Student Profile
liz
- Class: Alum
- Major: Architecture
- Gender: F
- High School: New Bedford High School
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
The best thing about Pratt is everyone is different. I would make the school more organized, because it feels as if you're wasting your money a lot of the time. Its a decent size, I wish it was a little bigger, everyone knows everyone, or at least someone who knows that person. People are usually either impressed by going to Pratt or they have never heard of it. I spend all my time in the architecture building, because I was an architecture student. Basically, I didnt sleep and lived off of the pretzels from the vending machine my last year in school. College town, no way! We either go into Manhattan, when we really feel adventurous, or we go to the divey bars around our school in Brooklyn. And sometimes Williamsburg, the hipster capital of NYC. There is nothing usual about Pratt. My college experience is nothing like my friends at other schools. There is no school pride, actually we all dog on Pratt and would never be caught dead in a "Pratt" t-shirt or sweatshirt. That is the ultimate show of geekiness at Pratt. The school is not organized. And my graduation this year was a joke. It poured so hard and they just gave us ponchos, no tents, not moving it inside out huge gym. Our families and us were drenched. They didnt shorten any of the ceremony except for not letting us walk. Which we booed loadly and started chanting "we want to walk, we want to walk!" and they didnt let us walk.
Academic Life
Most of my professors know my name. Students study all the time. We are geeks, we study even on Fridays and Saturday nights. Classes are very small, so its better with class participation. Yes, we have gone to the bar and have talked about architecture. No one else understands what we are talking about either, which means we get even more lost into our architecture talk. Students are competitive. Thats what happens when you stay up all night, put your work up on a wall, and have other people critique it. Architecture is hard. You don't sleep and it makes no sense the first year. I've spent time with some professors outside of class and will run into others at school and talk with them for a while. Pratt doesnt really look towards getting a well rounded education. Its very much focused on your major. Pratt seems to be learning for learning sake, but the architecture students are perferred over other NYC architecture students by architecture firms.
Student Body
I think you can safely say there is every race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic group on campus. I'm not saying there is just one token kid from each different group, there is enough that they can start their own clubs. However, there is a very high number of Koreans and Gays at Pratt. The girls here complain there are not enough straight guys to go around. Most students wear whatever they want to class. Never pajamas. It needs to match or completely not match as to make a statement. It also doesnt need to be clean. Everyone does laundry maybe 1 every two weeks if youre lucky, and thats probably only 1 load. Different types of students might interact, but then it seems like everyone is friends once you graduate. Too cool for each other in school, but not when you graduate. The first table is all Asians (13% of school is from South Korea alone!). The next table is the sorority table. The next table is freshmen. And the fourth table is empty because no one else eats in the cafeterria. Grab and go back to studio to work. Students are from everywhere. Used to have a lot of kids from poorer backgrounds, but school is cutting back on financial aid, so you're getting a lot of richer types now. Very, very liberal. There are a couple of conservatives, maybe 10 tops? A lot of students are politically aware. Starving artists anyone? All the art students complain about that and are jealous of the architects because we can get jobs. Granted the pay isnt great, but there is work.
The Best Things
The education.
The Worst Things
The disorganized administration.
