(easy listening music)
- I'm Sam Clark with Crimson Education and we're here
at Barnard College in New York City to ask
some big questions.
Sponsored by Dunkin.
(easy listening music)
What is the best thing about Barnard?
- If it's not about me then I'm gonna be quite sad.
- Well I think it's the close community of everyone here,
I mean out of all the colleges at Columbia
you definitely see the most community in this environment
at Barnard so, that's my favorite thing.
- And also I mean within that being in a sorority in Barnard
it's like I don't know,
it's sort of speeds up this whole super super super
close bond.
I don't know, like obviously with every girl's school
it's gonna be a little bit difficult because
it's like going from all girls boarding school to this
and it's like the same.
You know you find your people, I found this person,
I regret everything about my life coming here and seeing her
but what can you do?
- I would say, there's a lot of good things,
but I would say the community of women definitely
is the most unique and special part about the school.
- Yeah I would second that.
Also the classes and the relationships
with the professors here.
- I think the best things about Columbia
is all the resources they give you.
- I really love how it's a small community,
the class sizes are really small and that really helps
build that relationship between not only the students
but also the professors.
- Yeah I agree.
I really like the community that we have here
that's just Barnard but then also joint with Columbia
and the rest of New York as well.
- Great, what's the worst thing about Barnard?
- Hmm, I think, I'm from San Diego, California,
so the culture is just very individualistic,
I think that kind of speaks for New York City
in general though.
People are so accomplished and it's oftentimes
very intimidating and it's easy to feel kind of alone
and you're not doing as much as other people are doing
getting internships and all that other stuff.
It's very showy and people love to talk about so.
- You're really close to New York City
but you're also kind of far away from it,
like you have to go 30 minutes to actually get to the city.
- Sometimes it can be a little tiresome to be in the city
but it's always easy to get out.
It's very easy to take a day and go to Brooklyn or Queens
and feel completely removed.
- Like how small the campus is I guess,
but that's kind of helpful because Columbia's right there
so we have access to multiple resources so yeah.
- There was this sort of manic rush to try and find friends,
especially at the start of the year and I like to sit back
and watch and decide what I think of people.
But everyone was sort of like they met each other
after two minutes and they were like oh my God,
my friend Emily, we're gonna go and get lunch together
and Diana, and I was like ahhh!
- You nailed the accent by the way, that was well done.
- My God, my name is Liv, I'm a valley girl,
and I eat candy corn
like for lunch.
- That's extremely offensive.
So what do you tend to do on weekends here?
- We don't do this as much as we want to but we go
out of the city to Brooklyn to have a day.
- Yeah I also love going to Brooklyn on the weekend,
it's nice to just go somewhere that's a little bit more
residential and quiet.
That's my favorite thing to do, go to museums as well.
- On the weekends I'll spend the daytime
or the nighttime downtown,
and then the rest of the time up here studying.
- God I'm trying to think, my social life is dead right now.
- She's an optimist.
- I think by my own volition yeah, yeah that's optimistic.
What do I do?
I like to shop in New York.
It's actually my parents have put me in therapy
for shopping, amongst other things.
It was a difficult time, although I've been limiting
my spending by buying things for her
that I'm going to borrow.
- She spoils me, she bought this food so.
- Great friend to have honestly.
What would you say is the biggest misconception
about Barnard?
- I think that you don't, like you're separated from
the Columbia students is a misconception that
a lot of people address.
But once I came here I didn't feel like I was a distant
student in a Columbia class, I was really feeling like I
interacted well with every other student
whether they were with Columbia or like any school
and it really fostered that community building
even in Columbia classes which was great.
- I think I've encountered very many misconceptions
about the school.
I think a relationship with Columbia is complicated
and that's been something to navigate here.
And also I think, I'm also a transfer student,
and just making the most out of where you are,
I don't think it necessarily matters where
you go to college, just finding the right fit for yourself.
- I would say, I just thought of this,
that it is more difficult than I was expecting
to find small classes given that it's a small school.
I actually had gone to a bigger public university
and found more small classes for myself there
and it may just been that this year it's been like that
and the classes that I wanted to take tend
to be more crowded, but for a liberal arts college I found
it a little harder to have the really intimate
classroom environment that I was hoping for
but I think it just depends on the classes you take.
- I think that we're all gay, you know some of us are,
some of us are which is great, but then some of us are not.
And that we're very artsy kind of untouchable people,
but we're just normal college students.
- Fair enough, fair enough.
- Also that we have a rivalry with Columbia.
You know it's like we're all part of the same university.
I mean no one really cares and if you care about it,
it's just a bit like I feel sorry for you that you don't
have anything else to worry about.
- It's such an orientation thing to worry about honestly.
- Exactly, I mean no one in the UK knows about Barnard
so I'm just like I go to Columbia otherwise they'll
be like ah?
But I mean here we're all pretty proud to be Barnard girls.
We're like and what, fight us.
- Challenging people to fight, it's left and right sure.
And last question what did you write your application
essays about?
- I wrote about how my beliefs with religion changed.
- I think I wrote one of them about my experience
going to a religious prep school.
And then my other one was about living abroad.
- But I wrote about how coming into college
the process for me just didn't work as an introvert.
So I wrote about kind of as an introvert college,
college process kind of being just antithetical
for me as a person.
Then kind of meet the expectations for someone
as an introvert being very difficult to adapt to,
but that I was also feeling very ready to be in
the kind of place that Barnard is and in the city
given what I'd learned about the college environment
and the application process and everything
that comes with it.
- Yeah well Barnard asked us one question if you could meet
any woman from history who would you meet
and this person is still alive, she's an artist,
I don't know if I'm saying this right,
it's Polly Nor I think.
She's based in the UK and she portrays women
and their demons.
So women kind of gender looking neutral though
kind of masculine,
she's kind of redefining what femininity means
and women doing a pornography magazine
or smoking a cigarette, things that aren't womanly,
so yeah I really liked her.
- I also did an artist.
So she's a Italian Baroque artist called
Artemesia Gentileschi and I think she's super kick ass.
She was one of the first woman to actually do
a public rape trial after she was assaulted
by her dad's assistant.
And yeah I just think that's she's incredible,
she's one of the first females to be successful in art.
I mean like Linda Nochlin's essay where she's like
why aren't there any great female artists anymore
and I was like well you have to look at people like this
who were trailblazing from the start,
sort of fearless and bold and beautiful.
And she eventually sort of, I mean she's everywhere.
She's in the Uffizi, she's here in the MET,
she's in the National Gallery,
and I have a lot of respect for that.
I'm just like you know what against all of the odds
someone is so strong and able to be so influential
and I'm majoring in art history and a huge part of that
was due to her.
So love a bit of Artemesia.
- Amazing, anything to add, last thoughts.
- Would you like a pretzel?
- Oh my God, I was gonna ask, but I okay yeah yeah yeah.
I was gonna ask at the end but I'll take a pretzel.
- Pretzels, pretzels?
Guys come on!
- Come on have a pretzel.
(laughter)
(easy listening music)