Hey,
I just graduated from SLC after transferring there from community college so I only had two years, but I think I can give you insight into what itâs like. Iâll do my best but please reply if you have anymore questions or if anyone else does/wants to chime in etc.
I only got a few hours of sleep last night so Iâm sorry for the terrible writing, it in no way reflects the education or writing talent of SLC students ï. Also, I think this post sounds a little bitter, but itâs not. I love SLC and am so glad I went there.
Yeah the campus is dead in the Summer. Itâs a lot nicer when there are people around. When itâs nice out students often sit in the grass, but youâre right, there arenât a lot of student hang outs. Barbera Walters just gave us $17 million dollars to build a student union though which will be cool. Probably a few years down the road though. I know some of the tour-givers and some of them are great and some of them just blow through them, I think you got landed a bad draw unfortunately. A lot of people complain about the student life at SLC, I thought it was great but I came from a school where everyone goes to class and then leaves. Socializing is usually hanging out in your friendâs rooms or going into the city. I canât speak too much on this because I only came out of the library or science labs for concerts really.
Social life depends a lot of on what classes you are taking. The music kids have their own comradery as do the art kids, cognitive science kids, etc. This sounds kind of cliquey, which I guess it is, but it was always positive. Just people of similar interests grouping together and most students are in more than one because no one at the school has a singular academic focus (I was with the music kids, art kids, and cognitive science kids).
Again, social life here is more close friendships than big group activities which I personally like, but of course you may not and thatâs totally cool.
I havenât heard anything about dons being secret police, if anything theyâre on your side more than the administration. My don got me through a lot of bureaucratic crap. Each one is different though⊠My didnât arrange meetings or anything, you just went in when you needed to see him, others have bi-weekly meetings. Itâs easy to switch dons after your first year and you can have âunofficialâ dons as my primary don was in music but I was also heavy into psychology and neuroscience, I had a âdonâ in the science building.
The school is super accepting weirdos. If anything, there is a little of a problem if youâre too ânormalâ. 18-22 years can be jerks for sure, but Sarah Lawrence students are super accepting, itâs really part of the culture. There is a bit of upper class negligence at the school but itâs not too bad. Iâm sure itâs way worse at the Ivyâs and even similar schools like Bard. Students can get real depressed though, especially in the winter, this is the one thing I didnât like about the school, youâre absolutely right. The niche courses are what make Sarah Lawrence great. I took a general neuroscience course that is pretty similar to what you would take at a state school and I assure you I learned FAR more about the brain, behavior, and the mind in the niche courses on Memory and PTSD I took.
The niche courses usually set up problems for you to solve instead of handing a tome of knowledge sequenced in an order irrelevant to you with all the pieces put together (textbook). They may sound silly by their titles, but I assure you you will learn so much about research, academia, the field you are studying, and yourself by taking these courses and writing the papers/making the projects. For example, from my cognitive science classes other than the general neuroscience course we had no textbook; 90% of what we read were academic papers from scientific journals. I can now hear someone talking about how the tofu Iâm eating for lunch is going to give me cancer, go to PubMed, and read through the actual research to find out whether this is the case or not. It seems paradoxical, but I think the more focuses your coursework is, the more broadly applicable to returns will be. FYI most science students donât read research papers until grad school.
I know the whole âliberal arts is teaching you how to learnâ thing is a clichĂ©, but itâs really true, at least at SLC. I feel confident I can go into any field that interests me and be successful. Even during my time at SLC I had a lot of âreal-ish worldâ success. I had some animations used in a big art installation at the Mint Museum, Had 3D animation video art thing shown at a space in NY, Performed live improve visuals over an orchestra, worked with a top class audio engineer and producer, conducted 60 person controlled psychophysiology study for my thesis, am going on to do Neuroscience research at a lab from my experience and I think there are some other things Iâm forgetting but I promise you Iâm not trying to brag at all, Iâm just saying that you get amazing opportunities for independent work at SLC if youâre up for it. It makes you grow very fast.
Oooh⊠IBD. I have celiacâs disease and my doc thinks I have IBD because of the SLC culinary staffâŠ. They said they accommodate a gluten free & vegan diet for my condition which got me really excited because I had gotten used to bringing soup with me everywhere. I got really sick my first year there and had some bad experiences at the dining hall where they served me Seitan twice (literally is cooked gluten) and roast beef twice. One of the cooks who liked me said some of the others werenât using the gluten-free soy sauce (soy sauce is usually made with wheat). They kept assuring me that there wouldnât be any problems, but I kept getting sick. I only really put it together when I got home for the Summer after that first year and felt better within a few days of cooking for myself again. I have heard similar experiences from other people with food allergies and sensitivities.
That said, the school has replaced all the crap people in the culinary department in part to address these issues, but itâs really hard to say for sure.
If your only accommodations are that you need to skip class or leave early you would be totally fine (though you should figure out what foods trigger you!). As long as you have doctorâs note you will be good. Most professor would be fine without a note or whatever. Itâs a very trusting environment. Sarah Lawrence students skip a lot classes (which frustrates me to no end) so the professors are used to it. The issue of course is what you miss when you miss a class, but this will apply to most schools and you probably already have strategies to deal with it.
I canât say much about other schools. I only applied to SLC and Emory. Do you know what youâd like to study? My best recommendation for most high schoolers is to take a year to work and travel or work and take some classes at community college. Most students arenât ready for a live away college at 18, but Iâm sure that wonât stop you ;).
Again, let me know if you have any more questions, Iâm sure I will be better able to answer them when Iâve had some sleep ï.
