Wesleyan University Top Questions

Party scene is amazing..parties can be found throughout the week and throughout campus, if you know where to look. Live music and crazy themes are very often part of the party.

music and bands are huge. there's always a show. we get a lot of traveling artists and speakers, and thats amazing. you can go out starting on Wednesday. frats pretty much suck, but they have free beer.

All the parties on campus are usually sponsored by the University which means every student is allowed to go and alcohol can not be served. Generally the parties are dance parties and students pre-game in their apartments/houses/dorms and then go out. We have a new theater which plays movies on Thursdays and Tuesdays I think for 5 dollars. I am convinced that it is the best theater on any college campus anywhere in the world. Micheal Bay, the director of Transformers and Wesleyan alum came and gave a private screening of his movie there. They also play old movies. For example, I saw Fast Times At Ridgemont High there. Off campus there isn't much to do except go to restaurants or go to get ice cream. There's a movie theater, but most people just download movies off the network and watch them on campus.

If you want to socialize you pretty much got to drink.

Wesleyan's student body can be most easily be described as "work hard, play hard." Being out-going, predominantly liberal, and hard working, Wesleyan students seem to be naturals at totally letting loose on the weekends. The Wesleyan bubble on a given weekend is a bit like a carnival. There are plays, films, art shows, dance shows, and concerts every weekend. Most of those events are followed up by parties at either senior residences or fraternities, which, for the most part, play a largely positive role in the social environment. Though not many people join the fraternities, most students seem to benefit from their social offerings, which host concerts, DJs, and dance parties. Wesleyan students hook up. Wesleyan students drink. Many smoke pot, but not all. For the most part, you can do as you please, no pressure to do one thing or another.

The social scene is certainly interesting and probably pretty unique. When it comes to weekends, there isn't a lot of stratification in terms of events. Parties are basically open to everyone. The Wesleyan student body seems to do a great job at balancing work and play. There isn't a ton of weekday partying, but there isn't a shortage of weekend parties either.

We get tons of speakers, athletic events are not the biggest events on campus (our football team is terrible, but soccer and lacrosse get a good amount of attention. So does basketball, even though they're not that good either. Wesleyan is fun. Trust me. You will drink alot and be merry. I have yet to meet someone who has enjoyed their school as much as I enjoyed Wesleyan.

The Wesleyan experience is also incredible outside the classroom. As a varsity athlete, I think that there's a lot of support for athletics. However, I never felt pigeon-holed into a jock stereotype. Some teammates are closest friends, but I also didn't feel any pressure to only hang out with my team. A lot of freshmen make their close friends on their hall in the dorm, but that is typically in freshmen only dorms (like Clark or Fauver). There's always something going on around campus, such as speakers, performances, movie screenings, etc. It's so easy to make friends and find things to do, and the party scene is pretty ideal. From dorms, frats, senior woodframes, and junior apartments, students definitely know how to wind down and have a good time on the weekends. A wide range of interests and lifestyles correlate with the diversity of the student body.

Wesleyan has a plethora of student groups. The largest and most active one I'm involved with is the Environmental Organizers' Network (EON), which regularly attracts about 40 people to its weekly meetings and organizes everything from composting and recycling on campus to a competition among senior houses to reduce electricity use to call-ins to Congress on global climate change issues. If you wanted, you could find an interesting lecture, film or panel discussion to go to every single night of the week, organized by the administration, academic departments, and student groups. You can also choose from any number of parties on the weekends, ranging from a fund-raiser dance party with a popular campus band to a house party mainly focused on drinking. There are also all sorts of performances of theater, dance and music, be it a recital of the Javanese gamelan class, one of the many a cappella groups, or a play put on by the active student theater group, Second Stage. I have met my closest friends in a number of places, including my frosh dorm, the first play I worked on, and the Jewish community. This last group was not one I thought I would be very involved with going into college, but I found it to be a really fun and open group of people, and I ended up living for two years in the Jewish-themed program house.

What really surprised me about college is that most of your friends for the rest of the year (and maybe your college career), you'll find in your freshman dorm if not on your hall. As a result, your social life revolves around your dorm so that sometimes you don't leave at all. If you like drinking, dancing, etc, you can almost always find a party at one of the frats or houses (there are no sororities). Though people often go to one of the four fraternities on weekends, frats will not be a major part of your life unless you want them to be. If you're not into the drinking scene, there are on campus movies, and performances, and when the weather's nice, there are always people socializing (and often smoking) on Foss Hill.