<p>Okay, I never visited (and I should), but how can I tell whether I fit in without visiting? There’s only so much I can get from the various sites available, so I’m looking here for current students’ or alumna’s opinions.</p>
<p>So I don’t know how people generally describe the social scenes of colleges - preppy, jocky, nerdy, alternative??? What is Brandeis like? What’s the overall social atmosphere?</p>
<p>I’ll really REALLY appreciate your feedback!</p>
<p>What are you looking for into a college? Then we can help you…</p>
<p>Warm, accepting, friendly, kind of relaxed, not urban…</p>
<p>based on those five adjectives, shoozer, you would definitely fit in at Brandeis…</p>
<p>Shoozer there are lots of posts on tis site attempting to define the Brandeis experience for prospetive students. As an alumnus, I’ve weighed in before, so to save you the search, here’s my take. </p>
<p>As to the specific quesstion of whether you’d fit in, I believe the kind of person who would feel comfortable at Brandeis is an intellectual and/or creative sort who is friendly and comfortable with himself or herself and not competitive or pretentious. Intellectual but down-to-earth and friendly I think is an apt description of the student body. Unlike some preppy place or frat-oriented environments where social interraction is based on the “exclusivity” of the frat system, Brandeis has a welcoming, relatively-nonjudgmental environment–yet there are some off-campus frats for those who like what they have to offer. There is no pressure to party, but parties are there if you want them. Often social interaction centers around the numerous clubs and other terrific extracuriculars like theater and music. School spirit grows not primarly out of sports, although there is that increasingly, but out of the pride and privilege of being at such a special school.</p>
<p>Brandeis s a special combination of small liberal arts college and world-class research university-with the smallest student body I believe (around 800 in a class) of any top tier national research university matched with high-powered professors who actually teach in small classes. So, the research opportunities are tremendous. </p>
<p>Brandeis’s intellectual environment is comparable in many ways to its University Athletic Association sister school, U Chicago (perhaps no coincidence that the President of U Chicago is a Brandeis alum). Yet its students are down-to-earth, friendly and non-competitive with one another. </p>
<p>Despite Brandeis’ small size and relative youth, its alumni are very distinguished–to name just a few: Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Rod Mackinnon, Fields Medal winning physicist Edward Witten (often called “Einstein’s successor”), 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman of the NY Times, The Earth is Flat etc; Mitch Albom of Tuesday’s with Morrie (about his Brandeis professor), the Creators/Producers of Friends; actress Debra Messing; Robert FX Sillerman (billionaire businessman–currently owner of American Idol and Graceland) and Christy Hefner, former CEO of Playboy). Friedman returned to teach not long ago and I understand that Hefner may be teaching as well. Also, if you’re into social justice (FYI Angela Davis and Abbie Hoffman are alums) or theater/music/art, Brandeis is a very active and exciting place to be.</p>
<p>Finally, the school is very diverse both among undergraduate and graduate students, with a strong international flavor (in fact the majority of The Brandeis International Business School is international students). </p>
<p>Hope this view is helpful.</p>
<p>i heard from my senior that Brandeis had a very strong Jews culture/ Jews rituals which I may not fit in.
I am an international student so I don’t really know what it means by ‘Jews culture’
Could someone explain to me the brandeis culture?</p>
<p>hbrad8002, I don’t believe that is at all true. Brandeis is and always has been a secular school, although founded in the tradition of Harvard, Princeton etc by a religious-affiliated group. Currently its Jewish population is actually less than 50% and around 25% of the student body is minority and international students. So, it is quite diverse and continues to strive for increasing diversity. </p>
<p>Brandeis’ secular culture is not “white bread.” It strives to be accomodating of all cultures and has been very successful at that given its short history. At this stage, its the nature of its student body is very similar to other schools with significant percentges of Jewish students that you might not single out as “Jewish” because of their founding–e.g. Barnard, NYU and Penn. These examples suggest that Brandeis is not unique among top schools in having a significant Jewish population. However, it is unique in providing a truly small and intellectually stimulating liberal arts college environment within a major research university. Here’s a link to a thread where this view and others are discussed: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brandeis-university/784393-non-jewish-students-brandeis.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brandeis-university/784393-non-jewish-students-brandeis.html</a></p>