This Week’s College: Pitzer College, Claremont, CA
Pitzer, located about 30 miles from Los Angeles in the gorgeous suburb of Claremont, California is a one of five colleges and two universities that share a connected campus. But Pitzer is a bit unusual when compared to its other members in the Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Scripps, Claremont-McKenna, and Harvey-Mudd, as well as Keck Graduate School of Applied Sciences and Claremont Graduate University). Unlike the other institutions that make the Claremont Colleges, Pitzer has no academic departments.
There are five core values to Pitzer: social responsibility, intercultural understanding, interdisciplinary learning, student engagement, and environmental sustainability. They take these values seriously and weave them into the fabric of their college experience. To make sure there are many different voices here, Pitzer has a student body of whom 52% identify as non-White. About half the students are in-state, and half are not. But the most important things they have done in order to promote these values, has been to reorganize, rethink, and even reroute the typical college education. Instead of regular departments like math or English, they have fields groups where scientists and artists, literary critics and sociologists are all working together in a similar vein to examine a field.
How on earth does this work? Well it’s kind of brilliant actually. Start from the idea of “no man is an island.” Let’s say you want to start a nonprofit group and be an Executive Director. You want to start a cooperative in Latin America where people can learn some business building skills which they can then pass on to others and grow their local economies. Lots of people would say, well go and major in finance or econ. But what if you could instead major in Organizational Studies? This field is a combination of public administration, business administration, public health, sociology, organizational behavior, labor, industrial psychology. The purpose of it is to examine and understand how an organization operates, how it functions as a catalyst for change and how they affect a society.
And there are multiple of these fields! Creative studies, Secular Studies, Environmental Analysis, History of Ideas (OMG I’d love to do that!!), Science, Technology, and Society, International and Intercultural Studies. If you want an English major, you can totally still do that. You can major in biology, or econ, or chemistry. You can go to law school or be a doctor. But you can also major in Chicano Studies or Intercultural/Multicultural and Diversity Studies and you can talk about it over dinner.
So how do you get into Pitzer? Well again, it’s kind of the exception to the rule. Pitzer is one of the SAT/ACT optional schools. They will look at your scores if you really, really, want to send them. But they kinda don’t care. They want to know who you are as a person and a student. They care about your grades and your essay (those are 1 and 2). They have their own supplement and it is about their core values (not kidding about that, friends). They want people who share those values and who believe in becoming a member of that society. They don’t want yes men. But they do want community members.
First years are mentored by older students so that they have guidance through their year. Mentors live with them in the dorms. Not only do the mentors live in the dorms, but a faculty member also lives in the first year dorms as well. Together they plan activities, programs, and supervise the first years so that they can have a meaningful and positive beginning experience at Pitzer. Each residence hall has a study room, a living room, and a shared kitchen. Oh, did I mention there’s a swimming pool at the residence hall?
But it doesn’t stop there. As a sophomore, you will continue to get guidance designed just for you. It’s called The Sophomore Experience and it consists of an orientation beginning in August with follow up all throughout your year meant to help you make decisions about what you will do, major in, where you might study abroad, what internship you might want to get, and more. Each semester you will get to have faculty study breaks, a chance to mix with faculty and delve deeper into your interests and passions. Monthly activities will follow up with food, of course, but also timely topics meant to support you on your way to becoming a senior scholar.
What’s it like when you’re there? Well, it’s pretty sweet! You have a lot of freedom to take classes. You can take them on campus or at the other Claremont Colleges if you’d like. Pitzer is DIII and has plenty of sports to watch or participate in (lots of club and intramurals as well). Water Polo is big. And they have a Green Bike Program which is a student run collective meant to promote clean forms of transportation and to eliminate the car culture. Pick from the more than 50 clubs or student activities at Pitzer (write for the Orange Peel, join the Art of Bread Club, or be a member of the Reggae Festival) or any of the activities at any of the Claremont Colleges. You’ll have a hard time choosing!
Plus it’s SoCal so the weather is amazing all year round. Hit up the John R. Rodman Arboretum or the botanical gardens there. Get over to the Folk Music Center. Shop and enjoy “The Village” which is a series of local boutiques and restaurants right next to campus (“The Corner” but at Pitzer). Get a taste of what the local eateries have to offer at Pitzer’s Snackie Snack, an ongoing tradition of late night Tuesday evening snacks. As they say “Sometimes savory, sometimes sweet…but you’re always in for a delicious treat!”
Pitzer is not for everyone. It’s small (just over 1,000 students), and it’s experimental (no academic departments). But if you want something that doesn’t feel like what you’ve done in high school, you’ll find it here!
Pros:
Pitzer, located about 30 miles from Los Angeles in the gorgeous suburb of Claremont, California is a one of five colleges and two universities that share a connected campus. But Pitzer is a bit unusual when compared to its other members in the Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Scripps, Claremont-McKenna, and Harvey-Mudd, as well as Keck Graduate School of Applied Sciences and Claremont Graduate University). Unlike the other institutions that make the Claremont Colleges, Pitzer has no academic departments.
There are five core values to Pitzer: social responsibility, intercultural understanding, interdisciplinary learning, student engagement, and environmental sustainability. They take these values seriously and weave them into the fabric of their college experience. To make sure there are many different voices here, Pitzer has a student body of whom 52% identify as non-White. About half the students are in-state, and half are not. But the most important things they have done in order to promote these values, has been to reorganize, rethink, and even reroute the typical college education. Instead of regular departments like math or English, they have fields groups where scientists and artists, literary critics and sociologists are all working together in a similar vein to examine a field.
How on earth does this work? Well it’s kind of brilliant actually. Start from the idea of “no man is an island.” Let’s say you want to start a nonprofit group and be an Executive Director. You want to start a cooperative in Latin America where people can learn some business building skills which they can then pass on to others and grow their local economies. Lots of people would say, well go and major in finance or econ. But what if you could instead major in Organizational Studies? This field is a combination of public administration, business administration, public health, sociology, organizational behavior, labor, industrial psychology. The purpose of it is to examine and understand how an organization operates, how it functions as a catalyst for change and how they affect a society.
And there are multiple of these fields! Creative studies, Secular Studies, Environmental Analysis, History of Ideas (OMG I’d love to do that!!), Science, Technology, and Society, International and Intercultural Studies. If you want an English major, you can totally still do that. You can major in biology, or econ, or chemistry. You can go to law school or be a doctor. But you can also major in Chicano Studies or Intercultural/Multicultural and Diversity Studies and you can talk about it over dinner.
So how do you get into Pitzer? Well again, it’s kind of the exception to the rule. Pitzer is one of the SAT/ACT optional schools. They will look at your scores if you really, really, want to send them. But they kinda don’t care. They want to know who you are as a person and a student. They care about your grades and your essay (those are 1 and 2). They have their own supplement and it is about their core values (not kidding about that, friends). They want people who share those values and who believe in becoming a member of that society. They don’t want yes men. But they do want community members.
First years are mentored by older students so that they have guidance through their year. Mentors live with them in the dorms. Not only do the mentors live in the dorms, but a faculty member also lives in the first year dorms as well. Together they plan activities, programs, and supervise the first years so that they can have a meaningful and positive beginning experience at Pitzer. Each residence hall has a study room, a living room, and a shared kitchen. Oh, did I mention there’s a swimming pool at the residence hall?
But it doesn’t stop there. As a sophomore, you will continue to get guidance designed just for you. It’s called The Sophomore Experience and it consists of an orientation beginning in August with follow up all throughout your year meant to help you make decisions about what you will do, major in, where you might study abroad, what internship you might want to get, and more. Each semester you will get to have faculty study breaks, a chance to mix with faculty and delve deeper into your interests and passions. Monthly activities will follow up with food, of course, but also timely topics meant to support you on your way to becoming a senior scholar.
What’s it like when you’re there? Well, it’s pretty sweet! You have a lot of freedom to take classes. You can take them on campus or at the other Claremont Colleges if you’d like. Pitzer is DIII and has plenty of sports to watch or participate in (lots of club and intramurals as well). Water Polo is big. And they have a Green Bike Program which is a student run collective meant to promote clean forms of transportation and to eliminate the car culture. Pick from the more than 50 clubs or student activities at Pitzer (write for the Orange Peel, join the Art of Bread Club, or be a member of the Reggae Festival) or any of the activities at any of the Claremont Colleges. You’ll have a hard time choosing!
Plus it’s SoCal so the weather is amazing all year round. Hit up the John R. Rodman Arboretum or the botanical gardens there. Get over to the Folk Music Center. Shop and enjoy “The Village” which is a series of local boutiques and restaurants right next to campus (“The Corner” but at Pitzer). Get a taste of what the local eateries have to offer at Pitzer’s Snackie Snack, an ongoing tradition of late night Tuesday evening snacks. As they say “Sometimes savory, sometimes sweet…but you’re always in for a delicious treat!”
Pitzer is not for everyone. It’s small (just over 1,000 students), and it’s experimental (no academic departments). But if you want something that doesn’t feel like what you’ve done in high school, you’ll find it here!
Pros:
- It’s not like any high school kind of learning place
- Lots of room for creative thought and exploration
- Super diverse
- Gorgeous southern California weather
- It can feel a little “hippy”
- Some people get overwhelmed by too much freedom
- Diversity can feel challenging
- It’s far away