A Post From Oberlin
At the moment I'm trying to keep a rather open mind about college because hell I haven't seen all the two places I'm visiting. However I must say Oberlin is pretty sweet. Granted it is crazy, wild, not typically my scene it still is pretty cool. The campus itself is beautiful and small enough that everything is in fairly decent walking distance. The professors all seem cool, but rather normal, as in you go to any college and you'll get the same batch of people. The interesting thing is that they all believe more in teaching than publication/research/writing. Probably because this is a college and not a university, but hey.
The biggest draw to Oberlin is the student body. They can at best be described as an eclectic bunch of people, as in this weekend I believe I've seen reggae music pumped from a third floor window, a impromptu circus with people balancing on balls, juggling, and doing this crazy dance with a modified sling shot stuff. They all are extremely politically involved and oddly have mixed views on many issues. The campus itself is crazy in the number of 'fluid' people, as in people who will mess around with everyone that is after they have drunk enough.
The visit started with this lunch with professors thing, it was pretty standard, they are suppose to answer your questions about the college and it is suppose to be an opportunity to socialize. It was made more interesting by the fact the professor at our table didn't really want to attend this lunch thing and just wanted to know what kinda "stuff they were trying to sell us". Still he did answer some questions and what not which was important. After lunch I ran to visit a class which was interesting yet boring at the same time. Clarification, the professor and the students were interesting, the subject of that class was how to research using things like EBSCO etc. something that I already know how to use. Still it was all good fun and everyone was super nice.
The afternoon was spent people watching until I had to meet my person for an overnight visit. My host was/is named Curtis and I can sum him up in a couple of words...African-American, Gay and Republican. How the hell does that combination work? He was the type that is pretty in your face about it as well, not something that bothers me but not something I was expecting. So I end up spending the next hour meeting far to many people on campus, He liked to introduce people like this: "You have to meet the coolest Prospe, Nick this is the (pick an adjective) coolest/smartest/hottest/gayest/straightest/etc, person you'll ever know". Curtis seems to know/have hosted everyone who goes to Oberlin. Then after that whirlwind tour I got wrapped up in doing some sorta seminar thing which was simply called "Get to know your a*hole". As you can tell an interesting place. So that fell through because no one really came, and thus I was then roped into postering with Curtis, so we walked around campus putting up about 100 posters. Then dinner which the food was actually quite good, an important factor. After dinner we went to see the movie "Sideways", bad but good, artisy bad I guess.
After that we started walking back to the dorms and saw some people Curtis knew who were going to a party. He was like take the Prospes, (by this time I was joined by another) named Owen, he's really cool. So we followed, they were drinking by this time and by the time we got to the party the one dude was out of it, "Guuuyyys this bike doesn't have an alarm", "You mean a lock?", "Yeeaaaahhhh". Funny to watch but I felt bad for the guy. That was how a typical conversation with him went. I guess Oberlin also is known for it's drug use...which might be a downside later. Since by about 1:00 am, everyone was stoned and or intoxicated. I was like oh wow, so we leave the party, Owen's cool but smoked something. And walked back to the dorm. That's where we found some non-intoxic people and hung out with them for a while. They were cool, and we talked about random stuff like DDR. Around 2:30 am though both Owen and I were pretty wiped so we headed upstairs and crashed in Curtis's room.
General impressions are hard to say right now, I'll write more about it later.
The biggest draw to Oberlin is the student body. They can at best be described as an eclectic bunch of people, as in this weekend I believe I've seen reggae music pumped from a third floor window, a impromptu circus with people balancing on balls, juggling, and doing this crazy dance with a modified sling shot stuff. They all are extremely politically involved and oddly have mixed views on many issues. The campus itself is crazy in the number of 'fluid' people, as in people who will mess around with everyone that is after they have drunk enough.
The visit started with this lunch with professors thing, it was pretty standard, they are suppose to answer your questions about the college and it is suppose to be an opportunity to socialize. It was made more interesting by the fact the professor at our table didn't really want to attend this lunch thing and just wanted to know what kinda "stuff they were trying to sell us". Still he did answer some questions and what not which was important. After lunch I ran to visit a class which was interesting yet boring at the same time. Clarification, the professor and the students were interesting, the subject of that class was how to research using things like EBSCO etc. something that I already know how to use. Still it was all good fun and everyone was super nice.
The afternoon was spent people watching until I had to meet my person for an overnight visit. My host was/is named Curtis and I can sum him up in a couple of words...African-American, Gay and Republican. How the hell does that combination work? He was the type that is pretty in your face about it as well, not something that bothers me but not something I was expecting. So I end up spending the next hour meeting far to many people on campus, He liked to introduce people like this: "You have to meet the coolest Prospe, Nick this is the (pick an adjective) coolest/smartest/hottest/gayest/straightest/etc, person you'll ever know". Curtis seems to know/have hosted everyone who goes to Oberlin. Then after that whirlwind tour I got wrapped up in doing some sorta seminar thing which was simply called "Get to know your a*hole". As you can tell an interesting place. So that fell through because no one really came, and thus I was then roped into postering with Curtis, so we walked around campus putting up about 100 posters. Then dinner which the food was actually quite good, an important factor. After dinner we went to see the movie "Sideways", bad but good, artisy bad I guess.
After that we started walking back to the dorms and saw some people Curtis knew who were going to a party. He was like take the Prospes, (by this time I was joined by another) named Owen, he's really cool. So we followed, they were drinking by this time and by the time we got to the party the one dude was out of it, "Guuuyyys this bike doesn't have an alarm", "You mean a lock?", "Yeeaaaahhhh". Funny to watch but I felt bad for the guy. That was how a typical conversation with him went. I guess Oberlin also is known for it's drug use...which might be a downside later. Since by about 1:00 am, everyone was stoned and or intoxicated. I was like oh wow, so we leave the party, Owen's cool but smoked something. And walked back to the dorm. That's where we found some non-intoxic people and hung out with them for a while. They were cool, and we talked about random stuff like DDR. Around 2:30 am though both Owen and I were pretty wiped so we headed upstairs and crashed in Curtis's room.
General impressions are hard to say right now, I'll write more about it later.