Reed RD Class of 2023

OMPursuit
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 22:30:20 +0000

@InDebtForever I went to RAD 2!
I loved the students. I’ve seen a lot of negative posts about student culture, but everyone I met there was amazing, and my host (and his roommate) seemed to know everyone. It seemed like on-campus jobs are a social hub, and that people who have them have better experiences than people who don’t. For example, I hung out with someone who worked the reactor, and everywhere we went someone else popped up who worked the reactor. Everyone was very friendly and willing to talk.

I really did get a good vibe off the Reedies I spoke with. Very thoughtful kids. I asked a lot of questions about the school culture and the social life at Reed, and they had very solid answers. I got invited to go see GoT with some people during the overnight and it was very laid back. One girl (a senior) was doing her homework and joined late, but she wasn’t freaking out about the infamous Reed workload or anything. Everyone was pleasantly busy, and made time to hang out, and it was very natural. That was a welcome surprise.
I got the vibe that people genuinely appreciated their courses and their professors. People tend to be very fond of the professors in their department.

The RAD programming itself was a mixed bag. I realized the school shined most when I went off the rails a bit, so I did that, and spent most of my time there speaking with professors and meeting students. Another surprising thing: the campus is way prettier than I expected. Incredibly lush, like, wow. The canyon is stunning and a fantastic addition.

I wasn’t really sold by the classes I sat in on. It was good, but I already get good classes from my state U. Maybe it’s just my department (I only sat in on math classes). It really sucks, too, because I was hoping they would be transcendent and I’d just instantly know, “Reed!” If you’re doing natural sciences or the humanities those departments are really strong at Reed, and this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. Try to find how many faculty members your specific department has and what their interests are. Some depts have as few as three, while others are much bigger.

Instead of academic advisors, you get a professor from your department to advise you as soon as you start at Reed. This can be fantastic. My guess is that being a good advisor is a big part of becoming a Reed professor. The new hires I met seemed smart and enthusiastic, with high standards for their students.
This also means professors don’t have a lot of time to give special attention or do reading courses, because they have students to advise.

One piece of advice: If you want grad school, find out which professors are doing research or who are serious about putting students into grad school, and make those professors your advisors very early on. From what I hear, it’s relatively easy to change advisors.

My overall impressions were very positive, but for a lot of reasons really specific to my situation I’m not really sold. Will continue to think about it.
Best of luck!