use. Caltech is not an exception. </p>
<p>The good news, however, is that nobody will force you to do things you feel uncomfortable doing.
No one will forcefully expose you to things you don’t like, such as alcohol or drugs. So, theoretically, you can spend all four years here without ever interacting with a drunk person.</p>
<p>When you visit the campus, be sure to ask people how they feel/deal with this kind of stuff.</p>
<p>Most importantly, don’t let something that can be easily avoided deter you from getting a superb education</p>
<p>As with any school, it depends who your friends are.</p>
<p>true that lolz</p>
<p>Since no one can actually do productive work every waking hour of the day, even though sometimes Caltech makes you try, yes there are parties, alcohol, and drugs at Caltech. But there’s much less of it in Avery House, or you can move into “off campus housing” after the first year (that is, Caltech owned housing not in the Housing system), where the housing is a dorm and you can do whatever you want, sometimes even with the comfort of a single. </p>
<p>Houses to avoid if you don’t like drugs, alcohol and parties are Page, Fleming, Ricketts, and Dabney.</p>
<p>Quick, someone call the rotation police! To the IHCmobile.</p>
<p>Yeah… I am not even sure how to respond to this. What compucomp posted is in flagrant violation of our rotation rules. Of course, I’m sure that he knows this and is doing it intentionally, so it’s not like pointing this out will cause him to reconsider.</p>
<p>The only thing to do is to keep an open mind when arriving at Caltech. Sometimes you will hear before Rotation is over that House X is like this, while House Y is like that. Realize that this is like saying all Asians are smart or that all Russians look like bears on unicycles - it is simply not true. Just try to push all of the stereotypes out of your head and give each house a fair chance.</p>
<p>hahaha bears on unicycles</p>
<p>@lizzardfire</p>
<p>I know the IHC and the BoC have long arms but they don’t reach as far as Chicago, nor do they reach post-docs or professors should I decide to come back. </p>
<p>Perhaps the cloak-and-dagger operation known as Rotation and the accompanying Rotation rules should be dismantled in favor of more transparency? If you’re so certain that what you’re doing in the Houses is right, why don’t you want to let people know more about it, and instead keep them in the dark with trite sayings like “They’re all fine Houses” which for most people is definitely NOT true? </p>
<p>Also, keep note of the fact that what I wrote is true, and you’re not denying the validity of it.</p>
<p>@compucomp
Nice of you to try to interfere with a system that will no longer affect you at all. Maybe the rotation rules/system do need an overhaul, but biasing prefrosh against the houses and the system as a whole isn’t the way to convince anyone of that.</p>
<p>Of course no one’s denying it. We, unlike you, still fall under rotation rules, and aren’t about to get involved in a conversation about which houses have the most X, especially to students who are interested in the school as a whole and not any specific house.</p>
<p>@littlemikey4
Every college (except possibly very religious ones) is going to have some degree of partying/alcohol etc. Caltech is no exception, though due to the large amount of work most people have, I believe we generally have less of it than, say, your average state school. If you want to avoid alcohol and parties, you will be able to.</p>
<p>Just a comment to the OP: I was like you before Caltech and during most of my time in Pasadena. Sometimes I wonder if the decisions I made were actually necessary. You’ll find that even among the students at a top grad school, the "partying at Caltech is pretty tame.</p>
<p>To compucomp: like you, I’m not all that in favor of the current house system. When I was told that they might be overhauling the current rotation system, I could immediately see the benefits. In case they don’t change the current system, your post only aggravates the situation. People who don’t want to be in a “party house” will be ****ed if they end up in one of the houses you listed (one of the recurring problems which they want to solve by changing the rotation process), while houses that don’t want to be labeled as the party house might attract people into that scene just because they stumbled onto a post at collegeconfidential.com</p>
<p>That said, I will try to state some facts: when Avery first opened to the house system w/ rotations, it had a noticeably quieter atmosphere because most of the existing residents had purposefully chosen to live in Avery to leave the houses. I don’t know if Avery is still considered quieter because the culture can easily change in 3-4 years. All houses will have people that drink alcohol. All houses are known for their style of parties. The drug users are such a small population that it’s hard to generalize.</p>
<p>As another note to OP or others, in case you do end up in a house that has a stereotype counter to what you wanted: just realize that most of the student body is pretty nerdy and has interests similar to yourself.</p>
<p>@IMSAgeek</p>
<p>Just because I’m done putting up with annoying crap after 4 years doesn’t mean that I now have no right to talk about it. Also, I find it hilarious how the Rotation rules make it sound like “biasing” is such a bad thing; news flash, reality has a bias, and everything I wrote down is true. </p>
<p>@webhappy</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying, but prefrosh knowing something about what’s really going on in the houses should be a good thing. They can make a more informed choice on their housing rating sheets (which isn’t much in the grand scheme, but that’s another topic).</p>
<p>@compucomp</p>
<p>I think that it’s pretty easy as a student to make your own opinions about which houses are right or not right for you. If a house really is a party house and a lot of drinking goes on in said house, this will be apparent during rotation. Which is better for a student to base his opinions on: the biased opinions of a bitter alum or the things he can see with his own eyes? You say that prefrosh should be more informed; fine, compile facts. You’re not giving them information, you’re giving them propaganda.</p>
<p>I also would respond to your comments that one of the reasons rotation works as well as it does is because of the lack of transparency. I don’t expect you to agree with me, but surveys show time and time again that the vast, vast majority of the campus likes rotation and the house system as currently implemented. I didn’t and don’t know you well enough to know why you personally don’t like the house system, but I only know one person at tech right now that shares your opinions. He feels that his lack of friends is due to the house system, whereas I (and many people I know) just think he’s quite arrogant, quite awkward, and somewhat of a jerk. I doubt he would have friends in any system.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how people can sit back and say “the house system / rotation need to be changed” when these processes clearly are supported by the overwhelming majority of campus. I totally agree that the house system is not right for everyone, but no system is, and I encourage any students who are turned off by the idea of the house system to go to another school.</p>
<p>EDIT: FYI, this sentence “reality has a bias, and everything I wrote down is true” makes no sense whatsoever. First off, reality doesn’t have a bias. Each person’s perception of reality is biased, but presumably there is some objective reality or referring to reality as some universal thing is meaningless. Additionally, if there is no objective reality, then how can any comments about reality be “true” when they are obviously either non-applicable to the “realities” of other people (in the case of there being no objective reality) or subject to your own biased interpretation of reality.</p>
<p>Lizzard and compucomp have pretty extreme views. </p>
<p>I know multiple people, including compucomp, who have negative to neutral views of the current housing/rotation system. I know there are people like lizzardfire who think the housing system is the most amazing part of Caltech and have trouble believing that there are Techers who don’t think so highly of the current system.</p>
<p>Fact: the current system means that some students are forced into a house they didn’t really want to be in. If we didn’t do rotations, people could be sorted randomly into the houses. I remember making this point previously to lizzardfire, but I don’t remember what his reply was.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the issue with the current opaqueness of the process is that it only benefits current students and the houses they’re part of. The current students will claim that they will help pull the frosh into the houses that are right for them, but I doubt the incentives of both parties really match.</p>
<p>As a note, I will agree that someone who complains about the house system limiting their friends probably wouldn’t make too many friends anyways. Some of my closest friends that I keep in touch with are from other houses.</p>
<p>In both the case of random sorting and non-random sorting, some students will end up in houses they don’t want to be a part of. Additionally, students have the option at any time of running for membership in another house. </p>
<p>There are three options if you don’t like your house:
- You don’t run for membership in another house, either because you’re lazy (too bad) or you can’t live in ANY of the eight houses (then move to marks or braun)
- You run for membership in another house and get rejected. This would be because they don’t like you, so why would you want to live there anyway?
- You run for membership in another house and are accepted. Great, move there. </p>
<p>I don’t think my views of the house system are extreme. I don’t think it’s the best thing ever–I think it has pros and cons. What I do think is essential is that some schools have something like the house system and some schools don’t. I think some students are better served by the house system and some are not, and I encourage those students who feel the house system would not serve them to go elsewhere. This excludes some students from Caltech, but only in the same way that ANY system does–there is no ideal system that serves everyone.</p>
<p>I also disagree with the idea that lizzardfire’s ideas are “extreme”. While many people will admit that there are issues with the house system, there is significant amounts of data (yearly rotation surveys that have high response rates) that indicates that most people are pretty happy with the house system and the house they are in.</p>
<p>I can’t agree with your first statement, unless we are envisioning different premises: “In both the case of random sorting and non-random sorting, some students will end up in houses they don’t want to be a part of.”</p>
<p>If students are randomly assigned, I would think that the cultures would disappear and the houses would homogenize. Thus, students would not really prefer one house over another. I guess you feel that the traditions are so strong that students randomly assigned into a house will take them up and continue them. In addition, students wouldn’t invest as much effort in a process that they have no influence over, so they wouldn’t get as worked up if they did end in a house that they didn’t want to be in.</p>
<p>By the way, is there any news regarding the trustees being interested in the Rotation process?</p>
<p>Finally, this statement of yours feels pretty extreme to me: “I think some students are better served by the house system and some are not, and I encourage those students who feel the house system would not serve them to go elsewhere. This excludes some students from Caltech, but only in the same way that ANY system does–there is no ideal system that serves everyone.”
In my opinion, the rotation process and housing traditions were an inconvenience, esp. first term as a frosh, but not something that trumps other factors over where I choose to attend college.</p>