Hi all, new admit to the class of 2022 here. I’m just wondering if current or former students could enlighten me more so to the average day at Pomona. What are people doing?? How did you spend your time at these hallowed halls? How much coursework were you doing outside of class? How many activities did you participate in? How often could you sit, relax, and breathe in the California air?
Thank you in advance 
Hey!
Congratulations!
I’m a freshman this year and I know that I was just as curious as you last year.
Unfortunately this is gonna be kind of a bad answer but: it is TRULY really hard to describe the average day at Pomona.
It depends on how light or heavy you decide you want your courseload to be. People are doing anything from working on the Pomona Farm, writing for a 5C newspaper or journal, playing varsity/club/intramural sports, playing in the orchestra, or participating in Mock Trial or Model UN and this doesn’t even scratch the surface of the multitude of things people are doing.
Personally, I had a moderate courseload last semester, played an intramural sport, and participated in an extracurricular organization which took up much of my time. I deliberately tried to keep my first semester in college not too crazy and adjusted my schedule for this semester based on how I felt last semester went. (I really suggest this!)
You can literally relax in the California air as much and as little as you want. It’s so easy to bring your work outside to do as well. Honestly I appreciate being in California for college SO MUCH.
Hope this helps a little and holds you over until next August! Have a great rest of senior year!
Congratulations, and welcome to Pomona! The world is your oyster here- there are so many opportunities and resources to take part in, and being part of the Claremont Colleges/LA area expand them even further. You can talk to ten different students and get vastly different answers to your questions.
My regular day to day life involved an on-campus job, independent projects related to that job, four to six classes per week (including 4 hour labs as a science major), managing one of Pomona’s largest organizations, research with a professor, representation in about 2 student government committees each year, and participation in some of the community engagement projects available. I was very active about taking advantage of Pomona’s sponsored off-campus activities- funded trips to museums/amusement parks/restaurants/national parks/musicals/etc. I would also take the train to LA about once every week to once every two weeks depending on my schedule, usually with a group of friends, sometimes alone if it were for a concert or similar.
There’s the residential experience as well. Almost everyone lives on campus, so it’s easy to message someone for a meal or study time or conversation or whatever. I had some circle of friends in which we did meals and activities together pretty regularly, but also numerous singular/dual relationships. The workload was pretty intense in most of my classes, so I’d usually have to study for the bulk of my weekdays- I usually did so with another friend or two, or in a communal mentor session. Collaboration is key for the academic culture here. On occasion, I’d have a lighter workload, so I could attend the numerous lectures/debates/speakers happening across all five colleges or any other sort of event being hosted by clubs. Pomona’s night-time tradition is a snack break at one of the dining halls, which my friends and I would go to and de-stress from the workload. If it was looking to be an especially long night, we’d head over to Jay’s Place at Harvey Mudd which is open till 1/2 AM.
I wasn’t much of a party person, but that scene is there. Claremont McKenna, Mudd, and Pomona are where the bulk of parties happen. There is usually a major one happening each week and 1-3 smaller ones that happen consistently. I’ll let someone else comment on this in detail. The major ones were what I attended and they were usually quite fun.
The professors are incredible at Pomona and most of them will be akin to personal friends. And you aren’t limited to those whose class you take. I definitely wish I had connected with them sooner, because they have so much experience and perspective to share. Around my junior/senior year, I made this an emphasis, but even when I was less active my first two years I would get numerous messages from a professor asking to connect for a meal or similar.
Some of the other things…I loved just walking outside through the colleges and Claremont when I had the time or when I felt seriously stressed out. It is an incredibly beautiful and tranquil place, with pleasant sunny weather 70% of the school year. Mountain views, quaint homes, leafy streets, distinctive architecture. The village itself is also one of the nicest college towns with many great cafes, bookstores, froyo shops, and such, and surprisingly walk-able/bike friendly. I’d usually walk over to the north to Trader Joe’s for a snack break. On occasion, my friends and I would eat out at some of the restaurants in the area, usually splitting the fare for an Uber. There is a lot of great authentic Mexican food at Pomona (the city), great Indian restaurants in Upland, and some of the best Asian food you can find in the San Gabriel Valley. Oh…another thing, south of the village near the 10, there’s an In-N-Out (how many colleges can tout they have an In-N-Out within 2 miles of campus?), an incredible grocery store, my all time favorite Thai restaurant, and a bunch of other cool restaurants.
I would go to the gym every once in a while or go swimming when the weather was nice. Definitely should have made it a routine. So many interesting and fun PE courses! I highly recommend Playground Games. I picked up little things throughout my time- free private music lessons for the piano, trying to longboard, consulting, art lessons, language practice at Oldenborg dining hall, and the like. Pomona is a great place to try out new things, and I wish I had gone out of my comfort zone a bit more.
You mentioned theater in your name. I’ve found Pomona’s creative vibe to be pretty phenomenal. The theater productions are filled with talented, hard-working students and I tried to attend as many of them as possible. There was a really fantastic one this year called “The Beginner’s Guide to Falling in Love” which was well-received! I believe one of the directors uploaded it to Youtube. There are 8 talented a cappella groups who hold regular performances, an impressive repertoire of music recitals (the jazz band especially is so great), an award winning ballroom dance company, at least 2 hip hop dance groups, a writer’s guild, and a cool new studio arts building. I have the creative talent of a broken pencil…but there were so many ways to get energized by all the creative talent of my peers! Not to mention LA as a whole- incredible free museums like the Broad/Getty, downtown art walks, traveling Broadway musicals at Pantages Theater, Cirque du Soleil, subsidized tickets for the L.A. Philharmonic, and of course all the concerts at Staples/Rose Bowl/Hollywood Bowl/etc. Most of these were subsidized by Pomona- for instance, they’re going to have a $15 ticket + transportation trip for the Aladdin Broadway musical in Feb.
So…in a nutshell…there is so much to do! I hope you have an even more robust and empowering experience than I did!
@goingsomewhereeh Heyyy! I just realized that you are from the class of 2021 discussion and I just want to thank you for your posts there! As a class of 2022, I really appreciated your thread last year so I could get more information/ stalk, haha.
How was your first semester? What are some disappointments?
@Quiches of course! you’re very welcome, honestly it was just me feeding my obsession. First semester was amazing and everything I could have hoped for. I think a disappointment that really isn’t a super big disappointment would be course selection, as it’s sometimes difficult to get into the class you want as small classes do fill up quickly (but then again, I’ve always been able to get in if this was the case). Honestly, there isn’t really anything that I could “complain” about that would be better anywhere else! I’m sure as I spend more time here other things may come up, but that’s about it.
Okay. I know nostalgicwisdom is the biggest expert ever on Pomona, but I found this sentence pretty amusing: “I would go to the gym every once in a while or go swimming when the weather was nice.” Ummm…I’ve never been to Pomona when the weather WASN’T nice.
The campus seldom seems crowded. Several times I visited the campus (as a parent) and thought it was on school break because I saw so few students on campus; each time I was wrong.