Whitman College

Date: Aug 21 2008
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
I came to Whitman sort of by chance, and I'm really glad I ended up here.

The quality of your education here depends on how well you choose your classes. There are amazing professors, and there are disappointing ones; however, you quickly find out which is which, and by second semester freshman year you can generally plan a good schedule.

A good example is Core - the year long "Antiquity and Modernity" class that all freshmen take. First semester you read ancient texts (The Odyssey through Sallust, my year) and second semester you read philosophical texts, Shakespeare and "modern texts" (Descartes through "Beloved"). An unfortunate side effect is that the only women you read are Sappho and Toni Morrison - Sappho evidently also representing the homosexuals, and Morrison the minorities. All others are dead white males.

And if your professor is bad, you get stuck with essay topics such as

Pick 5 important vocabulary words that Nietzche uses, and discuss them in context of his work.

The biology and chemistry departments are surprisingly good for a liberal arts school; I love my major, and am taking more than the minimum of classes required for it to challenge myself more. As Whitman does not charge extra for overloads (I've overloaded 3 of the 4 semester I've spent here so far), it's a good way to challenge yourself and get more out of the tuition.

The Chinese department, while small, is really good. You only attend class 4 hours a week, so you don't learn at as fast a pace as programs in other schools, but if you apply yourself you get a lot out of it. Whitman also has a Summer Studies in China program every other year, where for $4,000 you spend 6 weeks in China, traveling and taking classes in Chinese and some China studies class taught by a Whitman professor.

I was surprised that such a small (1,400) school had such a program.

The other languages offered are pretty standard - French, Spanish, German, Greek, Latin and Japanese. The Japanese program is reputed to be rather picky, easy, and slow.

Whitman has 3 sororities and 4 fraternities; the sororities have various "cliquey", "catty" and "slutty" reputations, and the frats have their unsavory reputations too. Some of it is true, and some is just good gossip. There are parties though, but not nearly as many as in bigger schools.

The alcohol policy is deliciously lax - basically a closed-door policy - but whereas the school is chill, they do nothing to shield you from the actual police. Which is fair. So stupid people get MIPs.

The social life is good if you like student-run activities and hanging out in library group study rooms with coffee or Vitamin Water and your unread books. There are a lot of music performances, generally students, and many are of good quality. There's an Interest House Community that puts on activities in the houses' various themes (Environmental, German, Spanish, French, Asian Studies, Writing, Japanese, Multicultural, Community Service, and Fine Arts), and there are many clubs.

Whitman also invites performers to come (we've had a mentalist, Flogging Molly and Girl Talk, among others) and it's free for Whitman students.

The music department at Whitman leaves much to be desired - unless you play piano or sing, in which case it's good. Instrumental music is kind of unfortunate. Nobody cares about band, and the orchestra is at the level of a "pretty good" high school orchestra.

However, non-majors are warmly invited to join, as most of the musical ensembles are formed of non music majors. So it's a nice community.

The most negative thing about Whitman is its painful political correctness. You must get angry at anything that could be construed as offensive to any group. And if you don't, you get looked down upon.

Also, the school being small is good and bad. Reading the review of the 2010 student, I immediately tried to figure out who it was. I am the only bio major affiliated with both the Chinese department and the music department. Gossip runs rampant, since you definitely know someone who knows the person in question, and you've probably heard of their name anyway.

And Walla Walla? Well, if you like Starbucks, Subway, pizza, burritos, a cute main street and a couple of public parks - it's awesome! If you want more of a life, you'll feel stifled.

Me? I feel stifled a bit, but love Whitman anyway.