The Dorms
Nearly all students live on campus for all 4 years that they attend Vassar. For most people this means 3 years in the dorms and 1 year in senior housing. The dorms all have different personalities associated with them.
Noyes tends to be a bit quirky and is where most of the international students live. The building is interesting architecturally as it is a semi-circle shape. Its lounge is referred to as Jetson due to its futuristic design. This is a great room for freshman because the doubles are huge and have wardrobes that can be used as dividers if roommates want their own space. This is not a great dorm for upperclassmen as nearly all of the singles are tiny. People who don’t live in Noyes can sometimes be very negative towards it as a result of its interesting appearance – this tends to encourage dorm pride for those who live in Noyes.
Cushing, along with Noyes, is far away from most of the other dorms. Distance is relative though given that Vassar is not a very large college. Cushing is a nice looking dorm with a variety of different room sizes. It seems to have a funny, dank, basement-type smell a lot of the time when you enter the building. I’m not really sure where that smell comes from.
Main was the original school building. It has huge hallways, but don’t believe the stories that they were built that way so that kegs could be rolled down them. The truth is that the hallways were that large to accommodate the extremely large hoop skirts that the female students used to wear. Main is a very convenient dorm as it is in the center of everything and its residents can attend quite a few events without every changing out of their slippers.
Raymond, Davison, Lathrop, and Strong make up the quad dorms. The dorms are all essentially variations of each other architecturally. Some renovations have been happening slowly to these dorms one by one. Lathrop is generally known as a party dorm. Strong is the all-female dorm. Raymond is right next to the library. There are positives and negatives to living in a quad dorm – they are pretty much in the middle of things so it’s pretty easy to get most places. It can be a bit loud in these dorms as anything that is happening in the quad can be heard in the dorms, particularly if you are in a quad-side room.
Joss and Jewett are both near the quad but not actually a part of it. Jewett was recently renovated. It looks a bit like a hotel but in a good way. This is the only dorm on campus with a well-functioning elevator that does not require a key in order to use it. The rooms are a variety of sizes. Some Jewett residents gets a bit defensive if you refer to their dorm as a hotel – you’ve been warned.
Something that is one of the first things many people notice when they walk around a Vassar dorm is that the bathrooms are co-ed. This is something that nearly everyone adjusts to very easily. In fact after a short time most Vassar students come to think of co-ed bathrooms as the norm and are thrown off by specific gender bathrooms. There are stalls for the toilets and curtains for the separate showers so ultimately the co-ed aspect of the bathrooms is a non-issue.
The Academics
Vassar offers a variety of different classes in many different departments. The general education requirements are extremely minimal – everyone must take a class that fulfills the quantitative requirement, a freshman course, and fulfill the language requirement. Freshmen courses are offered primarily through the English Department but many other departments also offer them. These classes are writing intensive and are intended to introduce students to college-level coursework. Most math and science courses, including psychology, fulfill the college’s quantitative requirement. The language requirement is one year of a beginner class or one semester of a higher level course. You can also test out of the requirement if you have an acceptable level of proficiency.
Some classes are amazing and interesting and some are boring and poorly taught. This is the case at any college. Vassar has an evaluation system in which students evaluate their professors and the course at the end of each semester. This is a highly effective system for showing the college which visiting professors are worth keeping and whose contracts should not be renewed. Unfortunately some students end up suffering through courses with bad visiting professors during the one year the professor is teaching there.
The lack of general requirements at Vassar allows for students to really take the classes they are interested in. There is a distribution requirement, so you can’t take all of your classes in one division (e.g. social science, humanities, etc), but most people have no problem fulfilling this requirement.
The Bubble
Unlike some larger schools, Vassar tends to be a rather insulated environment. You’ll hear the term “Vassar Bubble” periodically around the Vassar campus. This refers to the fact that Vassar is a great environment for academic discussion and learning but it does not really resemble the real world (i.e. the one outside of the college). One of the ways in which the bubble is reinforced is that Vassar students tend to keep to the campus. The campus is beautiful and there are always many things going on to keep students entertained. There are some students who make the choice to leave campus and interact with the community in Poughkeepsie, but they do tend to be in the minority.
Vassar is a very liberal college. This is unfortunately not always the most accepting environment for more conservative students. It helps to expand the intellectual discussions when there are more diverse opinions being shared, but sometimes students do not feel as though their more conservative views are welcome.
The transition from a small liberal arts college to the post-grad world can be a bit more of a shock than that same transition from a larger university. This is not necessarily good or bad. The insulated environment of a small liberal arts college such as Vassar can allow for a safe environment for growth and change. College is a time of learning both in and out of the classroom and Vassar is a great environment in which to learn.
