<p>I am an ED acceptee to Dartmouth, and there is one thing about Dartmouth life that I wish I understood more about: affinity housing. When I visited Dartmouth, I could not help but be taken aback when I saw that there was an African-American House, Native American Houses, Latino House, a Chinese American House etc... I thought, why does the school encourage self-segregation like that. The tour guide went on to explain that the houses throw events and contribute to the community, but I wondered if the rest of the students felt excluded by the houses or vice-versa. Are they an excuse for homogenous greek houses? A filter? I would appreciate any feedback from students who will be honest about the vibe the affinity houses bring to the campus.</p>
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The tour guide went on to explain that the houses throw events and contribute to the community
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<p>I am not a student but I have been to an event thrown by an affinity house. They seemed very welcoming to others and I didn't get a sense of self-segregation or exclusion at all.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if you have to be from that culture to join the affinity house? I think that it would be a good opportunity and I would want to try it for one year. I think i would definitely want to live in a dorm freshman year though.</p>
<p>It's not self-segragating at all really. It's just cultural identification. And no, you don't have to be chinese to live in the chinese-american house, or native american to live in the native american house. in fact, each of these places regularly has open events. also, they are a very, very small subset of campus. it doesn't compare to "homogenous greek houses" at all.</p>
<p>I guess I just wondered why they were neccessary, I haven't really heard of other schools that have them</p>
<p>Almost every college has "affinity housing", though they don't call them that. Usually colleges call such housing options cultural living communities. If you do some more research more research on housing, you'll find that many colleges do having cultural theme housing.</p>