Mills College

Mills College located in Oakland used to be a all women's college but merged with northeastern to become co-Ed in 2022

We stopped by Mills College on a Sunday morning and campus was closed but we were still able to go in after checking with the security guard on front. The campus was very quiet and pretty. All the buildings looked historical and is well keep. There were a lot of security guards driving around campus which made me feel very secure. The campus is huge, so we just drove around in a car so they we can see the whole campus.

We also stopped by their dining hall and it was empty but clean. However, the bathrooms had some dead bugs and live bugs crawling around. The staff were very friendly and answer our questions.

Mills' policies and their incompetent staff = de facto discrimination against Neurodivergent students.
M Center staff are slow, lazy and give off serious DMV/Post-Office vibes.
Expect dirty looks if they have to lay down their ham sandwich to help you deal with all the obnoxious bureaucratic red tape the Administration throws up. And even then, it's a 50/50 chance that they will not process your paperwork on time, correctly, or even at all! Mills presented themselves as an ideal place for someone with my disabilities to get the individual attention and accommodations necessary for success - but that couldn't be farther from the truth! After my first suicide attempt, I was hospitalized right before graduation. Professors and Admin assured my family that "everything would be taken care of" and not to worry, but THEY ARE LIARS!
After my recovery, I was barred from completing the .5 unit online Information Literacy Course, my only remaining degree requirement. Mills effectively ransomed my degree: I would have had to re-enroll and pay them a $5,000 fee before being allowed to register for their stupid half-hour online course. Even worse: soon thereafter Mills sent my student loans into default, while still not letting me complete that ludicrous class! Several years of homelessness and a few more suicide attempts followed. Only after much degrading begging and even more administrative BS did Mills finally re-admit me. Needless to say, all of this work constituted a daunting, gargantuan, nearly impossible task for someone like myself who suffers from Executive Dysfunction, a Brain Injury, etc. And unfortunately this was too little, too late: no happy endings here! Because Mills sent my loans into default while simultaneously withholding my degree, I am now permanently ineligible for further financial aid and won't be able to get the master's degree I'd originally planned on. Oh and my credit is ruined. I still to this day am harassed by debt collection agencies hired by Mills College.
But their campus is pretty! LOL just don't look at Ege Hall; it's highly flammable and almost certainly not up to code. No wonder they conveniently excluded it from my campus tour.

Mills College is a small college in Oakland, California. I attended my cousin's wedding reception at the Student Union here. The campus - at least the parts I saw - was beautiful. I'd never heard of Mills College before this wedding, but one of my other cousins (also from California), who accompanied us to this wedding, had.

The college was founded in 1852 and the student body is only about 1,300 students. The undergraduate program is women-only and the graduate program is all-gender. This is a progressive college. They explicitly welcome transgender students.

As someone who comes from the South, I have to admit I was a bit taken aback by the "All Gender" restroom at the Student Union. When I opened the door, I hesitated a little because only women just happened to be at the sinks at that moment. I'm not used to that and I almost felt like I walked into the wrong restroom. The stall doors were nice and tall (down to the floor and almost as high as the ceiling) for added privacy. There was a bucket next to the sinks with feminine products, baby wipes, Neosporin, Tums, and more.

This was a Saturday evening reception. We arrived on campus between 5:00 and 5:30pm and street-parked along the large circle in between Mills Hall (a large, gorgeous, European-style building) and a stately-looking clock tower. The circle was big and filled with lush, green grass. It was a short walk from the circle to the Student Union which is located on the backside of Mills Hall. In between the two buildings is more well-maintained greenspace.

Cocktail hour took place on the Student Union's covered patio and the paved area in front. I guesstimate there were about 120 to 130 guests at the reception. According to Mills' website (https://inside.mills.edu/administration/administrative_offices/college_events/meeting_rooms.php), the Student Union can accommodate up to 150 people at $1,750 per day. Space on the patio, where both the beer-and-wine (and sweet tea and lemonade) bar and cotton candy machine were located, did get a bit cramped and it was difficult for people, including the hors d'oeuvres servers, to get around at times. However, the actual dinner and dancing reception space was fine. Some of the finger foods included croquettes and skewered shrimp. At $1,750 per day, the Student Union is an absolute steal. What an amazing rental fee.

The event space inside had a very simple, elegant setup. The building itself has a somewhat old and historic feel to it. There were about a dozen 10-person circular tables, a dance floor, guestbook and card station, DJ, and photo booth (and fireplace; unused). The sound system worked well -- La La Land and Thai pop played loud and clear over the speakers. Ambient/mood and dance lighting worked to good effect.

Catering was provided by Nora Spanish Catering (you can read my review of Nora here: https://www.yelp.com/biz/nora-spanish-catering-berkeley). Nora had a dinner station set up on the side of the building, in a little courtyard area, with three pans of paella, two of which were humongous, and salads and sides. This station was staffed. The outdoor space was also used for the cake station. My cousin provided trendy Hamilton-themed cupcakes in lieu of traditional wedding cake. The outdoor space had some manicured landscaping (plants, bushes, trees) which made for a nice "natural" backdrop for photos.

All in all, I enjoyed my time at Mills College. It was a fun and pleasant evening and I do recommend this place if you're looking for an affordable and effective venue for an event.

Today I had the miss fortune of coming to campus to inquire about pool hours. I'm an avid swimmer who lives close to campus and wanted to be part of the community.

As I made my way to the pool front desk at 8:30am on Feb 10th, the lady working behind the desk sees me and starts yelling at me "put on your mask" I tried to ask her question from a distance or see if she had an extra mask.. I was not heard or acknowledge as a human being ... I was yelled at and yelled at until I had to just walk away... ( please note: other people walking around campus outside did not have mask on.. my question, would they have been yelled at?? From my experience people who are stickler for the rules usually make exceptions for their "friends" or people in their tribe! Regardless, as a local resident of Oakland I will no longer be attempting to access or swim at Mill College! It was just a rude and disgusting experience that I never... ever want to relive!!

A cousin of mine was teaching at Mills College and he was kind enough to give me a tour of the campus.

Nestled on the hillside of Oakland, Mills College is full of beautiful and historical architecture. One of the buildings that really stood out was the Mills Hall, in all white and reminded me of those old British estates. Mills Hall, styled after the Second Empire architecture in Europe, is apparently haunted with reported ghost sighting. It was one of the oldest structures which was built in 1871 and housed the entire college.

The campus is really not very big and has varied changes in elevations which offers a lovely stroll. It is wonderfully landscaped with a wide breadth of flora and fauna as well as large trees that apparently have been around for longer than most of the people alive.

It's not too far from the Oakland Zoo and there are lots of great dining options around. The Mills students are very fortunate to get their education is such a diverse, yet lovely environment.

This school might be the right pick for you if you're passionate about social justice, inclusion and intersectionality, and want a quote on quote "safe enough" place to attend college. If your family is willing to support you through college, then definitely go for it! If you don't have a child and you want to go to Mills, then you will fit right in.
If you are a person of color, specifically coming from a working class or poor background, then you are probably going to have a hell of a time. Racist/classist/transphobic things may or may not be said directly to you, and you will feel the tension in the air.

Mills has a beautiful campus and attracts people the moment upon arrival. Many people have good intentions, however I had a pretty bad experience at this College. I transferred in, and had little to no guidance from the faculty. I did 2.5 years at community college, and was pretty much clueless well into my first year at Mills. The child care program is a joke. Parents take out loans to put their kids in care at Mills. As a single mom, I felt like I was left in the cold and supported so much better at Peralta Community College. In my opinion, Mills is anti-feminism.

Isn't the road to having "women in positions of power" having accessible childcare????!!! Idiots!

Attending a two session course on Saturdays is what brought me to Mills. I live in Oakland and had no idea this beautiful campus was here. The layout is sprawling with various buildings, looked dog friendly, and has security at the gate. The room where our class was is light and bright with beautiful outdoor views and tons of windows. The place was clean and nicely decked out with moving black boards and good projection. Outside was a quiet oasis. Would definitely take another educational course here.

I had some excellent professors here however, the dean sexually harassed me and told me that I wouldn't graduate if I didn't have sex with him. As a result, despite the fact that I had cancer and did all the work for all of my classes and passed them, was dropped from an internship three days before the graduation date and dropped from the program. I then went on to dance at Deja Vu Centerfolds. I went from school teacher to stripper overnight. I think that if you want a Deja Vu Centerfolds career, try Mills College first. You may need to have sex with a Dean or two but then, you can be an MFA, an MBA, a teacher, a computer scientist, etc. You just need to launch your career with sleeping your way to the top.

Mills College is an all women's college. Most classes have about a 1:17 teacher to student ratio. The campus is beautiful, full of eucalyptus trees and lots of other nice greenery. The students are friendly with each other. There's a strong academic integrity. And the faculty and staff are more than accommodating. They care. A lot of them go out of their way to make sure students are going on the right path. Very supportive professors.
Mills also has a strong sense of social justice.
Go cyclones!

Mills is a beautiful, idyllic campus with many welcoming and friendly faces. There are some excellent staff members there who will go out of their way to help you succeed.

Unfortunately, the staff members paid to do their jobs in the Registrar's office, Student Accounts, etc. have entirely dropped the ball this year. Virtually every student has genuine complaints about false charges, charges based on factors none of us were told about ahead of time, etc. Trying to work with these individual offices is near to impossible. A truly professionally run campus would never keep staff on who continually and profoundly mess up the exact jobs they're paid to do.

The school purports to care about social justice, but for the most part is stuck in the 60s definition of what that means--race, class, sexuality, and gender are considered to be marginalized communities, but most people do not even try to understand disability, for example, as a site of injustice. The conversations about justice and oppression are stale and tend towards the repetitive, and no authority is encouraging a deeper analysis.

Attending an all woman's college is pretty cool, but that element is rarely discussed, if ever. If you're hoping that Mills will be an entirely feminist space to discuss rape culture and patriarchy, think again--you'll have trouble finding anyone who can even define these terms.

I've attended colleges where most people had at least one concern with the school, but I've never attended a school where every single person absolutely hated some aspect. There is a tremendous amount of vitriol among the student body about constantly being milked for money in increasingly unfair ways, and that translates to an atmosphere of doom and gloom. It's hard to be happy when everyone around you is suffering, yet any solution is a long way off.

Moreover, Mills is in awful financial straits, so many important services are being cut. There is currently one person doing the work of five in the disability services office, and most of the therapists working on campus are actually therapists-in-training who really don't know what they're doing and are not qualified to deal with problems beyond homesickness or stressful classes.

This school seduces students with a package that is perfectly authentic: caring professors, small class sizes, a focus on a liberal arts education, a historically all women's school. Problem is, the school hasn't got the basics down. Until they do, I wouldn't recommend attending.