Independently Phoebe Bain

I learned about Vassar the way I grew up - independently. I stumbled upon the school online one lonely night while my single mother traveled for business. Upon visiting Vassar, I remember having goosebumps. The college was Phoebe incarnate, from the vegetarian options in the cafeteria to the flexible core curriculum that would allow me to find out more about myself than any other school. Even Lisa Kudrow can attest to the fact that Vassar is a place for Phoebes.

As is often the case with love, I could not pin down what about Vassar’s ideology I adored so much. That is, until I received a Vassar viewbook in the mail. I started reading en media res and marveled at how Vassar does not define individualism as what school activities you participate in, but as the character that results from rigorous examination of your own mind. I always had a hard time explaining my definition of individualism until I saw my own opinion put into words in that blue viewbook. As I read on, the similarities between Vassar’s paradigm and my own became even more uncanny.

For instance, I have quite the obsession with the American Women’s Suffrage Movement. My busy single mother and her group of spinster girlfriends raised me, and as a result I fervently...