Reed College Top Questions

When people who don't go to Reed find out that I go to Reed they usually either get excited and say what a great place it is or assume that it's a bad liberal arts school that they've never heard of. I live off campus, so I spend most of my time on campus in classes or the library, although I come to campus on the weekends because there are usually lots of good events. A big recent controversy was the death of a freshman from heroine over-dose. The response of the community was really touching and re-affirming to me of what a great place this is. It brought up a lot of discussions about what Reed is and what our drug and alcohol policy means, if it is effective, etc. IThe school takes risks with the freedom it gives its students, but it allows for genuine and mutual respect between the kids and the administration. There is, obviously, a ton of school pride and a sense of love and understanding and similarity between everyone (students, faculty, staff, alum, administrators, etc.).

We're a really small school. There are some wacky things that go on. Portland is an awesome city!!! but a lot of students don't go off campus that much. Lots of students spend a significant portion of their time in the library. People are proud of Reed, often to the point of looking down on classes and students at other, less-academic schools. There's a lot that's unusual about Reed--you should be creative, wacky, smart, and stable enough to deal with the excessive culture of stress. I've learned an amazing amount here.

Reed, eclectic, scholastic, scholarly, hidden away like an elf's fortress or some sort of secret. Home to the dedicated dedicated dedicated ones who will go without sleep four days in a row because they WANT to finish their work rather than because they will need to. Home to those who will lock themselves away for a week until they master a new puzzle, a new game. The ones who learn for fun, who delight in knowledge and share their knowledge and take you as you are and run with you as far and as hard as your willing to go. Home to those who know their shit like no one else I've ever met in my life. Interesting interesting people, mature, creative, powerful and open minded. Dedicated. Dedicated. Dedicated. Do I love Reed? Yes I love Reed.

Portland is a great city to live in. It's kind of european-modeled utopian, where people ride their bikes, care about sustainability, experience an excellent performance art and music scene, and are herbivores. Nature abounds, close to the city limits, and people actually appreciate it! Sigh... it just so *nice* to live here. (Except for the disheartening rain and the lack of racial diversity) Some Reedies never see Portland, in all of it's glory. Reed can be kind of a "bubble", in which students become encapsulated and lose touch with the outside world. I understand. Reed is a magical mystical land, unlike any other, where people ride around on flaming bikes, build really big monuments and forts in public places, grill hundreds of dollars worth of meat and give it away for free just to piss off vegans like me, make motorized couches, couches that double as bongs, embrace pyromania, chase and tackle people while naked and covered in blue paint, know nearly everyone's name because it's so freaking small, etc. There are a lot of resources and fun stuff to keep Reedies occupied, in all the free time they don't have, like the comic books library, pool hall, Gray fund trips (white water rafting, rock climbing, interesting-shit-you-never-needed-to-know-about-portland tours, and the like), I could go on but you could just go to the website. You could spot the legendary Doyle Owl and get into a knife fight over it! Kidding (though it seriously did happen). Reed is a very ...unique college experience, both due to the institution and its values and also because of the people who are attracted to it.

Reed College is a land where the work never stops. It's go go go and then break and then go go go and then break. The school is small but you definitely don't know or recognize everybody. Classes are usually from 6-25 people (lecture-based classes like the sciences are more 25-100 people). You get to know and love the profs, who you will be on a first name basis with. Telling people you go to Reed can evoke a multitude of responses from "Wow" to "Doesn't everyone do drugs there all the time?" to "Reed College?". Reed is the perfect school if you want to go into academia, and/or if you honestly like learning. We're in Portland here, but we rarely leave campus. Last biggest scandal was a recent heroin overdose - but that shit is really fucking rare, everyone has been in shock and there has been a lot of school arranged support groups and such. You get an education at Reed like you get no where else, and that inspires a definite cockiness and school pride bit in the students. We visit other campuses and wonder when people get their shit done, and the truth seems to be that they often have very little shit to do. So we laugh about that. Call it intellectual snottiness, if you will. Reed is a very strange place, as shown by the student body and by campus events. Ask any Reed kid (who isn't a freshmen) about Renn Fayre, Drag Ball, Paideia, Thesis Parade, thesis-ing, junior seminar, or qualifying exams and you'll here many a tale.

Reed is a tiny, liberal arts college. The campus is pretty, but small enough that once you've slept with someone, there's no way to avoid them. You'll keep running into them in commons, or the pool hall, or that class you thought they wouldn't take but they did and now you have to sit in the same room with them three times a week and pretend it isn't awkward. The population of Reed is big enough, however, that I'm still meeting new people in my year. The academics are phenomenal, and Portland's a fun city (although it helps to be 21). It's easy to get involved with student government, or just get some funding for a new extracurricular group. We don't have a football team, but the rugby players are all very dedicated to their sport. Ultimately, Reed is work hard, play hard -- we might stay in the library until 2 AM on a regular basis, but we also have more fun. There's nothing I would change about Reed, and having been here for four years, I can say with absolute certainty that I would make the same choice if I were picking a college now. That said, Reed is NOT for everybody.

Most Reed students ar really excited to be here, which enhances life for our whole community. It's great that people are really excited about and interested in not only their classes and assignments, but also about social activities at Reed. There are so many opportunities to get involved in the Reed community, like during Renn Fayre, Reed Arts Week, Paideia, etc. There's always some sort of dance party or event going on in the Student Union to liven up weekend nights on campus, and it seems that wherever you go there are groups of intelligent kids to hang out with, like at the pool hall, the scrounge, the paradox, the library lobby, the tutoring center, the department-specific lounges, even the reactor!

Reed is isolated. It's in a bubble, and never shall that bubble burst. It's unfortunate, since Portland is a truly amazing city with TONS to offer, and so few Reedies take advantage of that. Reed is also quite small. It tends to be very difficult to make friends at Reed, although I'm not entirely certain why.

People here tend to be interesting whether I like them or not, which is awesome. You can have a conversation with almost anyone and learn something. Most everyone works very hard, much harder than they did in high school, though a fair number of students (mostly freshmen) dick around a lot and have academic trouble accordingly. The work load is not exaggerated--if you do all the work you are supposed to do AND try to have a social life, you won't get a lot of sleep. Quite a few people drop out. The honor principle governs most interactions at Reed. There's a lot of trust in students' ability to handle problems, and so there's a lot of responsibility. When I tell people I go to Reed, I get a lot of different responses. Mostly tonal variations of the word "OH." Everyone knows we work hard here, but there are a lot of other connections that people make--drugs, radical left-wingers, awesome open-minded people, and so on. Reed has a reputation. It's not entirely accurate. There is a lot of drug use, and as a rule people are pretty liberal, but I know plenty of straightedge people and several libertarians (though, granted, very few Republicans).

Reed will give you student funds to spend on beer. However, I when I wanted to spend student body funds on giving books to prisoners, I was told by Finance Committee, "We don't give money for service projects." Reed will not let allow student organized charity drives to spend our extra board points to give food to the homeless. They are so afraid of liability that they couldn't care less if the people of Portland go homeless.