Bowdoin Survival 101

BenjaminBraddock
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:27:29 +0000

I am among the freshman entering the College in the fall( only a few weeks away). I absolutely love Bowdoin and everything, although I haven’t visited the campus since I am an international student. Before a few week ago, I had hardly heard a few complaints about the College, even though I had read hundreds of student college reviews and had talked to a few currently enrolled polar bears( including one from my native country). Sure, there was ‘it might be isolated for some’ and ‘Maine winters are cc-cold’; one international student said that the place is very white, but almost everyone concurred that mostly everyone was very friendly, helpful, albeit a little preppy, laid back and down to earth.Recently, however, I have been starting to have a few doubts about my decision to attend Bowdoin. Maybe it’s the nerves, may it is the varied CC threads I have been obsessively following. Recently, all I have been reading regarding Bowdoin usually has something or the other to say about the extreme preppiness of the students, and how filthy rich the student body is, how it is populated by ivy-rejected snobs who look down on those different from them like minority students, non-jocks etc. I know most of this is complete baloney, since I am a member of the Class of 2017 Facebook group and know the student body to be more multidimensional than portrayed in stereotypes, but I also recognized some attitudes that corroborated with those stereotypes. For instance, I tried contacting my roommate several times but she would promptly appear offline as soon as I would send her a FB message. So maybe people are not that friendly. I know I’m ranting but I am just worried whether I’d fit in. I am a minority/international student, on a full ride-ish scholarship/finaid(so not at all rich), not very preppy or very sporty, but with an intellectual bent. I would appreciate any advice, opinion, refutation, clarification, tip on surviving the first year and fitting in etc etc.