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ya know, i really don't like reed. i mean, i love portland, it's a beautiful city and all, but reed isn't really my thing. there are moments when i'm like 'man, this school is great' but i mean, some people take the honor principle way too fucking seriously and i get weird looks when i say that i don't really agree with most of it's aspects. in
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I think that there is room to debate the honor principle, and that you should be able to challenge its assumptions; I was trying to say something more along the lines that you are going to be fighting a lot of battles with people about it if you "disagree with most of its aspects" and find people who use it pretentious. I think as much as people pretend that the honor principle is up for personal interpretation, etc etc, a lot of our understanding of it is shaped by community norms, and so for a lot of people disliking a lot of aspects is equivalent to not agreeing with the thing in itself. (What aspects do you like?)
I guess in terms of telling you to transfer, of course I thought you'd considered going elsewhere, almost everyone has. And I know that there are so many variables that affect that kind of decision, but I also feel like one of the things that makes reed work is that people buy into it. So, the selfish half of this is that I don't want to be at a school where there are people who do not totally want to be there, but I've also seen enough people get angry at Reed that I know that the first part of this has the effect of making people increasingly miserable if they're not totally into the school. Part of what I was saying is that my personal experience has shown me that if someone is not happy with a lot of aspects of Reed culture, then they are just going to get more and more unhappy and its better to find somewhere that's less of a bubble.
And I guess I was confused about the grades thing both because I like not seeing a letter or a number on top of every paper and because every person I know who is uncomfortable with that is able to find out what they need to find out whenever they want. That, and I was under the impression that you thought that something about not finding out your grades was going to make it harder to get into grad school.
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i'm definitely staying next semester but after that i'm just keeping my options open.
ps sorry if i came off as bitchy earlier, i tend to both write and respond on lj when i'm in a bad mood. this isn't very productive haha. but thanks for the advice. who are you though?
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Its okay about coming off as bitcy, I would probably have responded in the same way if someone had posted on my livejournal giving me unsolicited advice. Also, the joy of the internet is that it generally lacks tone, so I tend to avoid getting my feelings hurt.
Also, sorry about posting anonymously, but I wanted to say what I said and, being shy in real life, I tend to censor myself if I know its going to be associated with me.
I was talking to my friend about this conversation (we were talking about how livejournal is replacing interpersonal interactions due to finals week), and she said that her feeling is that things can really change over a semester and that one shouldn't assume that one will be totally adjusted to Reed by the end of the first semester (she actually was here, left, and then decided to come back after being at another school for a semester). So I guess, good luck with that and also with using the honor principle to challenge people to think about their conceptions of it. Its too easy to become complacent (and, unfortunately, prentious in that complacency).
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