WesLive: Wesleyan's Community Blog

Reblogged from: Voices - Wesleyan Student Blogs. (Go to the original post…)

…Because really, there’s nothing more fun than fangirling. Anyway, I have noticed (oh hey WesAdmits 2016) that some of you RD folks have gotten your letters already, congratulations! That’s so exciting Wesleyan was one of the first colleges I got accepted to (way back in 2010) (I’m old, right?) and it was a really cool thing! You guys must be so happy I’ll stop doing smileyfaces now. 

Since I know you guys are making a giant decision now, I thought I’d do a post about my favorite things about Wesleyan. Read it after the cut! Just backspaced over another smileyface. It’s casual.

Wesleyan, oh Wesleyan. I’m not going to lie to you guys and say it’s the best place on Earth, because Earth is a really big place and I haven’t been everywhere on Earth. However, out of the places I’ve been (a fairish amount of places), it’s like top 5. So okay, as a sophomore (“wise fool,” as my 10th grade history teacher constantly reminded us), I think I have a semi-well-formed opinion on what’s great about Wes. Here’s my list. Sorry I’m not sorry that some of it’s silly.

1. Culture. This is a really big category. I’m going to focus in on a small part of it. When I moved back from Spain to the US (“the States” lol), a lot of my friends and my parents’ friends were moving back around the same time. And what a lot of them said was something along the lines of: I really can’t deal with how conservative and crazy it is here. In my hometown, I feel that conservative craziness. On CNN I feel it. In current legislation, oh baby do I feel it. But at Wesleyan, not so much. At Wesleyan it’s cool if you want to talk about feminism or global warming or atheism or how you’ve always wanted a mohawk or how secretly you’re a Marxist or Spanish poetry or anarchy or your mathematical theory of hats. Seriously, talk about everything. You’ll have the best conversations here. Last year I actually had someone hunt me down because he had “always wanted to have a conversation with a Marxist.” (Yep, I’m the secret Marxist. So what?)

2. Food! The food here is the best. I know everyone says that, but it’s totally true. Since you guys are probably hungry (or… are other people not always hungry?), I thought I’d do a list (a list within a list!) of my favorite Wesleyan food. Here we go:

• Veggie burgers (with cheddar) at Summerfields
• Quinoa with vegan curry sauce at Usdan
• Those awesome peanut butter/chocolate bars at Summerfields and Usdan
• Whatever the pasta special is at WesWings
• Anything at Star & Crescent (I’m in ADP, what can I say?)
• Ginger carrot soup at Usdan
• Latkes from the kosher section at Usdan
• Egg sandwiches at the Mongolian Grill (in Usdan) (Thursday nights)
• Sweet potato fries at Late Night
• Any specialty coffee drink from Pi
• Hot apple cider from Pi! This is so underrated!
• Those really awesome vegan cookies at Weshop
• Gummies from Weshop

That last one was 90% just an excuse to add in a picture of gummies that I took in 2010 (why?). If you weren’t hungry before, hopefully you are now. Also, sorry if you’re not a vegetarian. That was probably a little boring from you. But I’ve also had friends tell me they “accidentally became a vegan” because the vegan section at Usdan is just so good. There seem to be a ton of foodies at Wesleyan, which leads to a ton of food related facebooking and blogging. My favorite Wes food blog is Dorm Room Dinner, which did a funny post recently entitled “9 Burgers Inspired by the Republican Presidential Nominees.”

3. Music. Ohmygosh, the music. I heard that we used to be called the “singing college of New England.” And really, it’s still true. We have a ton of a cappella groups (between 10 and 13 I think?) and so many student bands that I can’t even keep track. Also, they’re pretty good. Not to mention, student groups bring in a ton of outside bands for various events. And if you’re not into that kind of stuff (or just wanna branch out), there’s classical, jazz, various international music, and experimental music. I am in two music groups: Cello Ensemble (which is a class) and Vocal Debauchery (so not a class), which are as different from each other as they can get. Because Cello Ensemble is six cellos playing cello-y music, and Vocal Debauchery is 13 singers/sketch comics singing and sketching some comedy (we tried to paint it once but… okay this joke is really old). That was a strange group of sentences. Whatever. We have an incredibly diverse music scene. Get ready to get in on it.

Here’s a very photoshopped picture of Vocal Debauchery (er, clearly) to get you started

4. Academics. Have I mentioned that this list is not in order of importance? Hey, @myprofessors. Anyway. Academics at Wesleyan are so fantastic. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love classes here. To give you guys a taste of what you’ll be learning/thinking about at Wes, here’s a list of some things I’ve done/written about for classes:

• analyzed the political belief system of one of my classmates (American Government & Politics)
• dissected a lot of things that you guys might think are really gross. Like a frog’s heart that was still beating. It was all really cool-looking though. I hear uteri are beautiful to dissect, but I’ll do that in med school. (Principles of Biology II Lab)
• disagreed with Thoreau and explained why (it’s hard) (Thoreau)
• used basic physics equations to figure out whether action sequences in movies like Indiana Jones are actually possible (Introductory Physics I)
• wrote a paper arguing that beverage culture is what unites Spaniards (Contemporary Europe)
• explored new techniques that could replace liver transplants (Developmental Biology)
• finally got my writing in Spanish to be at the same level as my writing in English (Introduction to Hispanic Literature)
• wrote a piece of creative nonfiction from the perspective of my guinea pig. You can read it here. (Techniques of Nonfiction)

The 20 classes I’ve experienced (I’m saying experienced so I can include the ones I’m currently taking) at Wesleyan have been amazing. The classes you’ll experience at Wesleyan will probably be really different, but also great. Right now I’m especially into the idea of classes because spring break is feeling really long and I miss them! I actually just asked my mom (a professor at a different school) if she could take me to her class tomorrow. LOL @ self. Moving on.

5. Our Greek Life. Please note that I didn’t say “Greek life in general” because that’s not what I like. What I like is Wesleyan’s Greek Life. Are you all with me? Cool. Okay. I actually partially chose Wesleyan (I didn’t mention this in my Why Wesleyan? blog post, but it’s true) because there were so few students involved with Greek stuff on campus. And then of course I end up in a society and expounding on the wonders of the Greek system. Also, by the way, the fact that it’s called Greek life bothers me too. Do I speak Greek? No. I don’t. My life is not Greek. Anyway. Cool stuff about Wes “Greek” life (there, that feels better, doesn’t it?):

• we have societies! Wesleyan has two co-ed societies, Eclectic and Alpha Delta Phi. I’m a member of the latter. Societies are very cool. Who wants to hang out with only their own gender anyway? (I’m biased)
• the frats are not that fratty. Some of my best friends are frat guys, but they’re not the type of frat guys you might be conjuring up in your heads. They’re a little geeky sometimes. They don’t always go out on the weekends. They maybe compose their own music or write screenplays instead. Because they’re not just frat guys, they’re Wesleyan frat guys.
• a group of women just started a sorority last year. It’s called Rho Epsilon Pi, and they started it because they wanted to. It’s not a national sorority, and you’ve probably never heard of it. But they’re a really cool group of female-identifying folks who looked at the current social options and decided that what they wanted was something different. So they created a sorority that’s not typical, and focuses a lot on academics and community service. Yay Rho Ep (oops, accidental smileyface)
• if there were to be a toga party, it would be ironic. That’s all.

6. Fashion.  Here’s where I’m gonna get a little sillier. And maybe this is really stereotypically girly of me. But I very much appreciate Wesleyan fashion. How do I know Wesleyan has great fashion sense? Because there’s a tumblr for it. And clearly if there’s a tumblr for something, it’s super legit. The actual reason I decided to include Fashion on this list though is that I was just hanging out on another college’s campus and was struck (and, ya know, a little horrified) by the amount of terrible fashion that was happening. There was a lot of athletic wear. A lot of Ugg boots. It just felt so oh-hey-I’m-a-lazy-college-kid-whatever that I was kinda freaked out. I’ve never really seen that at Wes. Which, since I’m being so condescending, isn’t to say that I don’t sometimes wish we had that. It would be cool if I felt comfortable wearing my PJ pants to my Monday night lab or going out on the weekend without changing out of whatever clothes I wore that day. But, ya know, there’s nothing wrong with Wesleyan being prettier than everyone else.

Tags: biology, Cade Leebron '14, congratulations, decisions, food, Government, love, Marxism, pre-frosh, reblogged, Spanish, voices blog