clearly remember the day I received my notification of my acceptance to Muhlenberg College. The letter arrived in a cream-colored envelope on an icy November day. I tore the letter open in a frenzy, scanned over the words and screeched like a pterodactyl, "Mom! I was accepted to Muhlenberg!" The next few months were filled with a build-up of expectations about what college would be like.
Stereotypes occur when generalities are made about certain groups or categories of people or objects. The social learning theory is responsible for explaining how stereotypes are formed. People learn stereotypes from their parents. The cognitive psychology on the categorization process gives insight as to how stereotypes are formed by children.
he word "college" conjures up images of harried students lugging around copies of Plato's Republic, bemoaning "The Man" and using their youthful spirit to rally against social injustice. As proud as I am of Muhlenberg College, creatures like these are an endangered species here--tomes get replaced with tabloids, accessorized with Starbucks' Grande-Mocha-Cappuccino-with-Soy-Please-I-Hate-Milk; questions of social justice are as popular as Ashlee Simpson post-Saturday Night Live.
While Muhlenberg enjoys an unusual degree of religious diversity (34 percent of our students are Catholic, 28 percent Jewish, eight percent Lutheran, etc.), ethnic diversity has been a larger challenge. Still, progress has been made on this front as well.
Muhlenberg, like many other colleges, is viewed as a "liberal" school. I would argue that this is not entirely true. While the faculty could be described as liberal, I feel that the Student Body is much more politically diverse. The College is comprised of students from many different political perspectives ranging from the far left to the far right.
I thought I had prepared myself when I made the trek from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania for school. Muhlenberg is known to be the typical white, northeastern, liberal school. I'd love to say that my experiences here have shown me otherwise, but as most students know, it are true.
hat does it mean to go to a heterosexual school? I wouldn't know, because I don't go to one. I go to a school where, as a gay male, I fit into the spectrum perfectly. Blatant homophobia is not a problem on Muhlenberg's campus. The problem that does exist stretches further than the boundaries of Chew Street.
From the outside, Muhlenberg seems like every other New Jersey suburban neighborhood or liberal arts college: a community of people who act the same, dress the same, think the same and are exactly the same in every other respect. However, when finely examining the culture within the College Community, it strikes me that we are much more diverse than we are given credit for.