Competence, Confidence and Creativity

By Sophia Sun '18 As a senior who has strived to fully engage intellectually and socially in the opportunities that Pomona College offers, I’ve realized that the heart of the liberal arts education is not anti pre-professionalism; rather the heart of the liberal arts education involves being self-reflective, throughout the process of learning, about how you can extract trans...
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A Last Lecture on the Liberal Arts

Yes, there is an alarmingly eminent crisis in the general view on liberal arts values. Yes, fewer and fewer people appreciate our well-rounded educational experience while certain approaches herald more pre-professional paths as practical, and thus more worthwhile. But what else has been said in support of the liberal arts education? "The technology issues facing us today—issu...
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9 Questions to Ask at any College Interview/Campus Tour*

After reading many articles with a title identical to that of this post, I realized that these articles often suggested questions helpful to a broad audience, even though each college applicant is different and thus has different priorities and needs. So I did some soul-searching about what I really wanted. Personally, what I came to appreciate about a school was not its qu...
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TEDxClaremontColleges: Open to Interpretation

"Hi! Have you heard about TEDxClaremontColleges? It's a local TED conference held on March 7th!" As I was handing out palm cards for TEDxClaremontColleges, an event put on by volunteers from the 7C's (5 undergraduate schools and 2 graduate universites), I faced many hesitant hands. "Uh... yeah I think I've seen some posters around? Isn't that the videos and stuff?" ...
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What I Wish I Had Known About AP Courses

"They'll give you college credit!" "You'll be able to get ahead and graduate earlier!" "They look impressive to colleges!" "You can use them to demonstrate exceptional ability in a particular academic discipline!" "Take as many as possible!" "You have to get a 5." "You can't take the test without a class." Have you ever heard a teacher, parent, or friend sa...
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Around the World in 90 Minutes

Have you ever wanted to sample cultural foods from around the world (fasnetsscherben, okonomiyaki salmorejo, bhajia za dengu, 烧卖(燒賣)... mmmm!), learn simple phrases in 10 different languages from native speakers, find out which German city suits you the best, receive a hand-written card in Spanish, and meet King Cyrus, all without worrying about travel expenses and taking too m...
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Thoughts to Twenty-Thousand

"What would you say to a million people if you had the chance?" That's the question that prompted students in Designing Conversational Spaces, a course offered by NYU ITP, to launch a social interaction experiment called The Listserve. Once an individual subscribes, he or she has a 1/20000+ chance of being chosen to write to an international audience. And on a random ...
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Ringing in the New Semester

There are some moments at Pomona that have been truly essential to my experience - moments that cannot be conveyed adequately on any pamphlet or website - and it's those moments that I missed sorely when I was gone. Although I, as many others, arrived to Pomona after an exhausting chain of travels (bus! train! airplane! then MetroLink!), hearing the squeals of excitement as...
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Countdown to the New Year = Countdown to the Deadlines

For those of you who have finished college applications, congratulations! I hope that throughout the process of describing/promoting yourself to schools, you’ve realized how far you have come and how much there is to be proud of. Remember those nights of panic before a huge exam, audition, competition, game, meet, tournament, etc.? Yes, YOU got through all of that.  For ...
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The Stress of De-stressing: Events at Pomona

Finals week: when picking a de-stressing event is the most stressful aspect of trying to de-stress. The hardest part about finals isn't really those impending exams and assignments - it's all the beautiful creative performances and events that I'm missing out on when I stay in to finish a Computer Science test program (essentially a take-home midterm to program SpaceInvaders...
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