College Visit-Uncomfortable w/ Activities

garland
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:54:17 +0000

Jolynne–its been my observation that at the artsy, edgy places, while of course having the same easy availability and availment of alcohol, casual sex, and drugs as most non uber-religious colleges, the pressure to take part is much less than at many other colleges. My D started at a conventional university (mentioned here recently) where she was totally turned off by the mainstream binge-drinking, huge anonymous party culture. She transfered to an alt-y LAC, which could easily be the one described by the OP (though I defer to Weskid’s reasons why it’s probably not :)), and there the overwhelming ethos was that people could partake or not as they wanted to. Interestingly many of these counter-culture-y kids were extremely personally conservative, and choices were treated with much more respect than at the conventional school she left.

From stories here and other places, I don’t think her experience was unusual, either. The arty, quirky places do seem to place great weight on individual choice, including choice to say no, without judgment.