Frequently Asked Questions About Sarah Lawrence

Yeah that's right. I didn't skip my Saturday post this week. I mean, perhaps it will be a Sunday post by the time it's up, but still.
Anyway. My new experience this week was pretty exciting. My best friend came to visit me for the weekend! "The weekend" started Thursday morning and it's ending tomorrow afternoon. We went to a weird Open Mic, a campus tour, and today, out into Bronxville to eat food and check out flower shops and the library and such. It was super fun.
Currently she is walking around my room and singing a song she wrote a bunch of times. And now she's talking about the musical she's writing. She is a lot more talkative than I am. Which lends itself, inevitably, to lots of questions. She's planning on applying to Sarah Lawrence, the college I go to, and well, observing the Sarah Lawrence community makes anyone a little weirded out and curious.
That made me think of all the people who've visited me and who've heard what school I'm going to, who ask me a lot of questions. This is a weird school, for sure. So, for the sake of all those who wonder about my school, let me answer your questions:

Q: Sarah Lawrence! That's an all-girls school, right?
In 1926, Sarah Lawrence College was founded as an all-girls school. In 1968, we became officially coed. It is 2015. This question is still asked all the time. ENOUGH. We have a lot of male students.

Q: Where is that, Boston? Vermont, right? Portland?
Where did you guys even get these ideas? If you don't know where the school is, don't guess. It's in Bronxville, New York.

Q: Wait, so everyone who goes here is really gay?
You found us out. We're all gay. All of us. Even I'm gay. I thought I was straight, but I guess I'm gay now. It's basically a requirement to go here.
(Note to my orthodox relatives: that was a joke.)

Q: Why does everyone have weird colored hair?
Because we can do whatever we want here.

Q: So do you have any required classes?
*deep sigh* It's complicated. The short answer is, not really. The long answer is, every first year student is required to take a First-Year Studies class, options of which include intertextual literature, mythol-... ugh, forget it. Just go look on the school's website. 

Q: What's your major?
I'm majoring in answering questions that would apply to normal colleges but do not apply here.

Q: *gasp* Sleaze week? Burlesque? Stripper? SEX EXISTS?
It's true. We, as college students, who are adults, found out the secret of how babies are made. And now, there are many people on college campuses who have decided to use this knowledge to make popular events. I'm sure they're great fun and they probably have excellent vegan snacks.

Q: You have a pub on your campus?
IT'S A CAFE STYLE EXPERIENCE WITH MANY ORGANIC OPTIONS, OK? We don't even sell alcohol anywhere. I don't know why it's called a pub.

Q: If you only have three classes, why are you always saying you have so much homework?
It's not only three classes. It's three sections to our schedule. Each section is composed of a ton of work. For me, that work is both an intensive seminar filled with reading and writing, as well as an individual research project that I do throughout the semester with biweekly conferences with my professor to help organize it. In my language class, I have extra stuff on top of that. For students of performing and visual arts, it's different and strenuous. So there is plenty of reason for tons of homework. (And it's pretty stressful, but it's also wonderful, because you chose your classes, and you chose your conference topics. So it's fun.)

Q: I want to write a play. Do you think I could find people to perform it for me?
You could probably find people to build a stage for you from scratch and perform it on the North Lawn in the middle of a blizzard if you can make the play sound weird and experimental enough. 

Q: Isn't that school a little too liberal for you?
If "too liberal" is the kind of thing that would bother you, just don't come to this school. 

Q: Why is everyone here so weird?
Because we feel free to be who we are, whoever we are. Because we're made of complexities and idiosyncrasies and super cool traits and we're allowed to show them in all the ways we decide to. Because we're figuring out who we are so we're getting it all out at once. Because honestly, a crazy kaleidoscope of weirdness is way better than pretending to fit some arbitrary definition of normal.

I hope this cleared up some misconceptions about my school. I had fun writing this, and I had fun hanging out with my best friend this weekend.
See you on Wednesday!
-Ariel