<p>earlier this year i had to choose between Evergreen State College or Western Washington Univ for this fall but then my family moved from Vancouver Wa to Coeur d Alene ID.. so either school became moot because of distance...</p>
<p>i decided to go to a school that was closer, Eastern WA Univ... well i applied there and got in and was all set to attend this January... but... when i went to visit.. i was quite discouraged, i didnt see any of MY people.. i know this sounds really superficial and judgmental but i didnt like what i saw -- i saw a bunch of muscle-bound fraternity brothers that looked like the football players that i went to HS with (and that made my life miserable), and the women looked like the cast of Gossip Girl or 90210 or something like that... its not that they were there, the problem is that these are the only people i saw for a 2 hour tour then walking around for an additional hour and a half and they are probably very nice but, when i say my people i mean people with piercings or visible tattoos or unusual hair, the people that the majority of EWU would probably classify as freaks... currently my head is shaved and the stubble is orange, so according to them id probably be a freak too...</p>
<p>In conclusion, since TESC and WWU are equidistant from my town in Idaho I am re-applying to Evergreen State as well as Western WA for March quarter..i'm an excellent student so i'm not really worried about getting accepted (especially since i alrady was at both)... my questions run more to the social vibe of WWU</p>
<p>can someone give me the 411 on the crowd there -- are there many punks, goths and other people wearing dark dark clothing with pale pale skin), androgynous folk, hippies, LGBT, other alternative non-mainstream people i'm leaving out???</p>
<p>I’m sorry I can’t help you, but your post comes off as a little ridiculous. This is not HS anymore where the jocks sit at one lunch table and blow spitballs at the nerds. Learn to be friends with different kinds of people…did you expect someone would give you map of Western WA, completely with details about where the plastics hang, where the jocks sit, where the hippies chill and where the emos cry?</p>
<p>I suggest you go on the WWU board and post this, you will get a lot more insight. I’m sorry if there’s very little diversity at your current college, I’m sure a homogeneous atmosphere is boring. But there is no sense judging people by their tattoos or hair color. you said ‘according to them’ you’re probably a freak - have you tried to make friends or talked to them?</p>
<p>if you’re not making friends and you hate the people, by all means - transfer. but diversity doesn’t just refer to looks and piercings and whatnot. A group of people can all have tattoos and piercings and dark clothes, and all be the same.</p>
<p>yes i’m aware of that this is not hs anymore and am quite thankful for it, but you have no idea about my experiences or what would make me seem reserved when it comes to a 90210 crowd. And i wasn’t asking where they all congregate each day at lunch, i was simply asking if they existed at WWU. I was simply asking if the campus in general is ‘freak friendly’ or alternative friendly.</p>
<p>no offense but if i saw YOUR people at a school I would be less likely to attend then by seeing fraternity brothers. This is college, I go to a school with 20,000 kids and have yet to see a goth. Usually people start to leave these phases once they get older. I like to hang out with all types of groups.</p>
<p>jackfitz: no offense taken, you’re entitled to your opinion, i know a good number of people that are older than i am and have yet to ‘grow out of it’, maybe you’re just lucky</p>
<p>Can you visit the schools you are considering? It seems like you got a good sense of the campus when you visited EWU–enough of a sense, anyway, to feel that it would not be the best fit for you. I’m sure people can still survive at schools that aren’t ideal for them, but if you have a choice of going somewhere where you’ll be happier, why wouldn’t you do it? I made several snap judgments about schools I visited. Do I ever wonder if my first impressions were wrong? Sure, but not that often. I figured that if I felt that way about a school right from the start, I should keep looking. Good luck, and I hope things work out.</p>
<p>I’m sorry about my comment…I just had to make a Mean Girls joke. </p>
<p>even at nyu, where there’s lots of diversity, I still don’t see gangs of androgynous kids or gangs of goths walkin around being sad together. but you didn’t say you wanted to transfer there, I’m just pointing that out because someone else suggested it.</p>
<p>My advice: this thanksgiving or winter break, visit WWU, walk around campus, see what it’s like there. you’ll be able to tell if it’s a good fit for you then. it’s hard to tell based on an online description…good luck.</p>
<p>IMO the student bodies at both WWU and TESC will be very different from EWU. I’m in OR and know lots of kids that go OOS to these two schools for the laid back, hippie, alternative (or whatever the correct verbiage is) vibe. </p>
<p>The differences between WWU/TESC vs. EWU pretty much reflect the west side vs. east side cultural differences in WA and OR.</p>
<p>thats alright stargazerlilies, never saw that movie lol… yeah i think thats the best solution for my problem: to visit and see how i feel afterward…</p>
<p>entomom: yeah i definitely think that EWU and TESC/WWU are the best representation of the cultural differences between West and East of Cascades…</p>
<p>So I think at any college campus you’re not really going to find a lot of emo kids or goth kids like in high school. However, there are definitely “alternative” students, hippies, LGBT students, etc at many colleges (especially on the West Coast). In high school I hung out with the same sort of crowd (probably, just based on your descriptions) that you did. Most of my friends from high school that went to college were mostly changed or had really toned it down. The only ones that remained more emo/goth/freak/whatever had not gone to college. Don’t worry, you’ll find -plenty- of people against the mainstream at any reasonably sized university you attend… they just may not be as obvious as they were in high school. Good luck!</p>
<p>hahah yep I’ve been there dozens of times and I completely know what you mean
but while there’s plenty of ‘alternative’ people in the village, I’m just saying I don’t see a lot of people at nyu like that…we have plenty of LGBT but not really cliques of goths and emo’s and stuff, or at least not the way it is at most mainstream HS’s.</p>
