Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2008 - (Page 39) hipsters, as well as science nerds, hippies, and athletes. The attitude is not hierarchical, and there is no one ‘cool’ group and activity. It’s a very open atmosphere.” ➜ “Vassar is located in an old industrial city, but the surrounding Hudson Valley offers a lot of outdoor activities. Dorms at Vassar are nice but old (one is a National Historic Landmark). Seniors almost always live in on-campus apartments with a group of friends, which was a great experience for me.” about the city it resides in. I personally feel that this is an unjustified stereotype, but it exists nonetheless. Many Vassar students do volunteer work with organizations in Poughkeepsie, and there are many opportunities to get out in the community and interact with people on the other side of the Vassar gates, but it is also very easy to never do such things and get lost in the ‘Vassar bubble.’ ” ” Who Would Be Most Compatible with the Academic and Social Atmosphere at Vassar?” What Do You Like Best about Vassar? ➜ “Vassar students are bright, curious, and interested in intelligent discussion. They’re not egotistical and they’re ➜ “It opened my mind way up and turned me not glib.” into a person. Every day I wandered the campus, ➜ “If you’re really into sports, Vassar may not be thinking and talking about art and beauty and the place for you. Vassar students carry their pride justice. I learned how to read, how to talk, how in their school on the inside, and I’ve learned to think about the world. Oh, and the campus is to have a greater appreciation for that than for incomparably beautiful.” loud, face-painted, screaming school spirit. But ➜ “The administration and faculty give students sometimes I miss the thrill of ‘the big game.’ ” a significant amount of freedom to run their own ➜ “Someone willing to accept people for who they academic and social lives, and students use that are, question conventional wisdom, work hard, and responsibility to pursue their passions. Vassar have fun. In return, you will never be judged for students are often very independent, and the what you wear or who you like, you will learn to whole atmosphere gives you a sense of being Vassar College see the world differently, and you will grow to love empowered to be yourself.” Poughkeepsie, NY 12604 Vassar for who it has made you and the friends it ➜ “At Vassar, you will find that virtually the entire www.vassar.edu has brought you.” 2,400-member student body is worth getting to ➜ “Liberal, arty, activist, intellectual, passionate know. The smallness, combined with the openness • 4-year coed private liberal arts college about things, more interested in experience and of mind and opportunity, allows you to try anything • Campus in a small city in the historic ideas than money and power.” and be anything you want to be during your four Hudson Valley years there.” • Full-time undergraduate enrollment ➜ “Vassar made me a stronger person. My classes If You Had It To Do Again, Would You Go 2008–2009: 1,003 men; 1,386 women. and professors encouraged me to develop my to Vassar? • Special features: The 1,000-acre campus analytical skills, as well as broaden my knowledge on All reviewers enthusiastically said yes. includes an arboretum and two National subjects that I had never encountered in high school. ➜ “Absolutely. Vassar was a great place where I Historic Landmark buildings. What was most valuable, however, was my network spent four unforgettable years. As a school, it is of friends. Vassar has made me more committed to dedicated to making the world a better place, and doing good in the world and using my education to help others.” it gave me the tools to do my bit to achieve that end. Vassar enabled me to grow not just as a student, but as a person.” ➜ “Without a doubt. The atmosphere here is what I wish the real What Do You Like Least about Vassar? world was like: accepting, friendly, and full of people who want to Most responses related to the college’s small size and location in a make the world a better place.” small town. ➜ “Yes. I loved my time at Vassar. I met some amazing people and ➜ “Students are not really prepared for life outside the ‘campus had phenomenal professors. The education I got was fantastic. Unlike bubble.’ Short of grad school preparation, students are often thrust out friends who went to large schools, I had an opportunity to shape my into the world with a new outlook, but lacking the skills to truly make own learning with my professors.” a difference.” ➜ “Absolutely. I learned so much at Vassar, not just academically, but ➜ “While Vassar is, in many ways, a very open-minded place, it also also about my world and the type of person I want to be.” i doesn’t deal well with certain political dissent. Political ‘diversity’ at Vassar is really just different stripes of liberalism.” ➜ “Vassar and Poughkeepsie don’t have the best relationship. Vassar Note: The reviewers quoted in the Students Review series are expressing is often viewed as being a pretentious institution that does not care their own views, which are not necessarily those of JHU or CTY. November/December 2008 imagine 39 http://www.vassar.edu
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