The stereotype that all Reed students ("Reedies") are ultra-liberal, gay (or at least bisexual), anti-American, potheads, and rich is grounded in fact, like most stereotypes. There are a lot of lesbians on campus, I don't know about gay men, but I suspect there are a similar number. I don't know percentages but I'd venture a guess at 20%. Political opinions are extremely liberal; the campus screamed opposition to Operation Infinite Justice. Posters read "NO WAR" and there were some similar postings inside the dorms. Students are politically concerned, most with human or civil rights, but there was a major event on AIDS while I was there, and also a meeting about the Reed Honor Principle. More on that later.

My dorm host was Greg, an economics major from Tennessee. Unlike most Reed students, Greg is fairly conservative, probably because he is from the south (which puts him in an extreme minority, 5%). However he still seemed to be enjoying himself at Reed which was very encouraging, because I have yet to discover the extent of my own liberal/left-leaning philosophies, even though I voted for Ralph Nader, who in retrospect, I would never put in the White House. I still don't particularly like Bush, but...ah, forget it...

This is a picture of one of the few triple rooms at Reed (and of Greg again), which is bare and stark because it is used mostly by visiting students like myself for overnights. Note how big it is, though...and this is only 1/3 of the room. I could not get the whole room into one picture, and you'll notice there is another room off the main room. It was really huge. Three people could easily share it.

The guy off to the left in the last picture is Yoni, who was visiting at the same time I was. Yoni is a few years out of high school and has been working for awhile, so it was interesting to hear his perspective on education. Curiously enough, he was also fairly conservative. Note the swanky couch.

I met a few other people while at Reed. I was interviewed by a girl who practices Shao-Lin Kung-Fu, given a tour by a student from Texas (you can't be THAT liberal in Texas) and ate lunch with a physics major who plays dungeons and dragons (hooray!).

One notable thing is that when I first walked into the dining hall, I recognized people from the viewbook. This says two things. First, I read the viewbook too many times. Secondly, it's damn cool that people in the viewbook are real students who I could talk to and eat with. When I start a propaganda campaign in the future, I will remember this lesson...