Newcomb College will always be remembered by art historians for the contributions of the art department at the turn of the last century. Newcomb pottery is some of the best regarded arts and crafts pottery, really beautiful stuff with a decided Southern flair.
In four days, I will officially be a first year at Mount Holyoke. Seeing them ranked so high on a college list such as that, which doesn't as heavily rely on mainly prestige and endowment (I'm looking at you, US News & World Report), is refreshing, and quite wonderful for my confidence.
I'm still fairly bitter about the entire college application process last year, as are many of my peers. We were the largest graduating class the US has ever had, and many of us applied to an exorbitant amount of schools (14 for me!). As a result, wait lists were huge, and financial aid was spread thin, which the economy didn't help at all.
To be honest, I'd be going to Reed this year if I'd been able to afford it, but they gave me very, VERY little in financial aid- apparently, they've also stopped doing need-blind admission.
In contrast, Mount Holyoke has given me a large scholarship that includes things like honors tutorials and funding for a summer internship.
24% of the students in my class are international; 25% are American minorities. MHC is known for being incredibly diverse, and I look forward to that. Yes, we obviously are majorly lacking in gender diversity, haha, but who really cares? Most of my friends in high school were male, sure, but it was more a result of similar interests and attitudes than my preferring men to women. Even so, most of the people I know- of both genders- were surprised that I was even applying to non-coed schools.
It's unbelievably frustrating, the sorts of attitudes people have towards women's colleges. Aside from the utterly condescending use of the phrase 'girl's school' instead of 'women's college', whether intended to mean that or not, people seem really weirded out by my going to a place where there are No Male Students or whatever. No, I'm not a lesbian. Yes, I'm a feminist, but no, I am not a man-hating, castration-free-for-all-advocating... feminazi, though I obviously, like, totally appreciate the immediate connection people have between those two concepts. For fuck's sake, I support equality, not superiority. People my age can be so infuriatingly idiotic towards feminism, or just having strong opinions on any issue at all. It's not even a case of being labelled, more so being lumped into a specific group. I'm attending a school without men? I'm obviously a lesbian. Or I hate men.
I chose to include women's colleges in my rather large batch of college applications because I'm comfortable with the idea, NOT because I don't want to be around men. I don't care THAT much that there won't be as many guys around, but I know they will be there. Contrary to popular opinion, there are, in fact, humans of the male persuasion within a ten male radius. Shockingly enough, MHC even has male professors. Like, OMG.
In addition, from what I've learned from researching during the college application process, many women's colleges have some sort of connection to coed schools. Mount Holyoke, for example, is part of the Five College Consortium- a significant part of my decision to apply. There will be men in some of my classes at MHC, and I fully intend to take advantage of the Consortium and take classes at other schools.
I'm going to a women's college because I want to feel more comfortable and self-confident in a classroom environment. I want to be surrounded by women who feel the same way. Sure, I like guys. But my going to a school that they cannot attend does not = forsaking the male gender and becoming a nun. I can, and will, have male friends while in college. I can, and will, date men during those four years. Why is that so difficult for people to understand?
I am going to college to decide what I want to do with my life, to explore different fields, and, most importantly, to learn, and that in no way requires the presence of males.
@HomicidalUnicorns: Sorry for the lateness (across the pond here)--but just so you know, people will never stop having stupid responses when you say you went to MHC. I was at a dinner last year with a Harvard Business School kid who actually asked me if I was a 'slut or a lesbian'. The difference is, after you've had an awesome four years (I hope!), you'll just laugh in the faces of arseholes like that, because you'll know they're only threatened by your awesomeness!
little irritated that my alma mater ranked 59th. wtf. and regarding women's colleges.... sometimes I regret not having gone to Bryn Mawr. then I remember that they don't have a football team or a music dept, and I can't even imagine my college years without playing in the band.
@andromache: Bryn Mawr shares a music department with Haverford, and they have an orchestra, multiple choirs, bands, etc. There are actually a couple of departments like that, shared across the two schools. (For instance, I went to Bryn Mawr, but majored at Haverford in Religion. I was actually president of the Bi-College Chorale, too!)
ETA: Oooooh, you mean marching band! Absolutely right; neither H'ford nor BMC had that. Very, very true.
I was fortunate enough to attend women's colleges for both my BA and MA (the MA program itself was co-ed, but based at a women's college). The experience of a small women's college is unrivalled and I dearly, dearly wish that more women could share in it. One of my goals in life is to return once again to the realm of women's colleges - this time as a professor (I'm wrapping up a PhD currently). I hope that Tulane is someday able to reverse their decision and reopen Newcomb.
This makes me incredibly sad. Women's colleges around the country are folding or going co-ed in large numbers (Randolph Macon and Hood both come to mind), and it's just such a shame.
There are so few places on earth where young women are the primary focus of an institution, the sole purpose for its existence. The experience of women's college was incredibly empowering for me (and I grew up with a feminist mother and already felt pretty damn empowered before attending) and for my fellow students. I wish it weren't such a rare privilege.
@queenieinmanhattan: Amen, sister. Almost 30 years after graduation, I still believe it was a phenomenal gift to spend four years in a place (Smith) where I wasn't a second-class citizen.
@AmbiguouslyGayUno: At least you won't be paying it off for the rest of your life! Although if you went to Tech I can see ground for being upset. :) There are very good and very bad things about teeny schools- while you certainly would have had a different experience, it's hard to say whether it would have been better for you.
I was one of the last graduates of Newcomb, and it broke my heart to hear that Tulane was closing it. Tulane managed to find money to keep up its decidedly mediocre football program, but not to keep up its amazing women's school. Naturally. Tulane's decision regarding Newcomb has really left me with some bitterness towards my alma mater.
It's always sad to lose a chunk of history like this. I would imagine that, due to Katrina, Tulane is in more dire economic straights, but colleges across the country are doing very poorly as well. I wonder if Newcomb might be a sort of canary-in-the-coal mine, and even big name women's colleges might become at risk in the future.
@maneki neko: I think there's a real divide between the smaller-name women's colleges and the top few. One side is really struggling, financially, while the other side is not (at least, wasn't before the recession). I might as well admit (since I have before on Jez!) that I'm a Wellesley alum, and just before the financial crisis the college declared in no uncertain terms that we had the resources to remain female-only--indeed, that our applications had skyrocketed in light of increasing competition for college places. Since then I think we lost about a quarter of our endowment, but I can't imagine Wellesley going co-ed, if only because alumni donations would surely dry up and Wellesley trades on its alumni successes (I'm now at a university that expects its alumni to trade on its name, and it's a very different kind of experience). It's so sad about Newcomb though. Women's colleges are amazing. Losing any one is a real blow both for women and for society as a whole--especially in a place like New Orleans, which needs everything it can get in terms of volunteerism and talent.
@Experiment626: Hahah I do miss firstclass sometimes. Kind of the way I miss finals--the way you miss something that used to drive you absolutely mental but somehow looks better in retrospect....
I wouldn't trade my women's college experience for anything. It made me a stronger, smarter, more ambitious and less bullshit-tolerating person.
My biggest pet peeve is when people ask me if Wellesley is "still" a women's college, as though it's a dated, fuddy-duddy thing to be a place where women can see themselves as PEOPLE for four years instead of WOMEN. This, to me, was the most valuable thing I got from my Wellesley experience, and it's also the hardest thing to explain to men, who rarely if ever have to experience themselves as a gender first and a person second.
@raptorclaws: I get this all the time and it drives me mental! I went to Wellesley in spite of it being a women's college and wound up adoring it. I wouldn't give up a minute, even the times on Thursday nights when you knew normal college students were having fun, but you were in the library hoping the vending machines in the reading room would have Cheetos.
It's stood me in fantastic stead in grad school; I'm the only woman who's willing to talk when I'm not 100% sure that I'm right. It just doesn't occur to me to censor myself for the sake of my image. So my colleagues tell me I'm obnoxious (half-jokingly); at least they know I'm in the damn room. The need for women's colleges is still extraordinarily real. In fact, one older guy actually said to me, 'You don't seem like the kind of woman who would need to go to a women's college to excel.' My response? 'That's because I went to a women's college.'
Oh Newcomb, how I miss you. I cried bitter, bitter tears when I got my letter that the college could not reopen after Katrina. It was like losing a friend.
While mourning this defeat to Newcomb, a very proud tradition in women's education, I have to say that Tulane University still contributes a great deal to the community and places a huge emphasis on service. Could they do more with Newcomb? Probably. But 90% of my volunteer experiences in New Orleans were sponsored by the university as a whole.
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
I'm still fairly bitter about the entire college application process last year, as are many of my peers. We were the largest graduating class the US has ever had, and many of us applied to an exorbitant amount of schools (14 for me!). As a result, wait lists were huge, and financial aid was spread thin, which the economy didn't help at all.
To be honest, I'd be going to Reed this year if I'd been able to afford it, but they gave me very, VERY little in financial aid- apparently, they've also stopped doing need-blind admission.
In contrast, Mount Holyoke has given me a large scholarship that includes things like honors tutorials and funding for a summer internship.
24% of the students in my class are international; 25% are American minorities. MHC is known for being incredibly diverse, and I look forward to that. Yes, we obviously are majorly lacking in gender diversity, haha, but who really cares? Most of my friends in high school were male, sure, but it was more a result of similar interests and attitudes than my preferring men to women. Even so, most of the people I know- of both genders- were surprised that I was even applying to non-coed schools.
It's unbelievably frustrating, the sorts of attitudes people have towards women's colleges. Aside from the utterly condescending use of the phrase 'girl's school' instead of 'women's college', whether intended to mean that or not, people seem really weirded out by my going to a place where there are No Male Students or whatever. No, I'm not a lesbian. Yes, I'm a feminist, but no, I am not a man-hating, castration-free-for-all-advocating... feminazi, though I obviously, like, totally appreciate the immediate connection people have between those two concepts. For fuck's sake, I support equality, not superiority. People my age can be so infuriatingly idiotic towards feminism, or just having strong opinions on any issue at all. It's not even a case of being labelled, more so being lumped into a specific group. I'm attending a school without men? I'm obviously a lesbian. Or I hate men.
I chose to include women's colleges in my rather large batch of college applications because I'm comfortable with the idea, NOT because I don't want to be around men. I don't care THAT much that there won't be as many guys around, but I know they will be there. Contrary to popular opinion, there are, in fact, humans of the male persuasion within a ten male radius. Shockingly enough, MHC even has male professors. Like, OMG.
In addition, from what I've learned from researching during the college application process, many women's colleges have some sort of connection to coed schools. Mount Holyoke, for example, is part of the Five College Consortium- a significant part of my decision to apply. There will be men in some of my classes at MHC, and I fully intend to take advantage of the Consortium and take classes at other schools.
I'm going to a women's college because I want to feel more comfortable and self-confident in a classroom environment. I want to be surrounded by women who feel the same way. Sure, I like guys. But my going to a school that they cannot attend does not = forsaking the male gender and becoming a nun. I can, and will, have male friends while in college. I can, and will, date men during those four years. Why is that so difficult for people to understand?
I am going to college to decide what I want to do with my life, to explore different fields, and, most importantly, to learn, and that in no way requires the presence of males.
09/03/09
It's just that, since I made my decision to attend MHC, People have just been SO dumb about it.
09/03/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
ETA: Oooooh, you mean marching band! Absolutely right; neither H'ford nor BMC had that. Very, very true.
09/02/09
09/02/09
There are so few places on earth where young women are the primary focus of an institution, the sole purpose for its existence. The experience of women's college was incredibly empowering for me (and I grew up with a feminist mother and already felt pretty damn empowered before attending) and for my fellow students. I wish it weren't such a rare privilege.
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
09/02/09
Wellesley here, too! Green class!
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
I wouldn't trade my women's college experience for anything. It made me a stronger, smarter, more ambitious and less bullshit-tolerating person.
My biggest pet peeve is when people ask me if Wellesley is "still" a women's college, as though it's a dated, fuddy-duddy thing to be a place where women can see themselves as PEOPLE for four years instead of WOMEN. This, to me, was the most valuable thing I got from my Wellesley experience, and it's also the hardest thing to explain to men, who rarely if ever have to experience themselves as a gender first and a person second.
09/03/09
It's stood me in fantastic stead in grad school; I'm the only woman who's willing to talk when I'm not 100% sure that I'm right. It just doesn't occur to me to censor myself for the sake of my image. So my colleagues tell me I'm obnoxious (half-jokingly); at least they know I'm in the damn room. The need for women's colleges is still extraordinarily real. In fact, one older guy actually said to me, 'You don't seem like the kind of woman who would need to go to a women's college to excel.' My response? 'That's because I went to a women's college.'
09/02/09
09/02/09
While mourning this defeat to Newcomb, a very proud tradition in women's education, I have to say that Tulane University still contributes a great deal to the community and places a huge emphasis on service. Could they do more with Newcomb? Probably. But 90% of my volunteer experiences in New Orleans were sponsored by the university as a whole.