While going through older threads about the differences between the Clarenot Colleges, the difference between the philosophies of CMC and Pomona struck me. On the whole, it seemed like Pomona promoted more intellectualism, while CMC promoted more practicality. However, it has been portrayed by many people that a Pomona education is purely intellectual to the point where it is impractical. How much of this true?
Hello! I can answer this question as someone who was deciding between many universities and Pomona. One thing to note is that the education at Pomona and what is taught is very similar to some highly regarded universities, such as Yale, University of Chicago, and Brown. Established academics teach courses not for necessarily propelling students toward a particular career or discipline, but rather learning for the sake of learning and for being a more informed, connected human being. One of the challenges with many more practical universities is that students don’t necessarily take courses outside their interest (unless to fulfill breadth requirements) or interact with peers intellectually; the education climate here and at other top colleges fosters that.
However, that is not to say practical and pre-professional experiences can be disregarded. They are complemented with Pomona’s career development office and other resources. There are several internship programs available, money for research funding, travel funds for career-based fairs and conferences, and much more; the number of pre-professional opportunities increases each year. For instance, it is now a partner with the Harvard Business Core program and covers financial aid for their courses. The lengthy “Where Do Grads Go” document highlights many of the pre-professional experiences Pomona and the other five colleges have. Students also gain internships during the summers with highly regarded employers that they don’t need funding from Pomona to pursue. As pointed out in my thread, I think pre-professionalism is rising at Pomona and everywhere else given the diminishing value of a bachelor’s degree alone. The concern now is less that Pomona provides only a liberal arts education and more that these forces may be undermining that to an extent.
Lastly, the other colleges can help add to the experience as well. I took three courses at the five colleges- Accounting for Decision Making at CMC, Internship in Sociology and Health at Pitzer, and Intro to Engineering at Mudd- all of which were quite practical. There are some majors here that have specifically practical courses due to the expectations and engagements of those majors. Public Policy Analysis majors complete a 320 hour internship in the SoCal area; clinical psychology majors take a “Fieldwork in Clinical Psychology” course to gain real-world experience. A number of courses are titled CP for community partnerships which enable students to go outside of the college.