<p>I’m actually staying at Wesleyan right now -the kids I’m around love the place, BUT one said his sister transferred from Smith and thought teachers at Smith were better. Other students don’t seem to study a lot like less than the 3-5 hours a day that seems typical for most top colleges. I do want an academically intense school that will land me in a top graduate school if I decide that’s where I want to do, SO do any Wes students have a testimony contrary to what I’m experiencing? (If it means anything, I’m in WesCo, -I feel like this might not be the most serious of academic environments…)</p>
<p>???
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???</p>
<p>Dude, relax. Just because people study less than 3-5 hours a day doesn’t mean it is not an academically rigorous school. I would have thought that people actually having some free time would be a good time.</p>
<p>Listen, DUDE. I’m from a middle-class family that has been working it’s way up over generations. If I’m studying 5 hours a day and in class 15 hours a week that’s still A LOT of free time. I want to be well-prepared for whatever I decide to do after college. I’m not paying a lot of money not to get a top-notch education.</p>
<p>It depends what major you’re in. As an astronomy/physics major I have some days where I don’t need to do any work at all, and some days where 8+ hours are consumed with working on problem sets. I can’t speak to the experiences of people in other majors, although that pattern of work is what they’re doing. My major is hard and people in it work hard, if that’s what you’re asking.</p>
<p>I think saying that because you’re not studying 3-5 hours a day you’re not getting a top-notch education is a bit well… doesn’t make much sense. Studying itself is something that differs for every person, it’s ridiculous to try to gauge the amount of time students study and correlate that to the “value” of the education they can recieve from the school.</p>
<p>YOU make the value, and if you decide to study more or less it’s really a personal decision. And as xmatt said, what your area of focus will be O_o…</p>
<p>I understand your argument. HOWEVER, I think there has to be some positive correlation between what students give and what professors can demand. Therefore, I want a school where students study 3-5 hours a day, as they do at many top schools. Although nice and smart, B/c Wesleyan students are rich, I dislike thinking they are also lazy-ish.</p>
<p>It’s hard to judge fairly how much people study, so much of it occurs behind closed doors and usually away from the dorm; and some people, quite frankly, are embarrassed to admit that they actually work hard for their grades. I think <em>that</em> could quite possibly explain the difference in perception between Wesleyan and some other places where grades and grading are common topics of conversation. You’re probably going to have to open that conversation yourself. In my day As were extremely rare, Bs were common and, yeah, someone slacking off or in a course that’s way above their head could expect lots of Cs. Has it changed?</p>
<p>I know my D worked REALLY hard while she was there. I had no hint of any rich slacker mentality from any student I ever met. I do think that at this point, a lot of freshmen may stil not realize what kind of work they need to do to excel, so some may be surprised in December. Don’t judge by them.</p>
<p>[slaps self in head] Garland, you’re right. Most of the people in Westco haven’t even had mid-terms yet!</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman and has had all her midterms. She is also very happy and works extremely hard. Each dorm has it’s own “flavor” maybe Westco wasn’t yours ecape. D stays up all hours of the night reading and writing, finds her classes challenging and the other students quite intelligent. She also works, and has joined various clubs and has made great friends. I couldn’t tell you how many hours she studies a night. It really depends on the classes u take and the kind of student u are. I thought the workload would ease a bit since midterms are over, but it seems that it’s just as much and challenging. Maybe you should spend another night at a different dorm… Nics, Hewitt, Fauver, or Butts, or maybe Wesleyan is not for you or what u thought it would be. Good luck!</p>
<p>Lisa</p>
<p>wow, ecape, you really need to be open to other interpretations – you have shot down every comment that has gone against your ideas.
Do you really believe that a school with wesleyan’s prestige doesn’t work it’s students?
Thought you’ve really floored me with your parents finantials, and i really needed that information, seriously take it someplace else.
I’ve never worked this hard in my life – i have class for 2 1/2-3 1/2 hours a day and definitely do 2-3 more hours of work.
You seem more the swarthmore or amherst type…</p>
<p>To each his own = fine with me. It’s just that in high school I was in class 7 hrs a day and did homework for 3-4 hrs a day. And I apologize if the middle-class comment wasn’t necessary, or sounded somehow snobby. It’s just that my parents aren’t much into college for self-fulfillment, and they won’t help me pay if I can’t convince them I’m going to be working hard and learning as much academically as I can in college so that I’ll have lots of options after college. I wasn’t saying that wasn’t possible at Wesleyan, I was just looking for someone to defend that possibility. I really do feel that working 40 hours a day still leaves a lot of free time. Maybe you’re right. Maybe Wesleyan isn’t for me.</p>
<p>“I really do feel that working 40 hours a day still leaves a lot of free time.”</p>
<p>You meant 40 hours a week, didn’t you? :p</p>
<p>Yes (oops)</p>
<p>I would be very careful about sweeping statements like “Wesleyan students are rich” or “Wesleyan students are lazy” or “Wesleyan student are ______” if you end up coming here. </p>
<p>At least regarding the socioeconomic breakdown, Wesleyan pours a lot of money and effort relative to its peer schools into recruiting and enrolling lower-income students. If the school really were as monolithically upper-class as it was in the 50s and early 60s, I doubt there would be such a persistent dialogue about social class issues and how they affect students here. But there is that dialogue, so I’m not sure why you’re making generalizations like that. I would certainly not consider myself “rich” to any extent possible, and I don’t feel at all excluded from the zeitgeist of this school.</p>
<p>Secondly, while I’m sure we all appreciate that academics are critical at this level and that one is right to want a school with earnest, dedicated students, you have to leave room for the fact that college is about more than just classes. It’s about interacting with new people and new ideas. If that isn’t a value you share in addition to your dedication to coursework, you may want to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>Sorry for stereotyping Wesleyan students. I am SURE there is a diversity. On values, OF COURSE I hold those values. I still don’t think workign 40 hrs a week on a small campus detracts from those values.</p>
<p>Well, no one is going to stop you from working when and how you feel you need to. But, it’s not really reasonable to expect everyone else to be on exactly the same schedule. As I mentioned above, everyone more or less figures out what works for them and just does that.</p>
<p>You have unearthed a nasty little secret about the Tech. You are assumed to be brilliant so why should you be forced to bust your hump. Just relax and enjoy the luxury of the leisurely passive scholarship that Wesleyan pretends is
the best way to illuminate young minds. Attend your twice a week lectures.
Write your two term papers and call it a most worthwhile semester. The place has become a travesty in the Humanities requirements. Be careful though you wouldn’t want the real story getting out to John Q Public. Your 42 grand is most essential to their well being but forget about any true bang for your buck.</p>
<p>Ah, “The Tech” – short for “Wes Tech”-- so-called for the preponderance of pre-meds among the all-male attendees of the Fifties and Sixties and of the Ph.D programs which, with the sole exception of Ethnomusicology, tilted a lot of the academic resources of the place (which had barely more than 1,500 students prior to co-education) towards the hard sciences. I happen to think that acdemically and socially Wesleyan is a much better balanced place today, than it was thirty years ago.</p>