The Evergreen State College Top Questions

Although there are parts of the school that promote expanding one's consciousness, occasionally there is a prevailing answer to something incredibly fluid.

The stigma people outside of our school associate with it. People often make the mistake of assuming that Evergreen is a party school or a "fake school" because we don't have grades and we try to break away from the traditional educational foundation with a non-competitive approach to learning. I and many of my peers are proud to be attending The Evergreen State College and it's very frustrating to be completely undermined and ocassionally dismissed because of the fact that we are a liberal state college.

the heavy usage of marijuana. It can seriously effect the learning environment.

Dealing with and ensuring you have all necessary paperwork and have spoken to all the necessary people for switching programs, dropping a program, receiving or returning finacial aid, etc. can sometimes be difficult and recuire a bit of running back and forth between offices. However, that is mostly time consuming. In addition, people who prefer the structure of a standard university or college may not be as comfortable at Evergreen, as a large majority of the learning is student driven.

Because it's such an open and liberal campus, there are a lot of different opinions and views. However, some of the students seem a little pompus and arrogant as well as ignorant in talking to other people.

Because of size it is difficult to have a huge variety of classes. however as they retain an interdisciplinary approach to classes the connectivity is greater ie real life connections that are so necessary in building sustainable lifestyles and the means to support them.

If a student is not ready to focus entirely on forward movement and self education they likely will struggle to succeed. The independant learning styles at Evergreen not only encourage students to take responsibility for themselves and their knowledge but guides them to accept these attributes as part of a successful life.

The school isn't heavily funded. The school is a state funded school, but it can very easily lose support due to it's avid activism on any subject imaginable. I don't think that affects morale of activist groups on campus, but it may have some deteriorating consequences on the status of the school in the eyes of the , further creating distance between the school and the community that it serves. It's an endless spiral-down of a problem that seems like it has to be constantly being handled with care.

The food is pretty mediocre.

Too much of an emphasis in useless knowledge and theory. I want more real life knowledge when it comes to business.

The tuition is steadily increasing, I hear rumour of budget cuts further escalating and talk of Evergreen becoming privatized which is really disturbing in thought to me, since it's such an accessible, eco-friendly, sociopolitical liberal place where many visionary thinkers begin networking and creating their own projects... privatized, really? I'm also afraid of the liberal arts, expressive arts as well being further pared down... Overall, I want Evergreen to maintain the integrity of student-teacher collaboration, utilizing and emphasizing student voice and responsibility with narrative evaluations and freedom in pursuing Independent Learning Contracts and Internships....

Administration doesn't reflect needs and wants of student body.

Well, I don't worry about it so much for some reason, but we use Evaluations instead of grades here at Evergreen, so transferability between colleges is an issue for some.

The seminars can be very frustrating because in theory, they work, but in practice, they tend to be awkward and unproductive.

The school administration seems slightly patch-work disorganized at times.

I think maybe the worst thing about TESC is time. Very greener answer I'm aware, but time just moves here (on campus). Class will comsume your life in a way I never knew it could. One day I'm attending class for the first time and the next its a new quarter. What I am saying is make sure you have something solid outside of the school to keep you grounded in the real world. TESC has its own bubble and sometimes it's hard to pop for a new student.

Honestly, I can't think of the worst thing about my school. I suppose they could work on their updates, especially when it comes to weather. And Food quality and prices could always be improved.

It is pretty easy to get into Evergreen. They have a high acceptance rate, but a low retention rate. My opinion on the correlation between those two numbers is that there are people at Evergreen that didn't get in else where, and for the good reason that college isn't for them. There are a fair few students that don't take learning seriously and don't realize that even though it is easy to get in is not congruent with the work load (i.e. you have to work just as much as other students, maybe more).

The body odor that some students have. The inconsistancies in some of the course descriptions, and what the course actually covers.

The food here is way too expensive.