Pratt Institute-Main Top Questions

Describe the students at your school.

samantha

I love my classes because they arent to loarge and all of my classmates seem to have shared interests.

Ashley

let's just say...be careful. these kids think they're on the cast of gossip girl or something. half of the campus is made up of wonderful, caring and brilliant individuals, who go on to accomplish the most amazing things...but the other half of our student body is made up of students who WISH they were frat members at a large state school, or students with some sense of entitlement and affinity for drugs, alcohol, and sex. I will promise you that many of those students eventually fail out of the school. Pratt is not a game.

Harper

Pratt's student body tends towards the hipster - people are really into buzz bands, the majority of people here dress very well and often very uniquely, (although you can basically wear whatever you want here) and the campus culture tends towards finding off-campus parties, open-mics, galleries, and concerts. New York City's cultural resources are nearly infinite, so it is fairly easy to find stuff to do, although NYC's student scene, especially with the private colleges, is a little too insular and a little too big on name-dropping for my taste. Also, campus life is non-existent, as there's so much stuff to do in the city, especially Williamsburg and Manhattan, that the vast majority of campus social life tends to revolve around those places. This makes for a lack of community on campus, which can make adjusting to life in the city hard, but it's almost hard to care because once you do, New York City is very easy to fall in love with. Greek life exists, but it is a very very small part of the school's social scene that mostly keeps to itself. Most parties in the neighborhood have a large frat or sorority contingent, but Greeks here buck the stereotype and trend towards community service or campus involvement - despite being under 10{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the campus population, there is a huge Greek contingent in student leadership positions here. Most Pratt students are from commuter suburbs of New York City, although the school is geographically diverse enough to create an interesting mix of people. Pratt is somewhat diverse in terms of class and ethnic makeup, more so than most small private liberal arts colleges, but not as diverse as some larger private schools and nowhere near as diverse as most public schools or the incredibly diverse surrounding community. Alcohol is easier to obtain than fresh produce. Just about every drug you can think of is available, although weed is by far the most prevalent, and the drug scene is definitely not as in-your-face as people might expect when coming here. You can definitely stay out of it, although the majority of people on campus drink at least once a week. People are very creatively driven, and many are casually smart, though intellectually driven people are a definite minority here. Students are either completely apathetic politically (many to the point of nihilism) or are very liberal - anarchists and socialists can definitely be found here on campus. People care about community service, partly because the SGA and Greek life makes it a little more visible, but this is not a politically motivated or activist campus in any way, shape, or form. We have several activist groups that are as dedicated as their small membership allows, but we really need a change in campus culture in order to accomplish a greater number of things with a greater number of people. Extracurriculars exist, and are sometimes integrated into the community's great creative potential, (for instance, we have several awesome student-designed comic book magazines) but mostly take a back seat to work - I'm in what is generally referred to as the easiest major on campus, but one of my classes has given me up to 15 pages a week's worth of work, and if you're in foundation year or (especially) in architecture, one of the school's best departments, a lack of work ethic will destroy you. If you lack creative motivation and the discipline to make it happen, you will not be ultimately happy here, though you may enjoy first semester.

Kayla

They are extremely diverse, with people from all over the world.

Christian

We see the wolrd in a different way and this makes us unique and affective.

Jia

hard working and unique to the core.

Anna

Dedicated, artistic, interesting and fun people to be around. Some people can be snobby but hey thats life.

Michelle

My clasmates ranged from being fun, hard working, talented, friendly and eager to work together, to those who where only focused on themselves.

Melissa

artistic

marissa

Every Pratt student is talented, open-minded, artistic, and a little wierd.

Lyla

Usually full of interesting ideas and/or talented, sometimes a little crazy, judgemental.

Michael

My classmates are competitive, but they give great feedback on the progress of your project.

Erin

The student body is extremely diverse, very creative and intellectual, it seems to me though that most people at this school lack social skills and tend to make up for that with drug use, most also come from wealthy backgrounds, and tend to be somewhat self absorbed.

Carol

Competitive, passionate, thinkers, who work hard to create great work.

Julia

people from all over the world coming together to make art.

Zakiya

Openminded, fun, and helpful

liz

I think you can safely say there is every race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic group on campus. I'm not saying there is just one token kid from each different group, there is enough that they can start their own clubs. However, there is a very high number of Koreans and Gays at Pratt. The girls here complain there are not enough straight guys to go around. Most students wear whatever they want to class. Never pajamas. It needs to match or completely not match as to make a statement. It also doesnt need to be clean. Everyone does laundry maybe 1 every two weeks if youre lucky, and thats probably only 1 load. Different types of students might interact, but then it seems like everyone is friends once you graduate. Too cool for each other in school, but not when you graduate. The first table is all Asians (13{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of school is from South Korea alone!). The next table is the sorority table. The next table is freshmen. And the fourth table is empty because no one else eats in the cafeterria. Grab and go back to studio to work. Students are from everywhere. Used to have a lot of kids from poorer backgrounds, but school is cutting back on financial aid, so you're getting a lot of richer types now. Very, very liberal. There are a couple of conservatives, maybe 10 tops? A lot of students are politically aware. Starving artists anyone? All the art students complain about that and are jealous of the architects because we can get jobs. Granted the pay isnt great, but there is work.

Allie

I think I can safely say that Pratt is an extremely accepting, diverse environment. People are so different and honestly, no one cares! In my two years (plus a summer of pre-college) at Pratt so far, I have seen all types of people, it's actually pretty amazing.

RAY

Meeting on main lawn; people out reading, frisbeeing and cartwheeling Lots of skateboards Cafeteria is set up in a very comfortable environment

Emily

People are pretty cool with race and background. In fact, probably most of the people here are Asian and nearly everyone is bilingual. Nobody cares what color your skin is or where you come from. As long as you keep yourself looking neat and take a shower once in a while no one cares. Financially, it's all over the place. I know people here who are spitting out money and I know people who have to pay for their own education because their parents can't afford it. No one cares about that either. Honestly, no one cares about anything but your work. If your art looks good, your fine. If your art looks like crap, be prepared to have no friends. Most people here are liberal and many are atheist, but if you're conservative and religious, you'll fit right in, too.

Lauren

It's hard to get to know a lot of people because there is so much work. The friends I have are really awesome, though. There is a good pool of people to befriend. Dating is hard to impossible, though. If you want a boyfriend or girlfriend, you are pretty much forced to search outside the Pratt circle.

Brett

There is a lot of different races, religions and social status here. But I think that people get along without judging by those things. It's a very accepting atmosphere. There are asians, caucasian, hispanic, african american, german, italian, everything you can think of. And there are people who have a lot of money and people who work while in session to pay for their tuitions. It's very diverse in every sense.

Kathryn

The students at Pratt intergrate pretty well. Everyone that goes here is from really diverse backgrounds and all barriers seem to break when you come here. The one thing that you all have binding you together at Pratt is art and thats a great bond to have. People are really open to making friends are often nice to each other no matter what. I mean, hipsters and punks and goths group together but that doesn't mean they wont talk to you the other one in class.

Casey

I thought Pratt would be much more culturally diverse than it is. On a visual basis, Pratt is not that diverse. The majority of our campus is made up of Caucasian students. However, there are many many students here from all over the world. There is a comfortable openness about GLBT issues and many students are out of the closet and positively rocking it, which is awesome. One sees many styles on campus: emo, punk, skater kid, gothic, indie, grunge, seldom the preppy but still there, a few athletes, ... they're ALL there. I think Pratt Cats count as part of the student body. Yes. We have cats. Everywhere, cats.

KJ

there are a bunch of dif. groups, you find your own.

Emmerson

The student body is mostly "artsy" types.

jen

Pratt is very diverse from a socio-economic perspective. My best friend is from the Projects and I have been to several parties where bottle service was paid for by other peoples parents. It always felt like money, race and religion didn't matter to everyone at Pratt. The students were more concerned with each others work; who is and isn't doing good writing, who is and isn't making interesting art. Because there is also a large number of international students, the language barrier can sometimes be a divider between native English speakers and the foreign students and sadly, sometimes these groups keep to themselves. Beyond that, students are as politically aware as any other university, and extremely liberal in most cases.

Ryan

The kind of student who would feel out of place at Pratt would be a very straight-laced, accounting/business oriented student. Pratt is not a place for people who like lots of order and formality. Students at Pratt seem to be pretty politcally apathetic, but that's not unique to Pratt. They are largely liberal.

Cristina

People that would feel out of place at Pratt are the atheletes and "popular" types of high school students. There are VERY FEW of them here. They tend to transfer out after the first semester when they realize that no one cares who they were in high school and they actually have to grow up and not associate themselves with their high school anymore like it is a royal family. Most students wear a mix of vintage, designer (Gucci,Betsy Johnson), Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, emo, dirty or painty, clothes with expensive jeans and shoes. A lot of those Cheap Monday jeans and flashy Nike sneakers that come in 800 colors. Not too many people wear sweatshirts and pajamas. Very rare to see. There are many students from the Northeast part of the country but there are an equal amount of people from the Midwest, west coast, Korea (LOTS), Japan, Europe and everywhere in between. Politics equals apathy at Pratt. No one acts like they care about ANYTHING. its disturbing almost at the level of outward apathy towards world issues. Many students come from affluent families but you will find a decent amount of students that can barely pay for their supplies and tuition. All of the foreign students' parents must own small countries or sweatshops, so they are loaded to pay the full $35,000 per year and to also ship them oversees and afford for them to have an education in art. Students are generaly excited to have the opportunity to love what they do for a living so the money is almost secondary. Its more about where they will work than how much they will make i.e. Gensler versus Eisenmen, Rockwell versus Switzer.

Dylan

Groups? Very little. I tried to be a part of LGBT but quickly found it wasn't for me. Other than that my social life was mainly with the many different groups of friends I associated with. What student would feel out of place? An accounting student. Or economics. Or a math major. Get the picture? Clothing to class? Whatever they feel like really. Too diverse to bother mentioning. Different types of students interacting? Sure, all the time. Except the writing and architecture students tended to keep to themselves for the most part. Probably because their classes and schedules rarely coincided with the rest of the school. Four tables of students in the dining hall? Freshmen, sophomores in ELJ, Teachers on lunch break, and the rare senior getting wireless access. Where are Pratt Students from? Everywhere. Mainly the US and Asia. Financial backgrounds? Varied in every department. Students politically aware? Absolutely. Active? Hell no. Predominantly liberal. Duh. Students talk about how much they'll earn? If by "talk about how much" you mean how little, then yes.

Chris

Basically, if you’re a die-hard Republican, or particularly religious, go somewhere else. Most of us are fervently liberal (bordering on Socialist) and, at most, possessing a vague belief in an afterlife. Most students are middle to upper-middle class, but they like to pretend to be poor, and their favorite author is Kafka. Although from what I’ve seen, there’s this small contingent of Construction Management majors who join the frats (we have two of them, but I think only one of them is recognized) and are part of that whole… thing. I think that only like 1{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the school is black or Hispanic, but we have a lot of international students from various parts of Asia.