Sarah Lawrence College Top Questions

The academics here are outstanding, it is very rare to hear people complain, except that Sarah Lawrence students have complaints about everything, usually about dumb comments people make in class. Intellectual conversations happen pretty often outside of class, and in my experience more frequently after first year.

Classes at SLC are exactly what you make them. You guide your own education entirely, as there are no required courses. This can be a blessing or a curse depending on how motivated and focused you are.

With no majors and very few of the "traditional" academic aspects of American college life some parents often fear that it is where careers go to die, but with the unique combination of the basically one to one teaching ratio and constant questioning by both teacher and student of teacher and student we leave with a personalized true education that we orchestrated and therefore had a deeper grasp of. It is not a college for "just slipping by," because the people who flourish at SLC are the people who are there to acquire the knowledge with their degree and not just the piece of paper itself. You have to WANT to learn to do well at SLC.

- Very open, can pursue whatever course of study you want, no matter how obscure. Great synthesis between disciplines

I've had a range of relationships with my professors. Some I try and avoid while walking around, others I feel comfortable calling. The vast majority of professors I've had would whatever it takes to schedule extra meeting time if I felt I needed it.

Can be great if you find the area you want to study in and get along/work well with the profs in that area. They are easy enter (the academics) and can usualy be brought to a higher advanced level.

The academics is absolutely why I came to Sarah Lawrence and love it. There is a maximum of 15 students in a class, which is taught seminar style around a round table. Class is often led by student discussion. I came to this school shy and unwilling to speak in class. I am now always prepared to offer my opinion and get excited for class to come when I can discuss and work out my ideas from the readings. The conference system also has you meet individually with your professor every other week to work on an independent project. This lets you shape your studies which ever way you want and often allows for strong relationships to form between you and your professors. Some of my best friends after four years here are my professors.

With our small seminars, every teacher knows your name by the second or third week of classes. In addition to weekly classes, you meet one-on-one with your professors every other week, and do an independent study related to your course work. Broken down, each of our five credit courses essentially translates into a 3 credit class and a 2 credit independent study that goes with it. This allows you to customize your education. Course registration at SLC is unique from other schools. We interview professors - not they interview us; we actually interview them! We can ask them any question and get a feel for their personality. Once we decide who we want to take classes with, we register for them. Supposedly we get 2/3 or 3/3 choices, but occasionally students get bumped from 2 classes (and occasionally students will be bumped from alternate registration, which sucks). But they're working on fixing that.

Professors know your name. People study alot. Class participation very common. Education geared toward learning for its own sake, which is good and bad. i am worried about getting a job after college. i take classes that have to do with activism, social justice, and revolution that tie together race, class, gender, sexuality.

The best part of the whole place. Swarming with people who are way too articulate for their own good.

Though many may group it together with other liberal arts colleges like Bard, Vassar, and Skidmore, I think what is special about Sarah Lawrence is how personalized the academic system is. Because of the way seminars and conferences are set up, each student gets out of their education exactly what they put into it. The professors are mostly lovely, intelligent people who want to help you with your work as much as they know how. One of the downsides to academics at SLC is the selectivity of the registration process. Since the maximum class size is 15, students get bumped from their first choice classes more often than we would like. The privilege of small class size still outweighs the bad, though.

Academics at Sarah Lawrence are most definitely its saving grace: huge amounts of class participation, no seminars larger than about 15 students, few lectures above 45. Individual conferences (mandatory) with professors every other week. SLC is DEFINITELY geared toward learning for its own sake, which is honestly why I chose to go here in the first place--also, job-wise this school basically prepares you for a bunch more years of Graduate study. Besides the general pretentiousness, which is fairly rampant, Sarah Lawrence has an ideal academic system, of course with its problems; but students are free to take classes they enjoy and are thus likely to discuss them outside of class (which is fairly frequent).

You work one-on-one with your professors, meeting for a half hour every two weeks (sometimes more). Regular classes cap out at 15, lectures at something like 45. We sit at circular tables so nobody can really hide form the discussion. Most classes are discussion-based seminars. Often students will have intellectual conversations outside of class; often they will also have very non-intellectual conversations. My favorite class is a Psychology class called Language, Mind, and Brain which looks at linguistics, neuroimaging data, child development, sign languages, literacy/learning to read and more to get a picture on what sort of thing language might be in our lives...Least favorite class was called The Biology of Living and Dying. The professor was very unorganized and couldn't give me enough help in my one-on-one conference to come up with a good conference topic and write a good paper for the end of the year. We don't have majors, our academic requirements are simply to cover a broad range of categories and not take too many within a single category. The education is for education, though it's also good preparation for grad school.

As far as the workload goes, it is as rigorous as you choose it to be, since instead of finals we have "conference work", or large projects (usually a 20pg paper) due at the end of the semester for most classes. However, since we don't have testing, and receive written evaluations as opposed to grades, there is little to no academic competition. It's all basically self motivation, and students who like to learn for the sake of itself. In that respect, it is somewhat impractical for the 'real world', ie getting a job, since you aren't learning a trade.

The class structure of Sarah Lawrence is very unique. You have your regular class, and then your conference class. The conference is something the student takes into his/her own hands and explores. It can be anything from a research paper to a performance piece to a series of songs, a CD, a psychological study, a podcast creation, anything. You're choice. Amazing. It's great, but it's a lot of work and you have to be prepared to take it on.

Professors are awesome. Working closely with them is awesome. It's a wonderful feeling to go to one on one conference with your teacher and let your ideas come together under the guidance of someone who knows a lot about the field. Class participation os pretty common in most classes. Science classes run a little different because it's difficult to engage in discussions when you need to get through set material. A lot of students engage in intellectual discussions outside of the classroom, most of those kids are really pretentious, but not all. Students may be somewhat competitive but because there is not a real emphasis put on grades and alot of studying is for a student driven conference work, there is not pressure to be.

See above. I ranted for a while, didn't I?

Unless the professor suffers from some sort of severe mental disability, he'll know your name. Classes are very, very small. My favorite class is a four-person exploration of dead languages. It's great. My least favorite class is filled with idiot first-years who feel the need to frame everything in terms of oppression, misogyny, and gender relations. Get over it already. Sarah Lawrence touts its students as being "self-motivated" and "passionate," which is the school's favorite buzzword. Yet, I've found that most students here are pretty lazy and procrastinate like all hell. Class participation is required. Sarah Lawrence students have intellectual conversations outside of class, but the conversations are usually as empty as the students' heads. Competition is but an unfortunate remnant of the oppressive colonialist capitalism that has plagued our poor world for centuries. I do spend time with my professors outside of class. Regardless of the academic problems I have with the school, I would be a fool if I said that the professors are anything short of outstanding. Sarah Lawrence needs more academic requirements. Sorry, but taking nothing but African American Literature, History of Postmodern Dance, and Women in the Jewish Diaspora does not constitute a well-rounded liberal arts education. It's also patently ridiculous that students here can get away without ever taking math or science courses. Talk about dumbing down the curriculum. I mean, would it be that bad to take Physics for Poets? A Sarah Lawrence education is supposedly about learning for its own sake, but really, this place tries its hardest to prepare its students to go work for NGOs. That's what most people do. Also, the school does not do well in placing students into graduate programs. Don't believe the college when it says that students regularly get into top Ph.D programs. It's simply a lie.

I love the personalized education I get here. Seminar classes (as opposed to lectures) are never more than 16 students, so professors know you by name and are aware of your interests. The conference system gived everyone the chance to study exactly what they want, exactly how they want. Seminars are set up so that even shy students are made to come out of their shell and express their opinions. I can attest to this last fact.

Academics at SLC are great, they will kick your butt, but they are great. My freshman year I was totally overwhelmed by the conference system. They essentially expect their students to be dong graduate level research and writing starting as freshman, and that is pretty intimidating, but now that I have learned how to do the work I am very proud of all that I have accomplished. I think that the SLC requirements are very simple, 2 years of lecture, and you have to take a class in at lest 3 of the 4 discipline areas. One of the reasons I went to SLC was because it does not have very strict curriculum requirements. Meeting up with professors every other week for conference is great, if you get along with your professor, it can be the best part of the academic system- when else in life do you get to sit down with a famous writer or artist or politico and discuss your own interests and work?

No matter who you are, you will find a group of friends here and the best classes ever. If you make the most of SLC, then you learn more than any of your friends in other universities in terms of academics. The best thing about SLC is that when you find the professors you really click with, they become your friends and mentors. They will be the people that you will forever thank. The professors here really get to know you and your interests.

Academics at Sarah Lawrence are excellent, but you need to work for it. No teacher is going to push you into studying, and there's barely any competition within classes. Without out any grades to guide you along, it's really a sink or swim design. You tend to get along well with most people you share a class work, and develop close ties with your teacher. Not only does this stimulate good discussion in class, but it helps outside of class as well. Sometimes it's difficult to see how any of the things we learn will ever land us in a job, but we're also encouraged not to care. Sarah Lawrence is a school for people who want to follow their passions, and not get waylaid along the way by any such trifles as, you know, employment.

All of my professors know my name. My favorite class is Modern Jewish Literature. Glenn, our professor, is very knowledgeable and excited about what he teaches. The homework is interesting, as is our conference work. We are a very compatible class. Least favorite is my fiction class. I'm not learning anything there, and the teacher seems like he is past his prime in terms of teaching. Most students study (and by study I mean doing conference work) at least two hours each day. Or I do, at least... Class participation is key at Sarah Lawrence, because the classes are small and participation counts for much of one's grade. Sarah Lawrence students have intellectual conversations in class, out of class, over lunch or dinner, over a drink, on the lawn, in the dorms-- we're a very intellectual people! Students are competitive, but not with each other. We compete with ourselves; we see how far we can go, and how far we can push ourselves. There are no "true" academic requirements here; the only thing is that one isn't allowed to accumulate more than 50 credits in the arts category, and out of the four offered (arts, humanities, sciences/mathematics, and social sciences) students must take classes in at least three. One year of physical education is required, half of that requirement to be completed in the first year at Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence is definitely geared towards learning for learning's sake.

The classes here are very much what you make of them. The professors, for the most part, are amazing and can teach you as much as you're willing to learn. The students, on the other hand, vary greatly. There are some who are really into their studies and take an active role in their education. There are many, however, who utilize Sarah Lawrence's unstructured nature to not do any work, which is a complete waste of their time here. Sarah Lawrence is not the place for someone who does not know how to think out of the box in terms of their education and their potential career. A Sarah Lawrence education is very much geared toward learning for its own sake.

My professors know my name and say hi to me regularly. My favorite class is Psych of Race and Ethnicity. Linwood Lewis is Awesome! Mary dillard is my favorite professor though. Least favorite class: Field Botany. It was cool but tests? At Sarah Lawrence? Get real. We always have intellectual conversations outside of class. Just the other day I had a conversation about the fusion of lipids in different methods of making pot brownies. Race politics is another one of my favorite out of class-ers. Most unique class I've taken... Chemistry of Global Warming was interesting, Borrachita me voy: Mexico at the Crossroads, which was literature of the Mexican revolution. the only discipline i take consistently is music. i am a music third. which essentially means i take extra classes in order to experience the study of music fully. I take a voice lesson, a theory class, an aural skills class, a music history class, jazz ensemble, blues ensemble, and a have to fulfill a concert attendance requirement. on top of this i take two other classes. each student is required to take three classes a semester. i love taking music but it's hard. but glenn alexander is the most awesome jazz teacher anyone will ever have. Sarah Lawrence is all about learning for learning's sake. If you want to get a job right after or if you want to go to grad school... you can make it happen. But it's up to you. It's up to SLC to make sure we love learning.

Professors definitely know students' names, even in lectures. My favorite classes have been my language classes because everyone finds a way to make grammar fun, and class participation is higher than in my seminars. My least favorite class was my First Year Studies, because communication with the professor was like constantly jumping hurdles. He snidely discouraged certain students from participating, turning a once-enthusiastic and inquisitive group into a room of dead silence. I don't know how often students study, but judging by the constant noise in the library, I'd say it's probably fairly infrequently. Class participation varies by class, but I think it's higher than at most universities. However, constructive participation in seminars is not as common as I believe it should be. It often centers around agree/disagree or simplistic opinion-building. Students don't really have intellectual conversations outside of class. Students aren't competitive about grades or academic, but there is a sense of competition over who can be the most different. The language classes here are incredible, they are taught immersion-style by excellent professors in a way I never dreamed of in high school. The Spanish department is amazing, filled with highly knowledgeable and experienced faculty. It's required to spend time with professors outside of class in the form of conferences, which are nice but not really all they're played up to be. SLC's nonexistent academic requirements are too minimal, which only does the students a disfavor. I'm not sure what education here is geared towards, since it certainly isn't job training but also fails to provide the student with a general foundation of intellectual skills.

my profs know my name, and mine from last year remember it. I have great relationshps with every teacher that i have had a year long course with (and often just go by and say hello if i dont have anything else course related to say)

All of my professors know my name. My favorite class is a draw between my experimental film class and my art history class. The film class is so much fun and the teacher really gives us free reign to do whatever we want and be however provocative we want in our film making. The art history class is Art and Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, and even though I have no interest in renaissance art, the professor is SO animated, hilarious and pithy that I can't not enjoy his class. My least favorite is my first year studies, which is required and I can't get out of: Imagination and Play in Childhood. I'm required to work at the Early Childhood center 8 hours a week on top of 6 hours of class a week. The professor is the most boring I've ever had and I feel like I don't learn anything. Incidentally, the professor is also my don, or adviser, which means I can't complain about it. The level of studying varies by student. I do my homework every night and start papers a few days before they're due. I dont think students are competitive at all, because we don't grades, so there's no way of comparing each other. The most unique class I've taken is probably my experimental film class. SLC doesn't have majors, so I can't really discuss that. Every student meets with their professor once every two weeks outside of class but aside from that, no. I feel that SLC has pretty good academics, but they're in no way as intensive or difficult as those at my prep school. There are no academic requirements at SLC. an SLC education is most definitely geared toward learning for learnings sake...I don't think careers ever enter that discussion.