Vassar College

Date: Oct 26 2008
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
Now that I have graduated I can appreciate Vassar more, but I positively hated the four years that I spent there. Here's a breakdown of my experience:

Classes: Most professors are great. Smart and easily accessible. Classes are small, about 25-30 students for intros and 8 or 10 for seminars. Attendance is important and professors will notice if you are absent. Class participation is a big component of your grade, but I found that the occasional inane comment was sufficient. Caution: students here like to talk a lot in class. About nothing. Seriously, most just like the sound of their own voice. This was my biggest peeve and made a lot of classes downright miserable.

Grades: In a word, cake. If you major in the social sciences, expect two or three papers for each class. That's it. There's a lot of reading, but truthfully I never did any of it and I got all As and Bs. A few professors are tough graders, but if you put some effort into your papers you won't get lower than a B.

Academics: Expect to learn more about race and gender than you ever thought possible.

Campus: GORGEOUS. The dorms (with the exception of Jewett) are old, but I found them charming. Main is the best dorm (big, more anonymity, and has the Mug/P.O./cafe/bookstore downstairs), Joss has great parties, Strong is all girls and quiet, the quad dorms are all sort of the same, Cushing is far away and pretty much forgotten, and Noyes is for nerds and weirdos. The surrounding area is pretty rundown, but there are decent restaurants. I brought a car and it saved me from being confined to the "Vassar bubble," but Poughkeepsie is kind of a s****hole.

Campus Life: This was my biggest problem with Vassar. If you're a hippie/hipster/vegan/gay/bookworm or else socially awkward you will be right at home here. If you play sports, expect to be made fun of a lot and hang out primarily with other athletes. If you an attractive, straight girl DO NOT COME HERE. Seriously, there are usually maybe 3 moderately attractive to good-looking guys on campus and they will either be in a relationship or huge players. Conversely, if you're a normal looking guy you will have the opportunity to hook up with girls you will never be able to get in the real world. There are a lot of campus parties, but I got tired of them after the first two years of school. There are bars in Poughkeepsie and surrounding towns but Vassar students rarely leave campus on the weekends unless it's to go to NYC.

Post-graduation: Now that I'm applying for jobs, employers are really impressed that I went to Vassar. Interviews usually go like this:

Wow! Vassar is a really great school! So, what are you qualified to do?

The answer is nothing. I'm simultaneously over and underqualified for most positions and am having a really hard time finding a job that pays more than $8.00 an hour. Consequently I'm applying to law school. If I could do it all over again I would have gone to a much bigger university and majored in something like business or marketing.

Bottom line: Visit Vassar before you decide to go there. Take advantage of the prospective student program and get your host to take you to a typical party. Sit in on some courses. Have a meal in ACDC and observe the student body. There are people that love Vassar, and then there are people like me who would have fit in better at someplace bigger and more mainstream.