Welcome to Reed
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re at Reed. So welcome! As the editorial board of the Reed College Quest, Reed’s student-run newspaper, we welcome you to this campus and invite you to engage with the diverse and multifaceted community this school has to offer through the pages of our publication.
In the spirit of introducing the incoming class to Reed, we have compiled some information that could prove useful in your first forays into this wonderful and frightening world.
People really like acronyms, so regardless of your feelings on the matter, it would behoove you to be able to recognize some of them:
GCC = Gray Campus Center : One of the main non-academic buildings, which you probably know as the location of our beloved slop depository, Commons. What you may not know is that it also houses important resources on its bottom floor including, but not limited to, the Community Pantry, the Swap Shop (where you can get free clothes and other items!), and the Mailroom. Most importantly for your deeply unbiased authors, the Quoffice or Quest office where you can stop by for Contributors’ Meetings at [time] every Monday starting on Sept. 1, Writer’s Workshop every Tuesday at [time], and open Editing Nights every Wednesday from 5:00pm until the wee hours starting on Sept. 10.
SU = Student Union: Attached to the GCC. Lots of important stuff here including balls.
PAB = Performing Arts Building: Does what it says on the tin, except for when you have a Poli Sci class there. Also home to the following:
PARC = Performing Arts Resource Center: Where you can borrow all sorts of recording equipment and other resources for your artistic endeavors. Employees are called PARC Rangers in a characteristic case of Reed punning.
ETC = Educational Technology Center: Where you can go if you have WiFi problems or need other technical assistance. Also, all of the Religion department has their offices here.
OWL = Orientation and Wayfinding Leader: You should probably know this as a freshman. Also a case of Reed’s second unofficial mascot, the owl, rearing its head.
HA = House Advisor: You have one. Basically similar to the role of RAs at many other schools. Freshly unionized, but not caramelized. (Yay!)
CSO = Community Safety Officer: Self-explanatory, you’ll see them everywhere. Get their trading cards and earn a knife.
HCC = Health and Counseling Center: Located in the very far northwest of campus by Community Safety. They offer physical and mental health services, including harm reduction services.
MRC = Multicultural Resource Center : Located in the Student Center behind Eliot to the east of the GCC. Feel free to stop by and get some studying done. The second floor is reserved as the BIPOC lounge.
DoJo = Dorothy Johansen House: Home of Academic Support and tutoring services, all the way on the southeast side of campus by the East Parking Lot.
KRRC = Surprise! If you thought that was another acronym, well, it’s not—just the radio call sign (??) for Reed’s student-run online radio station. Stay tuned (no comment) for DJ training in the coming weeks to be able to run your own radio show, accessible online at krrc.fm.
A lot of people will talk a lot of talk about a mysterious (and possibly non-existent) thing called Olde Reed. Don’t worry about it, and don’t let yourself get FOMO for a version of Reed that you never experienced and that most people around you probably didn’t either. Give it a year at most and you, too, will start waxing nostalgic to next year’s class of freshmen about how everything used to be so much better and far more radical.
Your time at Reed can be massively improved if you put in the effort to participate in the various events and organizations. Do as many things as possible while you have life in your eyes and a passion in your heart. If there’s a club that sounds interesting, just go to a meeting to check it out, even if you’re not completely sure it’s going to be your thing. If there’s something you’d like to have a club for at Reed and it doesn’t already exist, you can start one relatively easily by filling out a form on the Student Engagement page of the Reed website and applying for funding once Top 6 rolls around. Top 6 is the biannual funding process for clubs, wherein they compete for budget priority when receiving student body funds, and which you’ll be able to vote in soon. Go to balls, or host your own by applying to hold an event in a form accessible through IRIS.
Explore everything Reed has to offer! When you’ve exhausted that, don’t forget to get off campus from time to time. Portland is a big city with plenty of different places to explore, some of which may contain fellow Reedies to jumpscare you when you think you’ve escaped the Reed bubble, but many of which could become your new favorite spots.
One word of wisdom about Reed is that it’s not a very big place. Assuming you end up here for the full four years (or potentially more), you will definitely be running into the same people. Keep that in mind when you start beef or toxic situationships. For better or worse, you live in a community where your actions will affect other people and reflect back on you.
On the other hand, don’t feel like you have to be stuck with the same people or interests forever. Reed is what you make of it, and your experience can change along with your choices. Your O-Week friend group, or the bonds formed in your Class of Discord server, will likely not last until your deathbed, and that’s natural. Similarly, whichever major you listed on your Common App may not be the one you write a thesis for, which is equally fine, especially when you consider that you don’t need to have your major decided until your sophomore year anyway. You have ample time to decide how you want to make Reed your own, so don’t hesitate to try new things, even if it means failing at new things, too.
This O-Week issue of the Reed College Quest is a special edition printed outside of our usual printing schedule for the purpose of giving an introduction to Reed for the incoming freshman class. Unlike our regular issues, it does not contain breaking news items, although these are an important part of our regular news cycle. Readers can expect coverage of breaking news in the first regular issue of the Quest to be published on September 12. Anyone interested in contributing to the first regular issue can come to our first Contributor’s Meeting on Monday, September 1, at 5pm, or send a piece to any content editor (information available on page 2) or quest@reed.edu. More information on the submission process and guidelines can be found at reedquest.org, or by contacting the editors if unable to make the Contributor’s Meeting.