Hi everyone! I’m back again with the last blog post of 2020! I wanted to end on a fun note after this crazy year we’ve had so I’m here to talk about how I made Scripps friends as well as friends at the other Claremont Colleges. Because of the consortium with Scripps, Pitzer College, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont McKenna College and Pomona College, almost all aspects of campus life are shared. This provides plenty of opportunities to meet people from all five undergraduate colleges.
Let’s start at the very beginning of the Claremont experience. Orientation at Scripps is run through New Student Programs and Orientation (NSPO). NSPO puts first years and transfer students into peer mentor groups with older students and these groups are an easy way to make friends since you do activities with your peer mentor group throughout orientation week. I really liked everyone in my peer mentor group and I still talk to a couple of people from my group. The other Claremont Colleges’ orientations have some overlap with our orientation so combined events create spaces to mingle with other new 5C students. For example, there’s Target Night on the last night of orientation where all of the first years and transfer students go to Target after hours and buy tons of stuff or just hang out. It’s a lot of fun and another great way to meet people at the beginning of your time at Scripps.
Once classes have begun, I think it becomes even easier to meet new people. Since your Core classes are the only ones with just Scripps students, that means that the rest of your classes will be with students from the other schools. This is especially true if you take classes at the Keck Science Department; that guarantees that you’ll be in classes with CMC and Pitzer students. I’ve met the vast majority of my friends through my classes and especially in my Keck Science classes. It’s nice to get to know people who have shared academic interests and it makes classes a lot more fun if you have study buddies!
After you’ve sat in classes for a few hours, you tend to get hungry and there lies another opportunity to meet new people. Since there are 7 dining halls across the 5Cs that all Claremont College students can visit, students from all five campuses congregate so that no matter which dining hall you choose, you’re certain to find new people to socialize with. This doesn’t even include the other eateries on campus like Jay’s Place at Mudd or The Motley at Scripps! They say food brings people together and that is definitely true of Claremont students. A lot of times when I ate dinner with my roommates or friends, one of them would bring someone else that they knew and there was potential to meet someone I might not have met otherwise.
Speaking of roommates and dorm life, I know I got super lucky by being put with the roommates I was with last year, but my roomies became two of my best friends in college. Living with people is a shared experience that can strengthen bonds since you see the good, the bad and the ugly of your roommates’ lives. Some of my favorite moments at school last year involved being silly with my roommates, our weekly roomie dinners and just having company. Outside of just my room, I think my dorm was a great place to meet people. The Community Coordinators (CCs) hosted lots of events to promote vibrancy and engagement in the dorm. My favorite event my CCs hosted was a cookie and pumpkin decorating event in celebration of Halloween. Since there was food, a ton of people showed up and I got to see lots of people I didn’t even know I lived with!
A final place where I personally met quite a few 5C friends was in club meetings. Last year (and this year!) I was a member of Watu Weusi, Scripps’s Black Student Association, and attended meetings and social events that they held. Watu as well as the Office of Black Student Affairs created lots of spaces to connect with other Black students across the 5Cs. I’d say clubs in general are perfect ways to meet people with shared interests and/or identities. Clubs across the 5Cs host social events in addition to regular meetings which are usually pretty popular and open to everyone.
Of course, there are plenty of other places to meet people in Claremont like at jobs you may have on campus or in performing arts productions, but I’ve just talked about the situations where I met most of my friends. I know that if you’re just starting college or just new to Claremont it might seem intimidating to find people you mesh with but I promise there are so many ways to make friends! Don’t forget that you’re an awesome person and that there are lots of other awesome people to befriend. Good luck out there!
If you have any more questions about socializing at the 5Cs, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]. Bye for now! Happy holidays and stay safe!