Sydney
Always something going on at Bennington. The Campus Activities Board is responsible for bringing in bands and speakers, as well as planning big events like Sunfest, where we have a three day music festival in May. There are movie screenings in Kinoteca, our little movie theater, about three times a week. The houses, (dorms), take turns hosting parties, which usually involve themes, like Astronaut vs. Alien or Supermodel vs. Superhero. The visual art lecture series happens once a week, where visiting artists come to give presentations about their work.
Because Bennington's so small, we have special Bennington traditions, like Roll-R-Rama, where the school rents out hundreds of pairs of rollerskates, and we all go rollerskating around Greenwall Auditorium. We have Bowl-R-Rama and Midnight Movies in town, where the school rents out the bowling alley and movie theater for us to go bowl or watch a movie at midnight. Midnight Breakfast is my favorite: on an unannounced night near the end of every term, when people haven't slept in a week because of final projects, they'll hear firetrucks driving through campus with their sirens going at midnight, signalling Midnight Breakfast. We all make our way to the Dining Hall, where our professors serve us food, and our librarian's band plays music.
There is no Greek life at Bennington, and only one real sports team: we have a co-ed soccer team that plays area high schools and other nearby small colleges.
If you don't drink or don't smoke, I think there's plenty to do on campus during the weekend. (Or if you do.)
Students generally leave their doors open, and feel really safe on our little campus. Security comes through every now and then, just to check on us.
Dating at Bennington is tricky; people tend to sleep with lots of people, or have a relationship like a married couple. (I believe the school is currently around 65{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} female.)
Housing is the best part: we all live in houses with about 20 other people. Freshmen and sophomores have roommates, and juniors and seniors are guaranteed their own rooms. Each house has its own personality: some are loud and play music all the time, others are more quiet and studious. Every Sunday night at 10 we get together in our house living rooms for coffee hour, where we eat food and talk about what's going on on campus, in addition to any house issues, etc.
Allie
There aren't so many organizations on campus. There is enough going on with classes. There are open mic nights every so often throughout the term, and there are bands who come to play in the student center a lot. There aren't athletics, for the most part. But people tend to play volleyball or badminton on the lawn, sometimes. The theatre department is wonderful, and for the second half of term there is usually some sort of performance every weekend.
I leave the door to my room open at least 70{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the time. The dating scene on this campus is pretty lame. It's not the type of place you go for dating. The ratio throws off the campus-wide dynamic, and guys tend to acquire a bit of a god complex; women tend to get a either fed up with the dating scene or to get far too desperate. But in a way, I'm glad that I don't have to deal with dating right now; college is hard enough without it. I met half of my friends because I was placed in a house with them. The other half I met through a class last term, in which we put on an opera. A bunch of my friends were in the opera, and they all live in the same house now, so I go there a lot. I'm almost always awake at 2 AM, and you'd think it was because of work. But usually I'm just chilling in the common room, hanging out with people or writing on my laptop or whatever.
One of the campus traditions is Pigstock, in which a pig is roasted over a pit for dinner, and a band is invited to campus. This year we had an awesome Balkan brass band called Slavic Soul Party! play. They basically rocked, and everyone was dancing the whole time. The picnic was great, too, and they got the pig from a local farm. it was even organic! Also, every spring term, we have sunfest. Sunfest is when a shit ton of bands come to Bennington and play all day. And it consistently rains on sunfest, but they refuse to change the name. It's a sort of traditional irony. I have yet to experience a sunfest, but it sounds like it's going to be amazing.
This is a campus where you don't have to drink. I came here straight-edge. And I had a lot of friends and still went to parties and had a good time. When I started drinking, it was a personal choice, and it had not positive or negative effects on my social life. The dance parties are fun without drinking, and a lot of people have room parties. You don't have to drink to have a good time. And you don't have to do drugs either. This is a campus where a lot of people smoke both cigarettes and marijuana. I've never had any interest in either, and haven't had any trouble with my choice to stay away from it. People will be accepting of your choices as long as you are accepting of theirs. On a Saturday night, I sometimes sing at open mic night, and there's almost always a house dance party.
Our dance parties are amazing. Basically, the house gets to borrow huge speakers and clears out their common room. Then everyone crams in there in the dark and dances to blaring music. It's sweaty and kind of disgusting, and always really hot; but the music is loud, and its really easy to have a good time just dancing with your friends, or a guy, or girl or whatever.
Brianne
I don't know a lot of people on campus who lock their doors, there's just a feeling of safety around on campus. I would not encourage people to date here, a lot of relationships work out and a lot of them don't and end in dramatic disaster. A lot of people here have issues.
I met my closest friends the first few days of school and have hung out with them ever since. House parties happen once a week and then there are the little parties people have in their rooms. We don't have fraternities or sororities and most weekends are spent hanging around on campus. There is stuff to do in town but not a lot. The movies, bowling, and going out to dinner are usually what people do.