Most professors (unless you're in a huge intro class) work hard to learn students' names. I have never had a professor in my two years at Pitzer who didn't call on me by name. My favorite classes BY FAR have been the Political Studies classes (I'm a poli-sci major) because we have an excellent political studies professors but I've enjoyed every class I've taken at Pitzer. Spanish language classes are also strong as well as Environmental Studies classes. Pitzer students DEFINITELY have conversations outside of class, which is something I really love about the school. It is clear that rather than just learning the material for tests, Pitzer students incorporate their education into their everyday lives to help them shape and articulate their opinions. I've had many an intriguing debate about how to reform the Los Angeles school system or about the 2008 Elections with my friends. Professors always have office hours and are very open to making themselves available to help students. The education at Pitzer is definitely geared toward enabling the students to appreciate learning for its own sake and to take what they learned into the world after graduation and aid people or communities that need help.

Many people believe that Pitzer college is not as selective or challenging as the other Claremont Colleges. Others perceive Pitzer students to all be pot-smoking hippies.

Neither of these stereotypes are true. In fact, Pitzer's acceptance rate has been dropped significantly for the past three years and our acceptance rate is currently lower than both Harvey Mudd and Scripps College. I have found Pitzer classes to be just as challenging as any other class I take from another school in the consortium. Though I was concerned about Pitzer's reputation as a drug school, I have not found this to be the case at all. As with any school, there is drug and alcohol usage but it hasn't impacted my educational or social experiences at Pitzer. Having been at Pitzer for two years now, I'm realizing that the "hippie" sterotype might come from Pitzer's politically active (heavily liberal) student body. Though I wouldn't call Pitzer a "hippy" school its students are definitely socially conscious and pursue all types of community service and awareness-building activities.