Finding a good fit is more than your freshman year

Abigail Barnstone- Newton, MA

Something I always try to emphasize on my tours is the importance of looking for a school that grows with you.  From my experience, the only constant in college is change, you change classes every semester, your views change, you change, basically, a lot is going on.  With that said, there are some schools that work for you freshman year, but then not so much for the rest of college.  This was not something I thought of when I looked at colleges.  Thankfully it worked out for me, here at Pitzer.  Let me tell you why.

Pitzer is the only college I can see myself growing to the best version of myself.  This is vastly because it is part of the five-college consortium.  In my experience, freshman year I spent almost all my time at Pitzer, I wanted to get to know the other kids in my grade and the school I was about to attend for the next four years of my life.  As the year came to a close I felt like I had the foundations of a home and a family.  Because Pitzer is such a small school (Approximately. 1,000 undergraduate students), it is very easy to get to know almost everyone.  Especially friendliness is one of the number one social norms here. 

Feeling at home and comfortable has been one of the best parts of Pitzer, especially because it has also pushed me to see what all of the Five Colleges Have to off.  I like to think of the consortium as a world:  you have your home base, but you it’s important to flap your wings and experience other ways of life.   Each college was founded in different era, as a result many of the classes teach through a bit of a mirroring lens of the time it was created. 

Another way I like to look at the Five Colleges is going to a university made up of all your favorite liberal arts schools.  Take a second to think about all your top choice small liberal arts school.  Now imagine yourself going to your favorite of them, but taking classes, eating and hanging out at all of your other top choices.  Pretty cool huh?  

Something I have learned through research classes here at Pitzer, is that it is hard to prove a causal effect, without rigorous scientific research.  However, I can say that I entered Pitzer, a very shy girl with slightly low confidence, now as a junior, most people would describe me as one of the most friendly and confident people they have ever met.  Pitzer has helped me change from a slow moving caterpillar to a techno colored speed demon of a butterfly.  I don’t think I would have grown into myself this much if I had chosen to attend another college of university.