Bryn Mawr College
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Art History
Minors: Museum Studies & Psychology double minor
Student Self Identifies as: East-Asian Heterosexual Female
Summary
I am on a [varsity sports team], I’m part of the Chinese Students Club, Bryn Mawr Buddies, Bryn Mawr Exhibition Series, the Student Government Association (SGA), and participate in the SGA’s Seven Sisters Committee, social club, and the election board. I’m also the campus outreach council member at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia which is for student ambassadors.
Background
Gender Identity: Female
Race/Ethnicity: East-Asian
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
High School Experience: Private international high school in China. The majority of my school went to the UK for college and about 20% went to the United States.
First-Generation College Student: Yes
Major: Art History
Minors: Museum Studies & Psychology double minor
Extracurricular Activities: I am on a [varsity sports team], I’m part of the Chinese Students Club, Bryn Mawr Buddies, Bryn Mawr Exhibition Series, the Student Government Association (SGA), and participate in the SGA’s Seven Sisters Committee, social club, and the election board. I’m also the campus outreach council member at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia which is for student ambassadors.
Did any of your extracurricular activities have a particularly big impact on your experience?
The greatest impact was from my varsity [sports team], and from the Bryn Mawr Exhibition Series and Bryn Mawr Buddies. I was part of the varsity sports team in China in high school so I joined here. The first and second year wasn’t too good because they didn’t have a regular training system or a regularly recruited coach. It really introduced me to a freestyle training that shifted my interest in the sport. I attended the weekly training but cultivate my other sports interests outside. I didn’t totally delegate my time to the sport like I didn’t in high school. It [encouraged] me to learn table tennis as well.
Academic Experience
Can you describe your weekly coursework for your major?
Because it’s a liberal arts school and the Art History department is rigorous here, it was a lot of reading. I have about 100-200 pages per week. For writing assignments, it depends on how many courses I take. I usually have two Art History courses per semester so I have to write an average of four writing [assignments] per month. The reading is more intensive than writing.
Is there anything you feel that your major’s department does especially well or poorly?
For especially well, there are so many good faculty members and I learn so much from those professors. The department itself is strong, but after my sophomore year, a lot of them left, which is bad. Another strength is the curriculum you can take. It’s flexible and you can take from the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford, and Swarthmore. I’m taking classes at those three schools this year and they’re very enriching to my college experience. A lot of them are focused on more Western traditional art, and I can take more Asian arts and other disciplines at those schools if I want to learn more.
How has being part of the Tri-College Consortium impacted your academic experience?
I like it. it feels very common for students to take classes at Haverford. We have a blue bus and it only takes 10-minutes to get to Haverford so it’s like you have two campuses. We don’t have fine arts at Bryn Mawr, so I go to Haverford to take those courses. Swarthmore is about a thirty-minute drive so I only take classes there when I have to. I love traveling and experiencing different campuses, it makes me feel less enclosed [to the Bryn Mawr campus].
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
It’s pretty collaborative. You’re being treated as babies because everyone takes you to step by step. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing because for me I used to thrive in a very competitive environment. At Bryn Mawr, you can’t talk about grades or see what others are doing about their grades. You kind of work alone, but at the same time, it’s collaborative because there are many tutoring sessions and professors that want you to do well so they try to help you.
How accessible are your professors?
Most of them are pretty accessible. I think it depends on the department. For Art History, you get to meet with them every week and they have office hours open. For the STEM departments, they are even more [accessible]. They invite people to their houses for dinner and take them on retreats. A lot of the professors at the University of Pennsylvania are harder to get in touch with. You have to schedule office hours with them and it probably takes them two weeks to respond. After class, there are crowds of students surrounding them so it’s hard to talk to the professors.
Why did you pick your major? Are you happy with your choice?
I decided to go into Art History early in high school because my father is an artist and I was also interested in art. I want to do art administration in the future so that motivation was rooted very early. I chose Bryn Mawr because it has a good Art History department. I feel like it’s very ambivalent so far. After I took five or six courses, it’s too academic and not that much practical work. It’s very Western and traditional art focuses. I want to learn more about contemporary art, global art, and administration. There aren’t faculty that don’t have specialists in areas I want to dig into. In that sense, I’m not that satisfied, but it’s given me a good foundation in art history. In my junior and senior year, I really tried to go to the other campuses, and I studied away at Columbia University to take art history classes there to meet more people. That helped me with my major.
How has going to a historically female school impacted your academic experience?
It’s encouraging because you don’t feel a gender restriction when you’re studying. People talk a lot about that, but I’m taking a class at Swarthmore and there are guys in my class and I feel that I’m very motivated, so I don’t know if that’s real [laughs]. For me, being in a powerful women’s college didn’t put me in any kind of gender constrictions which gave me freedom in studying and now I feel more confident in multi-gender environments.
Reasons to Attend
1) It gives you a chance to explore yourself and your identity.
2) It’s a great location and there are great resources with the other campuses. You’re close to Philadelphia and can go to the other schools. There’s a lot of flexibility and you can really create your own undergraduate career here.
3) There are supportive peers and professors.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) The social scene isn’t that vibrant. You’ll probably feel bored if you’re a party person that likes having a loud life.
2) The career development office needs to be improved. You’ll have to work hard on your own to get career resources.
3) It’s pretty expensive for international students. [For the academic year 2019-20, tuition is about $53,180, and room and board is about $17,000.]
4) There is no Greek life.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on and around campus?
Freshman/ Sophomore: Rhoads Hall
Junior: New Dorm
Senior: Off-campus
How was transitioning from your hometown in China to Bryn Mawr, PA in terms of location?
I’m a very adaptive person because I went to high school in a different city than my hometown, and I lived there for four years on my own. I didn’t feel a huge difference, but Bryn Mawr is in the suburbs of Philadelphia and I’m still not that adapted to the suburban lifestyle. I kind of feel stuck in the middle of nowhere sometimes.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
I feel 100% safe on campus. We have campus safety for around 24 hours. Where I’m living is a 10-minute walk from campus, but I can call the van to drive me home. I feel very secure here.
Social Opportunities
What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
We don’t have a lot of variety so I usually spend one day at school watching films that I don’t have time for during the week. The other day I’ll go to Ardmore nearby, or Philadelphia’s Chinatown to get food and shop.
What have been some of your favorite times at Bryn Mawr?
Bryn Mawr has a lot of traditions. May Day is the first day in May when everyone has to dress in White dresses. We gather at school and eat food, there are games, and you can hang out with your friends to take pictures. There’s also a ceremony for graduating seniors. It’s a time for farewell.
How happy are you with the weekend activities or nightlife at your school? Is there anything you would change if you could?
On a scale of 1-10, I’d say a 6 or 7. The variety is so low, I wanted to visit more museums, galleries, and films and hang out more in the city. One thing is that you’re far away from the city and there aren’t many people that can go with you. A lot of the students at Bryn Mawr are less exploratory to the city, so you have to deal with the variability of students here.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
I met them during student orientation. I’m attracted to certain people and I actively go out and talk to them. The other part of my friend group came from classes.
How would you describe the overall social scene at Bryn Mawr?
People like performing group activities because they like spending a lot of time together. The racial division is pretty strong, so the Asian students hang out with Asian students, and Black students from really close groups with Black students.
How would you describe the international community on campus? How strong is it?
It’s about 20% of the whole population but I wouldn’t say there’s a strong population on campus. But, a lot of them are Chinese mainland students and due to language restriction and just not fitting in, a lot of them tend to click as a group and don’t interact as much with the rest of campus. They go through orientation with the whole school, and not as an international group. This helps them blend in because they’re forming groups with the people in their dorm which are a mixture of races. [See English House Gazette article, “The ‘Invisible Yellow’ Speak.”]
To what extent do people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
There are mixed groups of people who hang out with different races and nationalities, but for big data, people tend to form groups with their same race. [The undergraduate population is 52% White, 11% Asian American, 8% Hispanic, and 4% African-American.]
How do you like the size of Bryn Mawr? How has that impacted your experience? [Bryn Mawr has about 1,300 undergraduates.]
There are pros and cons. It’s very small and the class sizes are about 20 people. You get close interaction with the professor and they encourage you to speak more. You probably get to know all the students on campus, so I feel very comfortable in the small campus environment. The cons are that I don’t get to meet many people outside of this range. When I studied abroad at Columbia University, I met a lot of people who’re different than me, in terms of what we’re studying, what we think, and how we talk. That’s very interesting and can teach me a lot of things. I prefer a larger pool of students.
As an international student, were there parts of Bryn Mawr or American college overall that surprised you?
When I first arrived, what surprised me was there were students with he/him gender pronouns and how there are lots of homosexuals on campus. It was so prevalent that it shocked me. It’s an open gender policy here which is interesting.
Careers
Has the alumni network helped you find internships or jobs?
They organized a lot of career panels with alumni talks, and I met a lot of great alumni this year. Although they didn’t land me a job, hearing their experiences inspired me in some sense.
What have you used the career office for? How helpful have they been?
I used them for resume and cover letter editing. I visited them so often that it really helped. I’ve also used them for career counseling and graduate school applications. The career counseling, they’re more conceptual instead of giving you actionable tips. It’s a workshop helping you discover your strengths and tell you what other resources are out there instead of giving you tips on interviews.
Have you learned any computer programs or computer languages that will be helpful professionally?
I took Python on campus for an introductory class.