Oberlin....honest opinion please!

[shastanarnia]

I'm trying to get a feel for the suitability of Oberlin as a potential college for my DD. She became enamored by it during college searches, and we're about to make a 14 hour round trip visit for "interview days" next week.

 

I've seen several posts describing Oberlin as "very liberal". I'm wondering if I can get more of a feel as to what it is about it that makes it that way. Will she fit in at all...she likes to express "different views" of things, but still her worldview is Christian.

 

She's also considering some other colleges such as Vassar and Haverford. I'm just wondering about spending the gas money and time to make the trip to Oberlin? Any info. will be helpful.

 

Thanks

[creekland]

Oberlin, Havorford, and Vassar are all described on the Right Guide to College located here:

 

http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=892be781-af52-4dfe-ba25-c179ff14d832. You used to be able to get 3 free reports by using the code 3FREE, but I don't know if they still do that as we have a subscription.

 

This guide is useful for people with a conservative, but not necessarily Christian, point of view. I also know some liberal families who use it looking for almost the exact opposite of what we're looking for. The student life section of each place is interesting to read.

 

It's not difficult to look up places at a larger bookstore or some libraries have the book if you're on a budget. I subscribed because I have three boys who all were, are, or will be looking at colleges and we use it more than I felt comfortable doing for "free." I also took advantage of the 3Free code first to be certain I liked what we were reading.

 

Not all schools are on there, but many popular ones are.

 

Another option many people like for student life is the Fiske Guide, but it's not as useful for political issues IMO. It is useful just to help get the vibe of a place and it reports on more schools than the Right Guide.

[mcconnellboys]

It's a good school, but it is pretty liberal.

 

Here's some info.:

 

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/oberlin-college/782424-exactly-how-liberal-oberlin.html

 

You have other very good private liberal arts colleges in your area that are not as liberal as Oberlin. What major is your daughter interested in? Oberlin has a great music conservatory. It is also very strong in English....

[Beth in OH]

I've known quite a few kids who have considered or attended Oberlin. It is very liberal, and the student body will on the whole, not be particularly welcoming of conservative views. That having been said, the Conservatory students tend to have a broader range of liberal vs. conservative views. They have a common experience that transcends political/social views.

 

Perhaps your daughter might be looking for something new? Sometimes it's worth a visit just to help your student refine the search.

[Chris in VA]

Tho its rep isn't as strong as Oberlin's, you might consider Mt. Union. It's not nearly as liberal.

[kokotg]

DH went to Oberlin, and I lived there for a year after I graduated. Definitely very liberal. I don't consider "liberal" and "Christian" to be opposites, though ;). But I think that someone with conservative political views would feel very out of place there...unless they just liked to argue a lot. It's actually one thing I didn't like about Oberlin, even though I fit in very well there, politically: I think college is somewhere where you should have your assumptions and viewpoints challenged, rather than it being a safe bubble where everyone agrees with you.

[JFSinIL]

Look at the course catalog and list of majors. ;)

 

I didn't show this school to ds. Enough other good school out there not so - off-the-wall.

[shastanarnia]

thanks for all your help! we have postponed our visit until we decide whether or not to apply later in the year!

[FlockOfSillies]

Off the wall? What the heck does that mean? Sounds a bit mean-spirited and snarky to me, imo.

 

I fail to understand how it's "mean-spirited and snarky" to encourage someone to investigate what a college actually teaches by obtaining the

college's own documents rather than relying on others' opinions alone.

 

Sounds like JFS's post hit a little too close to home.

 

Oberlin is a school. I'd like to think that the people who run said school can handle the fact that some find it "too this" or "too that." They might even consider it a badge of honor in certain cases. If the issue you're having is that you really like Oberlin's worldview and you object to hearing it called "off-the-wall," then may I suggest thick-skin transplants? ;)

 

Here are their Majors:

African American Studies

Anthropology

Arabic (see French and Italian)

 

Archeological Studies

 

Art History

 

Biochemistry

Biology

 

Business

Chemistry

 

Chinese Language, Literature, and Culture

 

Cinema Studies

 

Classics

 

Cognitive Sciences

 

Comparative American Studies

 

Comparative Literature

 

Computer Science

 

Creative Writing

 

Dance

East Asian Studies

 

Economics

 

Engineering Program, 3-2

 

English

 

Environmental Studies

 

French

Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

 

Geology

 

German

 

German Studies

 

Greek Language and Literature

 

Hispanic Studies

 

 

History

 

Individual Major

 

Interdisciplinary Performance

 

International Studies

 

Italian

 

Japanese Language and Literature

 

Jewish Studies

 

Latin Language and Literature

 

Latin American Studies

Law and Society

 

Mathematics

 

Middle East and North African Studies

 

Musical Studies / Double Degree

Neuroscience

 

Peace and Conflict Studies

 

 

Philosophy

 

Physics & Astronomy

 

Politics

 

Pre-Professional Careers: Education

Pre-Professional Careers: Law

Pre-Professional Careers: Premed

Psychology

 

Religion

 

Rhetoric and Composition

 

Russian Language

 

Russian and Eastern European Studies

 

Sociology

 

Spanish

Studio Art

 

Theater

 

Third World Studies

Visual Art

 

I count 62 majors with 17 (27%) containing the word "studies." As a general rule, the word "studies" in the title of a college major is shorthand for "Political Correctness and Left-Wing Thinking." Now, that is what some people are looking for. The OP is not. (The real-world employability of college graduates with said degrees is an open question.)

 

As JFS mentioned, the majors are only part of the picture. To gauge the level of "off-the-wallness," you look at the catalog to see what courses are actually offered in those majors, what they cover, and what perspective they take. Is "Russian Studies" primarily "Russian History"? Is "Musical Studies" a fancy name for a standard music degree, or is it a degree where you talk a lot about music, but perform little or no music? You don't know until you look at the catalog.

[JFSinIL]

Some of the courses ( with descriptions copied from the catalog for a couple of them) offered in the Oberlin catalog (I thought Queer Studies was a major last time I looked a couple years ago - do not see it now) :

 

AAST 240 - How to Win a Beauty Pageant: Race, Gender, Culture, and U.S. National Identity

"This course examines US beauty pageants from the 1920s to the present. Our aim will be to analyze pageantry as a unique site for the interplay of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation. We will learn about cultural studies methodology, including close reading, cultural history, critical discourse analysis, and ethnography, and use those methods to understand the changing identity of the US over time. This course includes a field visit to a pageant in Ohio. "

 

 

ANTH 234 - Grave Matters: The Archaeology of Death, Decay, and Discovery

 

CAST 211 - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Identities

 

• CAST 230 - Ghosts and Haunting in the Americas

 

• CAST 311 - Militarization of American Daily Life

 

• CLAS 201 - Magic & Mystery Ancient World

 

• CRWR 296 - Books Behaving Badly: Narrative Innovations

 

ENGL 388 - Selected Authors: Salman Rushdie

"This course will focus on the fictional and non-fictional oeuvre of one of the most prominent Anglophone writers of our time – Salman Rushdie. Class discussions will seek to contextualize (and be contextualized by) a host of theoretical/cultural concepts deriving from postcolonial studies – like hybridity, mongrelization, migration, cosmopolitanism, national allegory – with which Rushdie’s work is associated or seen as exemplifying in particularly accurate and cogent ways. The course will be reading-intensive and require significant student engagement. British, Diversity, Post-1900. "

 

Sorry - but to me (PhD ABD Northwestern University - dissertation never finished thanks to twins, one with autism, MA UCLA etc.) this entry smacks of the worst of academic babblespeak. Some professor is "doing work" on Rushdie and got a course out of it. I had enough profs. like that at NU and UCLA.

 

FYSP 085 - Karma

 

• HIST 265 - American Sexualities

 

• HIST 457 - U.S. Gay, Lesbian and Transgender History

 

• SOCI 224 - Sociology of Sport

 

OK - some classes have catchy titles but after clicking on them to see a brief description they do look like solid college courses. BUT - there are many that seem to reflex a professor's field of interest more than exist as a soild part of a core undergrad. curriculum. If an undergrad needed to take one history class, for example, would you want them taking a course on one of the above to satisfy that requirement? Oberlin just has too many off-the-wall courses. Please really LOOK at the catalog and LOOK at the COURSES in your student's potential major - not just a list of majors offered.

[Grace is Sufficient]

Please really LOOK at the catalog and LOOK at the COURSES in your student's potential major - not just a list of majors offered.

 

 

The instructor of a computer class my son took suggested this, and I think it was very helpful. So much information is online now that it was not difficult -- though it was time consuming -- for us to find the suggested course list for his major, as well as, for most if not all the schools, the course descriptions, too.

 

We cut/pasted all this stuff into MS Word docs, and he was able to choose which schools to apply to based on the content of the courses.

 

I definitely recommend this approach to help narrow the applications pool.

 

Blessings,

Debbie

[Ewe Mama]

My family lives just outside of Oberlin (our mailing address is Oberlin, but we are technically in a township).

 

I walk into town once in a while and enjoy the small college town ambiance. It's a quaint place, but it's not a very popular place to be a more conservative Christian.

 

A few of the Oberlin students make the trek to our church on Sunday mornings (half an hour away) because they say they can't find a church in town where they feel able to truly worship God rather than become part of a political statement/movement for a very different lifestyle (than a more conservative Christian would be looking for.) If your dd is more liberal in her relationship with God and people, then she might do well there.

 

If you have any specific questions, please feel free to PM me.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Sheep Lady Mama
typo

[J-rap]

I believe it is quite liberal, but if your daughter is strong in her faith and confident in who she is, she may not have a problem with it. On the other hand, what might sound appealing at first might be the same thing that begins to wear her down over time.

 

My son attended a very liberal college (for awhile), and he very much felt the Lone Ranger there -- ha ha. At the same time, he felt some of the teachers were fantastic and met some really good people. He felt it was the right place to be...and yet...over time, I know he became a bit lonely. I know he became a stronger person as a result.

[elizabeth]

If the offer of a scholarship comes our way and it looks like it might, we would be honored to have our dd attend. It is after all, Quaker in origin. I really should reconsider as she might be led to reject violence, poverty and ignorance. Good gravy wouldn't that be just awful?! :lol::001_huh:

http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/12/02/arts/article3.html

[kokotg]

If the offer of a scholarship comes our way and it looks like it might, we would be honored to have our dd attend. It is after all, Quaker in origin. I really should reconsider as she might be led to reject violence, poverty and ignorance. Good gravy wouldn't that be just awful?! :lol::001_huh:

http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/12/02/arts/article3.html

 

It was actually founded by Presbyterians...but I didn't meet a whole lot of Calvinists while I was there :D

 

You know...I thought I remembered that Oberlin had Congregationalist roots, but when I googled Wikipedia told me Presbyterians...but then I found this in the Oberlin archives:

 

The Oberlin Collegiate Institute and the colony of Oberlin were established by John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart in 1833. Although essentially a religious community, they did not organize a church until September 13, 1834, when the First Church of Christ in Oberlin was founded.

 

Initially, the church was affiliated with the Cleveland Presbytery in accordance with a plan made early in the century whereby Congregationalists agreed to place themselves under the Presbyterian hierarchy during frontier settlement as a means of maintaining some level of control over religion on the frontier. The Oberlin church, however, soon parted company with the Presbytery because of the Oberlinians' desire for complete autonomy and the Presbyterians' unhappiness with revivalism, Asa Mahan's doctrine of "perfectionism," and the colonists' anti-slavery activism. By 1836, the break was complete. The church in Oberlin renamed itself the First Congregational Church and led the way in establishing the Association of Congregational Churches of the Western Reserve. That year was a landmark year for another reason as well: the famous evangelist, Charles Grandison Finney, accepted the pastorate of the church in addition to his new teaching responsibilities in Oberlin College's Theological Seminary.

 

So I guess it was actually founded in some sort of unhappy union of Presbyterianism and Congregationalism.

[JennyD]

If the offer of a scholarship comes our way and it looks like it might, we would be honored to have our dd attend. It is after all, Quaker in origin. I really should reconsider as she might be led to reject violence, poverty and ignorance. Good gravy wouldn't that be just awful?! :lol::001_huh:

http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/12/02/arts/article3.html

 

I don't think that Oberlin is of Quaker origin, actually, although it has a lot in common with places like Haverford and Swarthmore, which are.

[stripe]

I know it was the first in the world to admit women and black students for regular programs. It had a strong involvement with the Underground Railroad. There is a conservatory, so I imagine their music program is quite good. I've never been there but almost went to a summer language program in high school.

[Medstudent]

I fail to understand how it's "mean-spirited and snarky" to encourage someone to investigate what a college actually teaches by obtaining the

college's own documents rather than relying on others' opinions alone.

 

Sounds like JFS's post hit a little too close to home.

 

Oberlin is a school. I'd like to think that the people who run said school can handle the fact that some find it "too this" or "too that." They might even consider it a badge of honor in certain cases. If the issue you're having is that you really like Oberlin's worldview and you object to hearing it called "off-the-wall," then may I suggest thick-skin transplants? ;)

 

 

 

I count 62 majors with 17 (27%) containing the word "studies." As a general rule, the word "studies" in the title of a college major is shorthand for "Political Correctness and Left-Wing Thinking." Now, that is what some people are looking for. The OP is not. (The real-world employability of college graduates with said degrees is an open question.)

 

As JFS mentioned, the majors are only part of the picture. To gauge the level of "off-the-wallness," you look at the catalog to see what courses are actually offered in those majors, what they cover, and what perspective they take. Is "Russian Studies" primarily "Russian History"? Is "Musical Studies" a fancy name for a standard music degree, or is it a degree where you talk a lot about music, but perform little or no music? You don't know until you look at the catalog.

 

In my experience from having majored in a "Studies" major myself (and my friends having done the same) is that all it really means is that it's an interdisciplinary major, meaning that many of your classes will span throughout the curriculum and not be limited to one subject. It adds breadth to your course of studies and makes it a lot more interesting by integrating information from many different subjects. Not sure how that's a liberal conspiracy.

 

Academia itself has a liberal slant no matter where you go. I want to point out though that there's a (big) difference between social liberals and die-hard, fiscal and social liberals. Many of the people I've come across in academia have been socially liberal but fiscally conservative. Translation: they don't think gay people are the devil's handiwork, they feel that an open-minded, self-motivated education is more important than blind indoctrination, and they believe in the all-important power of science and evidence-based thinking. But, in terms of fiscal policies, they take a more conservative approach. Frankly it makes no sense to me to have a Professor who is a true staunch social conservative. Bias has no place in education.

 

My college had a huge international student population and most people went abroad at some point. There was a very present conservative faction of students, but I can't imagine that they were terribly socially conservative, especially not after graduating. Being surrounded by people with very different backgrounds and viewpoints has a way of making you realize that maybe they're not as bad as you thought. It makes you realize our viewpoints aren't/shouldn't be black and white, they should be shades of gray. I think that's an essential part of education- for your thoughts to be challenged, for you to learn from your surroundings and the people around you.

[Tullia]

...Academia itself has a liberal slant no matter where you go....Bias has no place in education....

 

Not sure that academia is totally liberal everywhere. No doubt it's the prevailing philosophy at a majority of institutions, but I think it's a stretch to say it's exclusively so.

 

Perhaps as you say that there's no place for bias in education, but if all bias were to be removed one might find oneself left with nothing but a random collection of facts. Context matters. We seem to live in an era ruled by sound bytes and shorthand categorizing, but IME educational principles, political affiliation and personal life choices don't always sort themselves neatly into the prevailing LofC and RoC stereotypes.

 

OTOH, I've always thought Texas A&M was a bit off the wall...but there are a lot of "tea sippers" in my family which probably accounts for my irrational prejudice. :auto:

 

ETA: To address the OP I have a family member who graduated from Oberlin in the mid '80's who is Christian but politically left of center. My impression is that the whole point of the Oberlin experience is to get beyond stereotypes and really think about things.

Edited July 25, 2011 by Martha in NM

[Tullia]

Tell me where she said it's "totally liberal everywhere" and "exclusively so". I don't think that's what the term, slant, means.

And yes, A&M can be off the wall. I hated it. My dorm was extremely racist, and the nearest male dorm had a Confederate flag in nearly every other window. But that's another story....

 

I was simply making an observation from my own pov and with a bit of Sam Johnson style "talking for effect" thrown in--I'm not aware of having misquoted her post, though. Maybe I should have carried over the whole thing.

 

But, good grief, I was teasing the Aggies among is in a loving way. Sorry you had a bad experience at A&M, but I don't believe what you describe is typical. A&M is a big place. There are bound to be a few jerks anywhere, but no one uni has that market cornered.