Wesleyan University Top Questions

Diversity, a lot of diversity, and its a good thing.

Everyone at Wes has an opinion about what is going on in the world. I love the fact that you can have a drink and discuss your opinions vehemently with whoever you're with.

I have talked quite a bit already about the Wesleyan student body. I'll just add this: Wesleyan is a very tolerant community. I have dated both men and women at Wes, and that is typical of about 1/8 of Wesleyan students. Categorizations don't stick here. We have gender neutral bathrooms in every dorm. We have more student groups than we have members of the faculty. And there is a heightened awareness of difference and tolerance on the Wesleyan campus, which I have not experienced anywhere else. Although there are very few hyper-conservative individuals at Wes, there is a relatively substantial contingent of Wesleyan Repulicans, students who refuse to let the political persuasion of the campus become too homogeneous.

Nobody would feel out of place at Wesleyan! Well, okay, maybe if you are extraordinarily preppy (and I mean EXTRAORDINARILY! Like, pop your collar every single day. Regular preps are actually pretty widespread around campus. Like I said, this place defines diverse). Along with all sorts of groups of people come all sorts of different fashions. Some show up in pajamas, some half in pajamas and half in clothes, some in long, flowy dresses, some in torn pants, and mostly, just dressed as a regular college kid. I swear, Wes is not that weird. I mean, jeans and a sweatshirt will suffice for class in the winter. And it gets COLD! Nobody will judge you at Wes because the whole place is overflowing with different people. I am friends with so many different types of kids it's almost unbelievable, and when I come home and talk to high school friends, I almost feel bad for them, as they have never had the chance to meet people like Wes people, and even if they did, their schools do not foster to engaging in relationships with all different kinds of people. From the baseball stud to the foreigner to the film major to that guy in every single student band to the gorgeous hippie to the NYC kids to the actresses to the frat boys to the girl-jocks to the rock-star wannabe girl to the Buddha-worshipping potsmoking guy upstairs, I'd say that yes, different people do interact on a regular basis, and they wouldn't have it any other way.

A great group, except for the few rich assholes and athletes who congregate in the frats. A nice population of very balanced, social, intellectual creative, attractive, unconventional folks.

the only thing that really gets me is the lack of interaction between groups. everyone's friendly, but if you're a jock you won't hang out with the hippies on saturday night. people find a group and tend to stick with it. but people are very involved in things, sports, classes, groups, whatever. everyone is active.

Wesleyan University truly is a diverse campus in every respect except maybe political views. But even in the political arena, you have your Obama supporters and your Clinton supporters, which might not sound like a huge difference, but can stimulate meaningful political discussion. I think really conservative people might feel out of place, but if you have a strong enough personality, you can survive because at least in my experience, everyone at Wesleyan is very welcoming to different points of view, and everyone is extremely friendly. Not to mention, there are conservatives on campus-- I have personally met two of them. Many Wes students are from the New England, NY area, but there are lots from all over the country and abroad. I have a few friends from India, a friend from Pakistan, Indonesia, China, pretty much all over. I am from Arizona myself, and I have actually only met two other Zonies, but there are plenty of people from the Southwest. I think racially a lot of the black students on campus feel like they are token students and the University puts them out there for show. There is some issue about the self-segregation of black and white students, but on that note, I do believe that a lot of the professors address this issue well. For instance, we talked about it in my Psychology course and the professor actually divided the class into groups of four making sure every group was diverse in gender, race, and ethnicity. For instance I am a white American female, so there were no other white American females in my group. There was a white American male, a black American female, and a Chinese female. I was impressed that the diversity of the class allowed for all the groups to be broken up like this. Also, a lot of the AFAM- African American Studies- classes foster good discussions.

Wesleyan is not as "diverse", open, or accepting as it claims to be.

Wesleyan prides itself on its diverse student body. Wesleyan students come from all parts of the globe, and I have found myself working alongside people from backgrounds that I didn't even know existed. However, Wesleyan is not particularly politically diverse. Most students are liberal, and the core group of conservatives tend to be athletes and stick to a very hibernated fraternity life. But they are happy with it, and those students love Wesleyan as much as the other 80{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} or so. Anyone can be happy at Wesleyan, and I honestly believe that it takes a real grouch to have a bad time at this school.

Any prospective student should know and understand that Wesleyan is a very liberal place and though there is a diversity of opinion among the student body, the vast majority of students lean left of center. The nickname "Diversity University" is an accurate moniker. Students come from a lot of different ethnic and racial backgrounds. That said, this is a private liberal arts school that doesn't have the biggest endowment ever, so socio-economic diversity is not extremely high. This is certainly not a school run by jocks. Sports are not the center of student activities and school spirit is less about face-painting and game attendance and more about appreciating other things Wes has to offer.