Hello! I was recently admitted into Scripps (yay!) and had a couple of questions. I was wondering how common it is for students to have internships in LA during the school year? Also is there a way to get to LA if you don’t have a car/do the Claremont Colleges have some sort of shuttle?
Thank you so much for any answers in advance:)
It is incredibly rare for Scripps students to have internships in LA during the school year. Students at all of the 5Cs are far too busy with classes, work (some student have part-time jobs on campus), clubs, friends, etc. to also be doing an internship during the school year. A very small handful of students have an off-campus internship in Southern California (but not as far away as LA) or a remote online internship during the school year but the norm is to have an internship during the ~3.5 month long summer break.
The Metrolink goes into downtown LA (which takes about an hour) but if you want to go to a different neighborhood from there you have to either take public transportation (bus/subway), Uber to your final destination, or have someone who lives in LA and has a car pick you up. The 5Cs don’t have a shuttle of any sort but different clubs on campus will host off-campus events in LA and provide transportation throughout the year. Getting into LA can be a bit of a hassle if you don’t have a car and aren’t willing to deal with the fairly long commute but exploring the city is still very possible as a student if you put in the effort. Plus there is a lot of cool stuff to do in Southern California that isn’t in LA.
I’m a first-year at Scripps from the New York City area and some of the cool things I’ve been able to see/do off-campus include: Going to the LACMA, Getty, MOCA, Broad, Norton Simon, and Natural History museums as well as multiple art galleries, going hiking up/in Potato Mountain, Mount Baldy, Death Valley, the Mojave Preserve, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Griffith Observatory, and Deep Creek Hot Springs and visiting many different neighborhoods (including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and downtown LA) and visiting farms, gardens, and restaurants in Southern California. It’s also pretty common for students to go to concerts in LA.
Thank you for all of your info!