<p>Hi. I'm a sophmore in college and am doing research on the effects that your wardrobe has on your position in a college community. Are name brands and expensive cars what makes you popular? Is the fact you wear your hair back, sneakers, and a jersey mean you are an athlete? Or is the fact you smoke and have tatoos mean you are a rebel? I'm not sure what to think. Do you think we stereotype people because of what they wear? What effects do you think clothes has on a persons position on campus? It would really help to hear what y'all have to say! THANKS!</p>
<p>Eh I don't think clothing has too much impact on a person's position at my school. Really, there are people who walk around in designer stuff everyday and other people who walk around in jeans and a school sweatshirt and it really just doesn't matter. I tend to shy away from making sweeping generalizations about people based on what they're wearing, because yo, you could be waaaaaaay off base. </p>
<p>Clearly if someone is walking around in lets say a full UCLA sweatsuit with an athletic bag and maybe with 1 or 10 people dressed the same way, it's safe to assume that they are an athlete. But I wouldn't assume that a girl who decided to put her hair in a ponytail and to wear sneakers is an athlete, or even a tomboy, or whatever. I would assume that she probably has to walk a lot on campus and didn't want to deal with her hair that day. </p>
<p>Same thing with smoking and tattoos being correlated with "rebellion". This may have had more merit in 1957, but in 2006? It's rarer NOT to have a tattoo than to have one, and too many college students smoke. </p>
<p>I think that, if anything, stale stereotypes like that are completely out of place on a college campus. People who have to wake up for a 9 am class after studying/partying all night are not apt to care a lot about what they're wearing. As a society I DO think that a certain amount of judgement is placed upon appearance, but I don't necessarily think it's character judgement. If anything it's more classist. But walking around on campus, it doesn't matter if a girl is wearing 7s or levis- both are considered normal because there is SO much of both. </p>
<p>My school is far, far too big to have "popular" and "unpopular" people as they were known in HS, especially for things like cars and clothing. There's way too much diversity and way too many factions for that to be the case. The people who are most social and perhaps "popular" at my school are those who are most involved on campus. One's clothing really doesn't play into that at all (assuming that one is reasonably groomed and has normal hygiene, obviously).</p>
<p>people dont really care what the heck you wear in college. maybe in high school it affected your position in the community but not college. </p>
<p>but of course people are prejudice and stereotype based on people's appearance. its human nature. ppl who deny it are full of it. its a survival thing. they may not judge solely on clothing, but thats part of appearance and may contribute to it.</p>
<p>The people who walk around in layered pants, tight tanks or leotards, rolled up tights, and flip flops are dancers.
The ones who wear all black, show or school t-shirts and jeans, or really creative clothing are theatre people.
The people wearing basketball shorts and baggy t-shirts are the sports people.
Suits on any day but Wednesday are the law students.
Greek letters on clothing are either soroities/fraternities, or the music or theatre honor societies.
And everyone else kind of looks the same.</p>
<p>Is Wednesday suit day? I missed something. </p>
<p>And eh, stuff like the greek letters is less about stereotypes and more just a statement of fact. Clearly someone who's wearing a sorority tshirt is either currently or was previously a sorority member. I don't know anyone who'd wear that stuff without belonging to the group. There isn't much mystery there and I don't necessarily think that wearing matching tshirts is terribly impressive or affects one's social status any (but that's partly why I don't do the greek thing). Like, sure, being a member of the sorority could heighten or affect one's social standing, but it's not because of what they're wearing. It's because they joined the group. Yknow?</p>
<p>That's opposed to like seeing some girl on campus in unmarked shorts and sneakers. She could be an athlete, or she could be going to the gym (which really definitely doesn't make one an athlete). I think there's too much gray area to assume stuff. </p>
<p>I dunno.</p>
<p>The Suit thing is because Kappa Sigs have "GQ Wednesday" and they all have to dress nicely. On any other day, the only people wearing suits are law students.</p>
<p>lol @ gq wednesday. </p>
<p>wow. that's kinda funny.</p>
<p>Rotc kids always tuck in their shirts...always
Fraternity's down here all dress a certain way. Boat shoes or flip flops, ralph lauren and shorts above the knees. The shorts vary from khaki to yellow and pink. They all wear croakies and when not wearing sunglasses, they put the sunglasses behind their neck...totally missing the whole point of croakies...it still looks good though.
Every single sorority chic carries the same totebag...just with differnt greek letters on it.
Athletes usually wear stuff given to them by the school saying "GT whatever"
And all the band frosh are required to wear these ugly things called rat caps. so you can always tell them apart.</p>
<p>"Rotc kids always tuck in their shirts...always"</p>
<p>Not where I'm from. You can't pick us out, except that we all have short hair and look like we're marching everywhere we go(30-inch steps and in cadence).</p>
<p>At Duquesne, it's pretty much split between the people who dress up and the people who don't. I'm one of the few non-sorority girls who dresses up on a daily basis (what can I say, I love looking pretty!!!)</p>
<p>The people who wear hippie and artsy clothing are more likely to be liberal (politically-- don't know about socially) than not.</p>