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Join a Pitzer College campus tour with student guides Natalia and Stephen. Discover how students, faculty and staff live Pitzer’s innovative and inspiring core values: Social Responsibility; Environmental Sustainability; Intercultural Understanding; Interdisciplinary Learning and Student Engagement. Natalia and Stephen will walk you through our campus from the LEED-certified residential halls to our academic programs such as media studies, Keck Science program and environmental analysis.
Video Transcript
Hi! I’m Stephen Chung and I’m Natalia Duran. Welcome to Pitzer!
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Stephen: Located in Claremont, California just 38 miles east of Los Angeles, Pitzer College is a nationally-ranked liberal arts institution that’s committed to social justice, intercultural understanding and environmental sustainability.
Natalia: We’ll be your tour guides for today, so let’s go check out the campus.
Stephen: Welcome to the residence halls. On-campus housing is guaranteed and the first-year courtyard is built around the Gold Student Center which means that you’re always connected to what’s happening on campus.
Natalia: The Gold Student Center has a fully equipped gym, yoga and Pilates studios and a swimming pool and terrace. You can also grab a bite to eat at the student-run Shakedown Cafe, one of four on-campus eateries.
Stephen: Pitzer’s residence halls feature suite-style rooms with numerous living rooms, study rooms and kitchens. First-year students are supported by Resident Assistants and student mentors who also live in the residence halls and host special events.
Like our landscaping? Me too! 75% of our campus is actually covered in these native California drought-resistant plants and half our buildings… They’re LEED certified, they’re energy efficient.
Natalia: This is Pitzer’s Green Bike Program where students work as bike mechanics and provide eco-friendly transportation to the campus community.
Pitzer is also home to the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability, a space where students faculty and staff collaborate on sustainability initiatives.
Stephen: From our drought-tolerant landscaping to our sustainable food options in the dining hall, the Pitzer community models sustainability as a way of life for future generations.
Natalia: Hungry? I know just the place. Welcome to the Grove House. The Grove House is a student center with cozy places to study and hang out with friends. The Grove House kitchen also makes delicious sandwiches and cookies.
Stephen: You can also grab lunch in McConnell dining hall which features nutritional fresh sustainably-made meals. The pasta bar is my favorite.
Now it’s time to head to class. This is Pitzer’s academic quad where many of Pitzer’s courses are taught. Our average class size is 15 students and the student to faculty ratio is 10 to 1.
Natalia: The quad is also home to the Pit-Stop cafe where you can grab a cup of coffee between classes.
Stephen: At Pitzer, sharing is caring. As a member of the Claremont University Consortium, Pitzer students can cross register and take courses at the other Claremont Colleges which offer 2,500 courses per term.
Natalia: The Claremont Colleges also share resources like the Honnold- Mudd library, one of the largest undergraduate research libraries in the nation.
Stephen: This is the Keck Science Center. iI’s shared by Pitzer, Scripps and Claremont McKenna. This undergraduate-only program provides hands-on research opportunities for students, many of whom publish papers before they graduate.
Well, after a busy day of classes, there’s only one place to go.
Natalia: Welcome to The Mounds, a hub of campus activity. Our students enjoy studying and relaxing outdoors and when the weather is nice, which is all the time, then students get to have classes out here as well. The Mounds also hosts the annual student-run Rockabilly and Kohoutek Arts and Music festivals.
We’re committed to student engagement at Pitzer.
Stephen: The Community Engagement Center creates partnerships with local community organizations.
Tessa Hicks Peterson, Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement: The Community Engagement Center was founded in 1998 by a group of faculty students and staff who realized we really needed a place to support faculty, students and staff and surrounding community partners in engaging in social responsibility and working on projects of research, service, community organizing, advocacy and activism in and with our local communities.
Stephen: The CEC gives students the chance to work in partnership with community leaders to forward our core value of social responsibility. Students can do everything from mentoring elementary school students to teaching creative expression to incarcerated youth.
If you’re thinking about getting ahead, Pitzer Career Services works with our students on their career development during their time here at Pitzer.
Brad Tharpe, Director of Career Services: So, often when people think about career services they think about, okay somebody will help me do my resume right, or somebody let me write a cover letter. We of course do all of those things but we want a student’s career discernment exploration and development to be a part of their entire Pitzer experience.
To do that is not just about writing a resume but, it’s helping them learn more about themselves, help them discover more about who they are with things like resumes and cover letters, but also with the networking skills and the networks to seek after those kinds of opportunities.
Stephen: Career Services sponsors nearly 100 workshops per year and helps students secure internships and job shadowing opportunities.
Natalia: Want to travel the world? Our Study Abroad office can help. 53% of our students study abroad and with over 60 programs to choose from, our students connect with intercultural understanding both at home and abroad. Pitzer is also one of the top colleges for Fulbright fellowships in the nation.
Nigel Boyle, Dean of Faculty: Pitzer students tend to have had great experiences both in immersive study abroad programming and in local community engagement programming, and these are the kind of experiences around which they craft powerful Fulbright applications.
Natalia: By looking at global issues from different cultural perspectives, Pitzer students transform themselves into citizens of the world and agents of change.
Stephen: That’s a really good point, Natalia.
Well, we hope you’ve enjoyed this tour with us today.
Natalia: For more information check us out at www.pitzer.edu/admission.
See you soon.
Stephen: See ya!
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