Alternative Colleges

[novemba]

Does anyone know of any good colleges or university worth looking into? I'm looking for something cutting edge/avante garde with good programs in philosphy/politics/human studies. Maybe like a Bauhaus for communist studies. Just any suggestions would be nice. Thanks.

[novemba]

bump-bump-bump it up!

boo doo doo doo do da dooooo

[codyvo]

http://www.ncf.edu/
Check this out, it is somewhat near where I live, and it is a great school from what I hear. It is also full of leftists so says a teacher of mine's son.
Also, look for schools that have Marxist theory classes I know some do, just not sure which ones.

[Entrails Konfetti]

New College doesn't have a grading system...if you care about grades,this isn't the school for you. I visited the campus when my sister was looking at schools,its a pretty nice school though.

I think this school is pretty expensive.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 04:57 PM
http://www.ncf.edu/
Check this out, it is somewhat near where I live, and it is a great school from what I hear. It is also full of leftists so says a teacher of mine's son.
Also, look for schools that have Marxist theory classes I know some do, just not sure which ones.
Marxist theory classes? Does anyone know which colleges have these (certainly none of the colleges who have sent me their bullshit)? If you know a college that offers the course, but it's expensive, fuck it. I'm poor!

[Donnie]

When I was at college I choose the subject Politics, in that subject we studied Ideologies and the government process. Here are some of the Ideologies we covered:

* Liberalism. Which included Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism, we also studied the social contract theory as well.
* Conservatism
* Marxism. When we studied Marxism we covered Leninism, Trotskyism and Social Democracy
* Anarchism. This covered Mutualism, Syndicalism and Communism (this is how I got into Anarchism, at the time I was a Marxist)
* Feminism. Which covered Radical, Socialist and Liberal
* Nationalism.
* Fascism

However the course I did came with a catch for the 1st year of college I had to study the government and its main political parties which was really really dull!

But in the second year we studied the above which was great.

[Organic Revolution]

berkley?

[which doctor]

i heard Oberlin College in ohio is pretty cool. according to an Aberlin student, "a young republicans club would have trouble finding members" or something like that. Cal-Berkely i supposed to be pretty cool but it can get expensive if your not super smart or a cool california surfer dude or chick

[FatFreeMilk]

University Of California Riverside actually has a Marxist Studies minor. woohoo check check it out : crazy commies! (http://www.marxiststudies.ucr.edu/)

UC Berkley is a total commie campus. I've never seen anything like that place before.

Oberlin has lots of activists too but I'm sorry there's probably nothing much in Ohio.


Cal-Berkely i supposed to be pretty cool but it can get expensive if your not super smart or a cool california surfer dude or chick
Actually you just have to be pretty freaking smart to get in. The only people it could be expensive for is out of state students, but don't let the cost stop you- for any school that you want to go to!

[Pawn Power]

but don't let the cost stop you- for any school that you want to go to!

except for the cost...

[Paradox]

UC Berkley is a total commie campus. I've never seen anything like that place before.

Yeah, I hear that it is. But, some people have told me that UC Santa Cruz is even more so.


University Of California Riverside actually has a Marxist Studies minor. woohoo check check it out : crazy commies!

Sounds good. Maybe I could do that while waiting for residency before transfering to another UC campus. Or do they have a medical program?

But that's a couple of years from now. I still gotta finish Community College back in Texas.

[FatFreeMilk]

except for the cost...

Listen, if you look hard enough you can always get financial aid. And you should apply for every scholarship you are eligible for too. FAFSA gives out money too depending on how badly you need it.



Yeah, I hear that it is. But, some people have told me that UC Santa Cruz is even more so.
I've been to UC Santa Cruz and it has nothing on Berkley. If you'd rather hang with goths, go there.

I'm pretty sure UCR has a medical program but look at this (http://www.ucr.edu/academic.html) to see what if they have what you're looking for.

[redstar2000]

UC-Berkeley is really hard to get in to and very expensive for out-of-state students...in addition to which Berkeley itself is very expensive to live in...you may find yourself having to live in northern Oakland.

You might want to look into Antioch -- the Yellow Springs, Ohio campus is like three blocks of Telegraph Avenue in the middle of 500 square miles of cornfields...but they also have a new campus in Los Angeles.

If freezing winters are no problem for you, there are several small private liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts and one in New Hampshire that supposedly provide a friendly atmosphere for lefties. Swarthmore in Philly is also supposed to be pretty decent.

The problem with all these "good schools" is that they are also expensive as hell.

A recent article in The Economist said that the median family income for students that attend Harvard is $150,000/year. :o

Probably not all that much less for these other places. :(

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[FatFreeMilk]

A recent article in The Economist said that the median family income for students that attend Harvard is $150,000/year.
That doesn't mean anything though, really. Most of the kids who get into Stanford are loaded too, but that's actually good for poor students in a way. The school has a ton of money to give out in aid.


Also for an out of state student the tuition for UC Berkeley is $12,626.95 per semester, in state it's $ 3,716.95. That's nothinng compared to a private school where it can easily be like $40,000 at like Pepperdine (which is the furthest from a leftist campus you can get, besides Brigham). But unless you're family is loaded, you will most likley not pay the full price!

And hey you can always stay in a Co-Op if you go to Berkeley. I've been in one that was like right across from People's Park, but let me tell you, it was really ghetto!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Well, Bikini Kill formed at Evergreen State in Washington . . .
I mean, more than that, from what I know, it's a very progressive if not radical-proper school.
You may also want to think about hassling Grandpa Bookchin at ISE if you've got the *rubs fingers together*.

If you want to save a shitload of money, even as an international student, you might want to look into Concordia University in Montreal, or, beter still, if you speak French, you might fit in with the rather radically inclined students of Universitie Quebec A Montreal (Unfortunately, I have no idea what the faculty are like . . .).

[PrideoftheProletariat]

Any colleges in Florida you guys reccomend that I check out?

[which doctor]

maybe new college of florida, NCF

[Guest_Another]

Bump.

I'm currently a grade twelve student residing in Ottawa and chosing a decent college/university is swift becoming one of my prime concerns.

[Nachie]

Evergreen State in WA
Hampshire College in MA
Sarah Lawrence in NY(?)
Institute for Social Ecology(ISE) in VT

You're better off not going to any of them, IMO. Exception is maybe the ISE but I also don't know how much they're charging these days. Course I'm a dropout myself and nobody is gonna make me change my mind.

[novemba]

howard has wonderful social science classes

[Ultra-Violence]

also check out UCLA'S labor center and CSUN has a cool central america center and i so wanna go to berkely but dam it i dont got good grades or money :( also UC santa cruz is great aaahhhhhhh damit wish i didint fuck around so much.......................... HOORAY FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES!

[Robert Harman]

Warren wilson college. There are a huge number of communists, socialists, and anarchists here. If a republican or a capitalist supporting human being came here they would have to fear for their lives. Some of the teachers here are communist too. The college is run like a commune, its amazing. Check it out. Trust me you will like it if your leftist.

[novemba]

i looked into warren wilson, i actually live in NC

can you tell us what its like...i want a personal opinion...

[Urban Rubble]

I know people mentioned Evergreen State College in Washington, but it's a good one. I have many friends that love it there. I'd be going myself but it's a little too far from Seattle for me.

[Robert Harman]

Warren Wilson is an amazing place. Every student here is required to work at least 15 hours a week in various jobs. Such as cafeteria, department assistants, landscaping, construction. The place is pretty much maintained and run by students. The college also requires you to do community service. And it is also a really small college, roughly 800 students. So you get small classes and you get to know and hang out with your teachers. Also the school organizes busses to protests and political events such as september 24ths protests, they are sending kids to SOA this year too.

[novemba]

so what the fuck is the deal with the tuition...?

im not gonna pay a ridiculous price to go there and work for them...!

do they pay you back?

[Robert Harman]

Yes they take it out of your tuition. But the work isn't much. It's only like 15 hours a week. But your missing the point, the work your doing, is parting of the learning experience. Don't be so greedy. Not only will you learn insane amounts of stuff, you will be keeping your community, the place you live, functioning and beutiful. And the tuition ends up being like 20,000. But most kids here get most of that paid with financial aid. They give alot here. So don't worry about tution.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by Robert [email protected] 4 2005, 08:56 PM
Yes they take it out of your tuition. But the work isn't much. It's only like 15 hours a week. But your missing the point, the work your doing, is parting of the learning experience. Don't be so greedy. Not only will you learn insane amounts of stuff, you will be keeping your community, the place you live, functioning and beutiful. And the tuition ends up being like 20,000. But most kids here get most of that paid with financial aid. They give alot here. So don't worry about tution.
its in ashville nc? wow, im gonna have to come check this place out as i live a few hours away. ive always heard ashville had a good leftist community, any info on it?

[Patchy]

Heh, this sounds sweet. Anything in Canada?

[Robert Harman]

There are thousands of letists, hippies, weirdos, everything in asheville. And it's in the south. Which mean the leftists here aren't all trust fund kids. And its much easier to be politically active here. As there are alot of political issues dealing with race and economics here.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by Robert [email protected] 5 2005, 11:58 AM
There are thousands of letists, hippies, weirdos, everything in asheville. And it's in the south. Which mean the leftists here aren't all trust fund kids. And its much easier to be politically active here. As there are alot of political issues dealing with race and economics here.
im just wondering why that scene is in ashville, not charlotte or raleigh. but yeah, ill let you know if im gonna visit there, maybe we could meet up.

[HoorayForTheRedBlackandGreen]

http://encarta.msn.com/college_article_Lib...l_Colleges.html (http://encarta.msn.com/college_article_LiberalColleges/Top_10_Politically_Liberal_Colleges.html)

although it says liberal, these may be a good bet.

[novemba]

And the tuition ends up being like 20,000.

eh, 20,000, no biggie.</sarcasm>

?&#33;?&#33;?&#33;?&#33;?&#33;?&#33;

[sjohnson]

I go to a school called Shimer College in Chicago. it&#39;s a really great school for people looking alternative ed. It&#39;s governed democratically, students even serve on the board of trustees, and the classes are done in discussions instead of lectures. It&#39;s a small, close knit community and everybody knows each other. you know all your profs (we call them facilitators) and there&#39;s never more than twelve students in a class. It&#39;s also a great books curriculum, which means we don&#39;t use textbooks, so you can form your own opinion about marx or machiavelli without being told what to think by lecturers or textbook editors. And shimer doesn&#39;t care about tests, we don&#39;t have them in class and they aren&#39;t required for admittance. They have an early entrant program, and an every-third-weekend program for working adults. It&#39;s my second year at shimer and i think it&#39;s really an amazing place, like nothing i&#39;ve ever seen. Here&#39;s shimer&#39;s mission statement, taken from shimer.edu:

The mission of Shimer College is education —education for active citizenship in the world. Education is more than the acquisition of factual knowledge or the mastery of vocational skills. It is the process leading away from passivity, beyond either unquestioning acceptance of authority or its automatic mistrust, and towards informed, responsible action

In short, Shimer is awesome and truly unique. It&#39;s a great education without having to deal with the pretentious assholes you&#39;d probably find at a school with a similar academic rigor. And it really develops you as a critically thinking person, and not just a swallower of facts. and its accredited so your parents won&#39;t freak out. yay shimer.

[Rawthentic]

I think that I have it good then. Im near Monterey, California, 2 hours away from Berkely. One of the main colleges that Ive been looking into is Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, mainly because Im a Free People&#39;s Movement member and there is a big branch there. Trinity costs a shitload though.

[lithium]

:( Why doesn&#39;t the US have free education?

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 04:49 PM
I go to a school called Shimer College in Chicago. it&#39;s a really great school for people looking alternative ed. It&#39;s governed democratically, students even serve on the board of trustees, and the classes are done in discussions instead of lectures. It&#39;s a small, close knit community and everybody knows each other. you know all your profs (we call them facilitators) and there&#39;s never more than twelve students in a class. It&#39;s also a great books curriculum, which means we don&#39;t use textbooks, so you can form your own opinion about marx or machiavelli without being told what to think by lecturers or textbook editors. And shimer doesn&#39;t care about tests, we don&#39;t have them in class and they aren&#39;t required for admittance. They have an early entrant program, and an every-third-weekend program for working adults. It&#39;s my second year at shimer and i think it&#39;s really an amazing place, like nothing i&#39;ve ever seen. Here&#39;s shimer&#39;s mission statement, taken from shimer.edu:

The mission of Shimer College is education —education for active citizenship in the world. Education is more than the acquisition of factual knowledge or the mastery of vocational skills. It is the process leading away from passivity, beyond either unquestioning acceptance of authority or its automatic mistrust, and towards informed, responsible action

In short, Shimer is awesome and truly unique. It&#39;s a great education without having to deal with the pretentious assholes you&#39;d probably find at a school with a similar academic rigor. And it really develops you as a critically thinking person, and not just a swallower of facts. and its accredited so your parents won&#39;t freak out. yay shimer.
I&#39;ve actualy really considered Shimer and their Early Entrance program for high schoolers. I would love to go there, but it&#39;s my reactionary parents that need the convincing. I would so much love to go there.

[Rawthentic]

Ive been looking into Shimer College, it seems very interesting, and Im now thinking of going there. Im a junior in high school now. Hey sjohnson, what revolutionary organizations are in Chicago? Thats something Im looking into as well.

FoB, where do you live? What grade are you in? If you do decide to go to Shimer send me a PM so that we can discuss whats going down.

[midnight marauder]

I&#39;m a junior in high school as well and both my parents and myself have been seriously looking into Shimer and their high school program. Thanks for the great advice, sjohnson, and everyone else in this topic.

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 06:32 PM
Ive been looking into Shimer College, it seems very interesting, and Im now thinking of going there. Im a junior in high school now. Hey sjohnson, what revolutionary organizations are in Chicago? Thats something Im looking into as well.

FoB, where do you live? What grade are you in? If you do decide to go to Shimer send me a PM so that we can discuss whats going down.
I&#39;m a junior in high school. I live about two hours west of Chicago and Shimer.

I don&#39;t think there are a lot of good organizations in Chicago, a lot of single-issue causes there. A few collectives though. It&#39;s hard to imagine a city like chicago with such radical roots is so starved for action today. I might not go to Shimer, but I am looking into other chi-town schools like University of Chicago.

[sjohnson]

i decided to greatly edit this post. it was long winded and fanatical.

anyway, chicago has active politics. i&#39;m not active so i&#39;m no expert, but i&#39;m sure chicago can furnish a revolutionary leftist with enough info/community support to keep that person busy.

and shimers amazing anyhow

i think those were my two main points

[shhh]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2006, 04:01 PM
I might not go to Shimer, but I am looking into other chi-town schools like University of Chicago.


What do you want to do with your education? What do you want to study? U of C is known for its physicists, Shimer is known for its philosophers.

U of Chicago= pay &#036;&#036;&#036;&#036; for the prestige of a name brand diploma, be taught by grad students

Shimer=pay &#036;&#036; to have round-table discussions involving the most radical thinkers of all time, be closely mentored by the faculty

p.s., Hi sjohnson&#33; :-)

[YSR]

Yo, Macalester in Minnesota (where I go) has something of a radical tradition, even though that&#39;s quickly being overcome by this bullshit "one-world government" liberalism that is so en vogue on the left-wing of the Democratic party right now. Kofi Annan is an alumnist, so that really stokes the liberals ego.

Anyhow, despite the pricetag, they give out really great aid (I&#39;m paying the same as the price for a state school) and some of the departments are really radical. I know the American Studies profs are radicals and I&#39;ve been told the Cultural Studies and Women/Gender/Sexual Studies folks are strong leftists.

Also, this may function as a call for more leftists to come here. I know two other anarchos and they&#39;re both seniors :(

[which doctor]

Originally posted by shhh+Sep 19 2006, 12:17 AM--> (shhh @ Sep 19 2006, 12:17 AM)
[email protected] 17 2006, 04:01 PM
I might not go to Shimer, but I am looking into other chi-town schools like University of Chicago.


What do you want to do with your education? What do you want to study? U of C is known for its physicists, Shimer is known for its philosophers.

U of Chicago= pay &#036;&#036;&#036;&#036; for the prestige of a name brand diploma, be taught by grad students

Shimer=pay &#036;&#036; to have round-table discussions involving the most radical thinkers of all time, be closely mentored by the faculty

p.s., Hi sjohnson&#33; :-) [/b]
I&#39;d like to study Anthropology, with an emphasis on pre-industrial gift economies.