Bryn Mawr College
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Independent Major – Creative Writing and Film
Minor: None
Student Self Identifies as: South Asian Heterosexual Female
Summary
I [have a leadership position] in the Association of International Students, and I [have a leadership position] in Film Series. Apart from that, I participate in the Consulting Club and was part of dorm leadership last year.
Background
Gender Identity: Female
Race/Ethnicity: South Asian
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
High School Experience: Private high school in Pakistan with about 150 students in the graduating class. There was a culture of going to college in the United Kingdom and Canada.
First-Generation College Student: No
Major: Independent Major – Creative Writing and Film
Minor: None
Extracurricular Activities: I [have a leadership position] in the Association of International Students, and I [have a leadership position] in Film Series. Apart from that, I participate in the Consulting Club and was part of dorm leadership last year.
Did any of your extracurricular activities have a particularly big impact on your experience?
The Association of International Students has influenced my experience here because you get to work closely with the international student center, which is called the Pensby Center, and you get an insight into how it works. Being part of dorm leadership also defined my experience because you work with the residential life office and the dean’s office which made me understand the extent to which they’re involved in student life and important on-campus resources I had access to as a student that I was previously not aware of.
Academic Experience
Can you describe your weekly coursework for your major?
Most of my semester culminates in the production of a short film which takes a lot of time. You have to edit it and film it. Because most of the production courses I take are hybrid and contain a theory element, there’s a lot of reading creative writing courses that usually have weekly submissions. Overall, it’s about 50-100 pages of reading a week, then writing about 10-20 pages a week and being able to film.
Is there anything you feel that your major’s department does especially well or poorly?
Bryn Mawr and Haverford don’t really have distinct creative writing departments. You can’t do a creative writing major, you can do a creative writing concentration, which is why I had to do an Independent Major. There is no proper film department, so we have a Visual Studies department at Haverford which isn’t a great feature we have to live with. The nice part about it is the Independent Major program is heavily advertised at Bryn Mawr to encourage you to branch out to other colleges within the Tri-College and Quaker consortium. We are in a consortium with the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford, and Swarthmore and they make sure to do their best to accommodate you and make sure you get into the classes you want. If the class is ultra-selective, the professor will reach out to negotiate on your behalf to make sure you’re getting the most out of your education.
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
It’s a bit of both. The class sizes are usually small and I’ve gotten a lot of individual attention from professors. We have an honor code and talking about grades is part of the social honor code. There is a bit of a community in making sure individuals feel supported and the amount of work they’re able to take on themselves. I feel that it’s more competitive than the environments I see at Haverford or some of the larger classes at UPenn. I think there’s an emphasis on the post-graduate activity at Bryn Mawr, so I think graduate school is always a consideration a lot of students keep in the back of their minds because we have such good graduate school placement. It’s funny because even though grades aren’t something that’s part of the social honor code, discussing academic achievement ends up being something that’s really emphasized and is part of college life.
How accessible are your professors?
They’re super accessible, but for me, it also depends on which department. A lot of my creative writing professors have been super accessible here and at Haverford. I have taken a philosophy class at Haverford and I found the professor to be accessible, but not to the same degree as at Bryn Mawr. Film Studies professors in the Tri-Co I’ve noticed really do go out on a limb to make sure that students get what they need to effectively pursue this field because of the limited breadth of the concentrations. They take an individual interest in not just how you progress in film, but your life as a student.
Why did you pick your major? Are you happy with your choice?
I chose my major because I knew this was something I wanted to do for a very long time. I mainly came to Bryn Mawr because of the generous financial aid they offered me as an international student, otherwise a film school would’ve been a top priority. Because the Independent Major was heavily advertised, I thought I’d still be able to pursue something similar to a film school degree, which is why I felt comfortable declaring it. I declared because this was what I came in knowing what I wanted to do.
How has being part of the Tri-Co consortium impacted your academic experience?
It’s heavily impacted my academic experience. I’ve taken most of my creative writing and film classes at Haverford. I just recently started branching out to Swarthmore and UPenn. Without it, I wouldn’t have been comfortable declare an Independent Major, because relying on Bryn Mawr and Haverford alone would be a risky move since they’re not as extensive when it comes to film.
Reasons to Attend
1) The college definitely tries to do a lot to support the student well-being in terms of mental health and other resources available. There’s a whole row of religious buildings that have kitchens for students from different religious backgrounds so they can cook if the dining hall doesn’t accommodate their dietary preferences.
2) The academic environment promotes a culture of excellence.
3) The Tri-College Consortium, and how they encourage you to go out and get the best of your education.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) It can be a little insular and sometimes socially isolating being in the suburbs.
2) How as an international student I feel more marginalized as far as what I have access to. A lot of undergraduate fellowships are limited to domestic students. Keep in mind larger schools that have a lot more resources or a larger international student community. It would’ve made my experience easier.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on and around campus?
Freshman: Brecon Hall in a single
Sophomore/Junior: Rhoads North in a single
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
It’s an open campus but it’s generally very safe and we’ll have members of the community come in to walk their dogs or play with their kids. There’s generally a campus safety patrolling regularly. The student body makes me feel safe.
Social Opportunities
What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
I go to on-campus parties, but they are rare across the Tri-College Consortium. Going to UPenn used to be an option for my freshman year, but mostly my friends and I enjoy going out in the city to the clubs. The nightlife isn’t as vibrant as we’d like it to be. There isn’t always something going on every weekend. There isn’t a party school culture. If we do go out, there’s nothing before a Friday and Saturday, and a Thursday on occasion.
What’s an alternative to going to a party or a bar that you like for a night out?
There are lots of dance concerts that happen in Bryn Mawr and Haverford’s campus. A lot of our dance groups are collaborative. We have orchestra concerts pretty frequently, and there are de-stressor events the college’s host on their own accord that happen throughout the week in the campus center.
How happy are you with the weekend activities or nightlife at your school? Is there anything you would change if you could?
My freshman year I was a little expectant of a more vibrant weekend life, but I’ve grown accustomed to it which is fine. I liked getting to know Philadelphia, so I’m fine with it at this point.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
Being an international student did have a bearing on the kinds of people I hang out with. Most of my friends are South-Asian, but my closest friends are American. I met them through my classes and my position as a dorm leadership team member. It’s mostly people I’ve worked within an academic and professional capacity, and then the people I know based on their affinity.
How would you describe the overall social scene at Bryn Mawr?
The social scene is accommodating. There’s a social justice element to it here. I feel like a lot of the groups you align yourself with are kind of predicated on your political leanings or positioning as a person of color. It overtly doesn’t dictate the social scene, but I feel like international students more often than not end up clumping together. I think what you personally ideologically align with and how you operate on campus does dictate how you fit in socially.
To what extent do people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
There’s a reasonable mixture. I think sometimes people with certain sexual orientations do hesitate to befriend or mix with men on Haverford’s campus because being part of the Tri-College Consortium takes a lot of presence in determining the social scene. Bryn Mawr is not all women, which is often misconstrued because Haverford people practically live here, so there is a male presence that people are comfortable with. [The undergraduate population is 52% White, 11% Asian American, 8% Hispanic, and 4% African-American.]
Being part of the Tri-College Consortium, do you feel that you go to an all-women’s college?
Not really because I’ve had to take so many classes off of Bryn Mawr’s campus. Ultimately, I feel like you do feel it when you come back to Bryn Mawr at the end of the day to hang out in your dorm, which I think is great in a way. People from Swarthmore and Haverford are in most of the classes I’ve taken, so it’s been a mixed experience and isn’t a very strict women’s college.
As an international student, were there parts of Bryn Mawr or American college as a whole that surprised you?
No, but I think that has to do with the fact that I lived in the states when I was younger. It wasn’t difficult for me to adjust, and culture shock wasn’t necessarily a thing. I think I was shocked at the lack of resources available to me as an international student when it came to professional development.
To what extent do people in athletes and non-athletes mix socially?
Very little. I have almost no athlete friends because they’re always practicing and travel a lot for games.
How do you like the size of Bryn Mawr? How has that impacted your experience? [Bryn Mawr has about 1,300 undergraduates.]
I was initially taken back by the size because I wanted to go to a larger college where it would be possible to blend in, but over the years I’ve appreciated my smaller class size and how it enables members of the teaching staff and administration to develop personal relationships with you.
Careers
Has the alumni network helped you find internships or jobs?
The alumni network isn’t really concentrated within the fields that I’m interested in pursuing, but I have been in contact with two alumni who do dabble in documentary production and screenwriting. They’ve been super helpful in offering me guidance on what to look for and apply to. Because I’m an international student, unfortunately, a lot of them who are domestic didn’t have a lot of insights into how my visa position would affect my employment opportunities. The past two years I’ve been interning in Pakistan, which doesn’t require me to utilize the alumni connections.
What have you used the career office for? How helpful have they been?
I use them for resume work and seeing what internship opportunities are available for me. They’re generally very involved and host a lot of networking brunches so I’ve been to a bunch of those. I have used their career peers. They have designated positions where students function as career peers to casually talk about your career trajectory and the kind of internships you want to apply to and which on-campus resources you need to utilize to get there.
Have you learned any computer programs or computer languages that will be helpful professionally?
We had to learn Excel as part of our dorm leadership position. As far as filming goes, Haverford has a facility called VCAM, which is Visual Culture, Arts, and Media and they have free training programs outside the courses that allow me to dabble in Photoshop and Lightroom. Generally, I’m proficient enough in Adobe Premiere Pro, which is the new industry standard that is preferred over Final Cut Pro in most settings. I can be a personal assistant on a set, and a lot of that has come from the courses I’ve taken and the resources available at Haverford that gave me a proficiency of a software. It also taught me sound mixing software to a certain extent.
Financial Aid
Have you used financial aid? If so, how accommodating was the office to your needs?
I am on a lot of financial aid actually, which is why I was able to afford a college education in the United States. The office has been really accommodating about my aid package and is very responsive by email. When it comes to dispersing information about my financial aid package or renegotiating it, they haven’t been as great about it as I’d like them to be. They don’t take currency fluctuations and deprecation in account for changes in the financial aid package, which usually do occur when the yearly reported income for the parent who’s paying for your education changes.