Sarah Lawrence College
Hallmarks and Quirks
Things I'm Good At:
- Being a safe space to let your freak flag fly. Get up close and personal with all sides of yourself and all of those crazies you'll meet throughout this somersault we call college.
- Awesome professors. If you have any doubts at this point about coming to me, the professors will tip your scale. They're all rock stars—insanely committed to the art of teaching and to their own academic passions.
- All-night study sessions and frantic exam weeks. Are you scoffing? Well, okay, you just try to read Ulysses in two days because you spent all your extra hours pounding nails, rehearsing lines, and finding the right size of fishnet stockings for the SLC production of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- A gorgeous, classic architecture campus with rocks, trees, and nice-smelling soil when it rains.
- Being close to NYC. You can sign up on the Student Affairs bulletin board to take the Met Van to NYC for free on weekends. The Met Van leaves at 11:00AM to 1:00PM on Saturdays and Sundays. It'll drop you off right in midtown.
My Top 5 Must-Haves:
- Milk crates. I'd say about a hundred. Where else are you going to put all your books? And notebooks? And book-sized knick-knacks? You definitely don't have room for a massive bookcase in my little dorm rooms, and some snazzy book holder à la Transformers is going to be tough to afford along with this (very worth it) quarter-of-a-million-dollar education.
- A warm (yet fashionable) coat. This is New York, people. It gets cold and rainy, but that doesn't mean you have to look terrible when it does.
- Your student ID. You'll get tons of fantastic student discounts in Manhattan.
- A stockpile of old Disney or Warner Bros movies to relive your childhood. When you're stressed out during conference week, it's nice to pretend to be ten years old again.
- An open mind. It takes a special sort of person to dive headfirst into a school without majors, I get it, so I like collecting an open-minded bunch.
Why You Might Have Heard of Me:
- Grades? What does that word even mean? Most likely, you'll never lay eyes on number or letter grades for your work at SLC, no matter how stellar or abysmal. Instead, your professors will write in-depth reports/evaluations that highlight what you do well and what you do…not so well. At the end of the semester, for the sake of records, you'll be assigned a letter grade.
- The infamous…conference week. Dun dun duunnn. During conference week at the end of each semester, I open Bates (the dining hall) at midnight. Students who are pulling all-nighters come to sugar up with pancakes and cookies, while students who finish early (ugh, jealous) come to celebrate with music and prizes.
- Registration is crazy. You interview the professors whose classes you're interested in taking. In the interviews, you and said professor ask each other a few meaningful, well-crafted questions. In the end, you decide if this course is right for lil ol' you, and…the professor decides if you're right for their class. It's kind of like dating, but without the romance. Maybe.
On a regular Saturday night, you can find me...
In the citayyyyy. Well, my students at least try to take Manhattan as many weekends as they can. Workloads occasionally make getting to the city and back a time crunch, but somehow, they figure it out.
Also, on Fridays, there's a weirdly popular and packed Cabaret/Open Mic on campus. People are just itching to prove themselves as singers, actors, comedians, or dancers. It draws just as much attendance as any of the other important sports events at other schools. Anything goes here. My students often perform multiple times a year, and try to top their past acts with even more gasp-worthy tricks and skills.
The theater department puts on performances that sell out extremely quickly, too. Every weekend. So sign up in advance, like…a week in advance, and your Saturday night will be as good as the rest.
Favorite Hangouts:
- The Pub (on campus). It's a perfect place to eat pub food, drink some beers (if you're of age, of course), and gossip about Henry James.
- Teahaus (on campus). This is a little stone-cottage, coffee shop-type place where people sit around drinking tea and playing musical instruments.
- Slave to the Grind. It's by far the best coffee shop. It's got excellent espresso, coffee, hipster baristas, and all that jazz.
- Bronxville Public Library. This place is perfect if you want a more comforting, spacious, less bustling place to study or write in peace. It's awful purdy in there.
- Rosie's. Lookin' for a fancy place to take a date? Or your parents? It's expensive, but hey, so am I.
- Bates dining hall serves an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, and most of us won't miss that. Ever.
Quirks:
- Students only enroll in three classes per semester and they're super intense, personal, and passion-filled.
- What's a don, you ask? Well, "donning" is a system adopted from Oxford-Cambridge (posh, I know). Basically, you're assigned a "don" (a close advisor) at the beginning of your first year who will remain your guide throughout your years here. Your don will get to know you real quick because they'll be your First Year Studies teacher. You'll meet weekly in one-on-one meetings.
- Speaking of, the First Year Studies course is where you and your don basically get to design the course amongst yourselves. It pretty much encapsulates my unofficial mission statement of individualism and creativity. In exploring a subject or combination of subjects that interest you, the First Year Studies course is the rock of education here.
Famous Alumni:
- Ann Patchett, author
- Vera Wang, designer and former Vogue editor
- Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago and Obama's former Chief of Staff
- Yoko Ono and Lesley Gore, musicians
- Barbara Walters, first female news anchor, and a forever successful one, too
- J.J. Abrams. Yeah, the director.