<p>I am a prospective student and Dickinson is on my short list. I'm deciding between there and 3 other small liberal arts schools. I'm wondering how the weekend life is at Dickinson and if its boring or if there are things to do. Do a lot of people leave on the weekends? Or what else goes on? Anything else about social life or the weekends at Dickinson is appreciated. Thanks</p>
<p>I’m trying to decide between Dickinson and several other colleges (F&M, Denison) as well and you be interested in hearing more about this as well.</p>
<p>My D is a sophomore at Dickinson. Most kids stay on campus for most of the weekends (so it definitely is not a “suitcase U”). My D does not happen to be a big partier, but from talking to her I think there are definitely drinking parties that you CAN go to every weekend if you want to. But if that is not what you are looking for, there is plenty of other stuff to do. D and her friends often eat out (either dinner or breakfast), go to a movie, or attend some campus event on weekends. Last night (Friday) I called her, and she was at a very noisy birthday party for a friend. They go to some of the football games. A couple of times they have gone to DC for the weekend, and a few times she has gone home with her Dickinson friends who live nearby. Sometimes she rides with friends to Harrisburg to shop or eat out. She does study some on the weekends, but definitely not all weekend. She doesn’t have a car, but several of her friends do. She also volunteers with a local school group, and sometimes they have weekend events with those kids (she went to some kind of science museum in Harrisburg with them one weekend). And one of her friends is in a service fraternity, apparently they went to the local animal shelter and took the puppies out to play today :)</p>
<p>So… I would guess that it is not much different from a lot of other LACs. Nothing real “Dickinson specific” that she has mentioned, but she seems to have pretty busy weekends.</p>
<p>intparent, from what you said, it seems like your D leaves a lot on the weekends…? do you know if that is typical? or if there is a good amount of stuff to do on campus on the weekends?</p>
<p>My daughter graduated from Dickinson last year. She hardly ever left campus on weekends except for occasional day trips. The college provides a bus service (for a small fee I think) to take students to nearby malls on weekends and there were a few other longer trips - I know she went to Baltimore and NYC). There were so many concerts and activities on campus. She was not in a sorority, nor did she care for drinking parties, but I know there were plenty of those for anyone interested. She volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and they did local work, and she did some other volunteer work with disabled children. Lots of weekend time was also spent studying, playing tennis, watching various Dickinson team sporting events, going to movies (many times free on campus) and enjoying the local restaurants and shops. We visited once every other month or so, and there was always something going on and lots of students everywhere on campus.</p>
<p>I did not mean to imply that she leaves a lot on weekends. Maybe 2-3 times a semester. Most of her friends are about the same. She always seems busy on weekends when I call her (she just posted some great photos from a hike they went on last weekend near campus).</p>