Like many of our Admissions Officers mention in our information sessions (which you can sign up for here), a good number of Scripps students did not plan to go to a women’s college when we first started looking at colleges. Scripps provides a unique opportunity to attend a women’s college while also having the coed experience, thanks to the other Claremont Colleges around us. At least for me as I was deciding to come to Scripps and sharing my decision, I often found myself relying on the existence of the other 5Cs to justify wanting to go to Scripps. I definitely had some reservations going into my college experience and was worried that I’d miss out on opportunities if I went to a gender selective school.
Now that I am in my last semester at Scripps, I have a completely different perception of the women’s college experience and the impact the other 5Cs have on attending Scripps. Firstly, not all Scripps students are women. There are trans men, non-binary students, and other gender non-conforming people within our student body and they all belong and benefit our Scripps community. So the first false assumption of a historically women’s’ college, that you’ll just be surrounded by a bunch of women, is incorrect. You could be in an entirely Scripps environment, like your CORE classes, and there will still be gender diversity in the room.
Second, I thought that I would have trouble making (cis) guy friends off campus, and that the 5Cs would be socially segregated. That is incredibly far from the truth. I see cis men in my classes, my dining halls, my libraries, my club meetings, and walking across the campuses. People don’t treat me differently when they learn that I go to Scripps and I don’t treat them differently because they don’t go to Scripps. I have still been able to make close and enriching friendships with non-Scripps students from any and all gender identities, and our differing schools present no challenges or barriers to our friendship.
The third misconception that I had was that the coed Claremont Colleges legitimize the Scripps experience. That was a belief I held onto longer than the other two and didn’t fully realize until I went abroad my junior year. While I was in Italy, I actually experienced more culture shock from being around non 5C students than I did being in a new country and speaking a different language half the time. It was there that I discovered that 5C people are more receptive, respectful, and appreciative of their classmates and peers than a majority of the people I went abroad with did. I had grown so accustomed to entering a classroom environment where everyone had space to share and was eager to participate and listen to their classmates, that being deprived of that for a few short months was shocking.
While I had a LOT of time to think in quarantine, which started midway through my abroad experience, I began to piece together how the 5Cs could be so distinctly different than other colleges in the US. And it’s that proximity to a women’s college, baby. One thing that I always loved about my Scripps classes is that there was always 2-5 cis men from the other schools in my classes who would experience what it was like to be a minority, potentially for the first time in their lives. As a Black woman who has only attended predominantly white institutions (PWIs) my entire life, it was exciting to be in the majority in a classroom. The difference between their experience and my experience, however, is that these cis men were still treated like equals. They were never expected to speak for their whole gender or identity, and they were still encouraged to share their ideas and would be met with open ears and minds. They lost nothing from being in that classroom dynamic, but they now gain an understanding of what it’s like to be a minority in an intellectual space. And they were also able to see the tools employed to make sure that a minority member did not feel alienated or excluded by those in the majority, and how much more engaging the classroom was when everyone felt comfortable and included.
They then take that knowledge with them to classes where they are in the majority and can effectively make those around them feel more welcomed and respected in the classroom. I think something that (hopefully) we have all learned this year is that passive support is not the most effective tool in enacting change. It requires action and behavior changes to allow those in the minority (in any context) to safely be as active a community member as they want to be. That is what Scripps brings to the 5C experience. Our goal is for students at all 5 campuses to come into a Scripps classroom and leave feeling respected and heard, regardless and because of the various identities that makes each of us ourselves.
For years I thought that the 5Cs make the Scripps experience, but now I really think that Scripps makes the 5C experience. Each school benefits from being around a women’s college and the 5Cs would be fundamentally different if Scripps wasn’t a part of it. While attending a women’s college may not be your initial goal, or what you want and need in a college experience, you absolutely will not lose anything from attending one, especially if that women’s college is Scripps. Going here has only enriched my education and understanding of the world and my role in it. Attending a women’s college was the last thing I’d thought I’d do when I was a junior in high school but now I can’t imagine my life without this specific and unique education.