OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE
WHERE STORIES BEGIN
Occidental College Where Stories Begin Since Occidental College’s founding in 1887, our tight-knit community of students and scholars has come together in the heart of Los Angeles, one of the most stimulating and creative cities in the world. A leader in the liberal arts and sciences, Occidental boasts a firmly rooted tradition of academic achievement and community service. Our students go on to become leaders in their fields—earning astronautical accolades, political praise, medical milestones, and Hollywood hoopla. If you talked to any one of Oxy’s 2,100 undergraduate students, you’d get as many different stories, but with a common theme. Faculty, staff, and students seize the opportunity to create and sustain conversations around the issues that matter most to them. And while their stories start at Oxy, the paths they take from here are tethered only by ambition, determination, and imagination.
OXY & LOS ANGELES A Liberal Arts Oasis Occidental’s L.A. location provides access to abundant learning and career exploration opportunities off campus. The Center for Community Based Learning facilitates research programs that build on academic and practical skills. And through Oxy’s Hameetman Career Center, students often intern for academic credit or in funded positions—such as our InternLA and InternAway programs. JACQUELINE NGUYEN ’87 (English) is the first Vietnamese-American woman to be appointed to the state judiciary, to serve as a federal judge, and to be appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals. President Barack Obama ’83 calls her a “trailblazer.”
SCIENCES & RESEARCH Learning by Doing Oxy’s Undergraduate Research Center fosters students’ interests not only inside libraries and laboratories, but across town and across the ocean as well. Students intern regularly for Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and more than three dozen alumni are among JPL’s ranks. Encouraging independent thinkers, Oxy requires all of its students to tackle senior comps, a capstone project in their chosen major. GEORGE ALCORN ’62 (physics) created the imaging X-ray spectrometer to help scientists explore the chemical composition and geologic history of planets millions of miles away. NASA’s 1984 Inventor of the Year has at least eight patents to his name.
WRITING The Core of an Oxy Degree Occidental’s Oxy’s Core Program L.A. location places provides a strong emphasis access to abundant on writing. learning Regardless and caof intended reer exploration major, all opportunities first-years enroll off in campus. Culturale Studies Program Based writing Center for Community Learnseminars. Youresearch might even live among ing facilitates programs that theseon classmates Newcomb build academicinand practicalHall, skills. homethrough to several student media outAnd Oxy’s Career Development lets, award-winning Center,including students the often intern for acaOccidental Weekly CatAList, the demic credit—or in and funded positions, campus TV station started internby Student such as our CAPS summer Academy Award honoree Raffyorships in arts and public service Cortina ’13. ganizations.
New York Times staff writer ANDREA ELLIOTT ’96 (English) won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. As an Emerson Fellow at the think-tank New America, she’s writing a book about child poverty in the United States, building on her series about 11-year-old Dasani.
THINKING GLOBALLY A World of Learning
TOR MYHREN ’94 (English, kinesiology) made a household name out of the E-Trade talking baby on his way to the top at Grey Advertising. For his next act, he’s Apple’s new vice president of marketing communications. That’s mad, man!
Oxy’s multinational student body and globally focused curriculum infuse campus with a cosmopolitan air. And the College fosters students’ myriad international adventures. Immersion offerings include the semester-long Kahane U.N. Program, the Richter fellowship (for independent research projects conducted abroad), and semester-abroad programs on six continents. Nearly three-fourths of Oxy students study away.
TRANSFORMATIONS Experiment & Discover Occidental’s Core Program offers first-years a series of multi-part courses taught by cross-disciplinary faculty teams. These Labs for the Liberal Arts provide both students and faculty with opportunities to experiment, discover, and innovate. It’s another way Oxy allows you to explore the vast resources available on campus and throughout the greater Los Angeles area. OCTAVIO HERRERA ’98 (physics) keeps a close eye on the future as co-founder and president of Lucid Sight Inc., a software developer of virtual reality games and applications. He’s been a pioneer in social media technology, iPhone gaming, and anti-piracy technology.
DIVERSITY Across the Disciplines Occidental embodies a culture of open discussion. Prior to their first year, selected students participate in the College’s Multicultural Summer Institute, a four-week introduction to the college experience and the Los Angeles area for first-generation and underrepresented students, as well as any student who shares an interest in multiculturalism. First-generation college student MAGDALENA ARIAS ARENAS ’92 (biology) received the prestigious Thomas J. Watson postgraduate fellowship. Today she has her own medical practice—and Occidental President Jonathan Veitch is among her patients.
VISUAL ARTS Fostering Creativity Oxy’s newest major, Media Arts & Culture, prepares students for every outlet of modern media through the nexus of creativity, theory, and production. The College’s proximity to the Los Angeles media industry gives MAC majors access to invaluable internships and networking opportunities, while cultivating their own work within a close-knit, wellrounded liberal arts environment. Acclaimed filmmaker and Monty Python alumnus TERRY GILLIAM ’62 (political science) sharpened his wit as editor of Fang, Oxy’s legendary humor magazine. In its pages, one can see the origins of such visionary films as Time Bandits and Brazil.
PERFORMING ARTS Our World Is Your Stage
ANGELA KANG ’98 (theater, English) went from carrying around a notebook full of her original stories to being a writer and co-executive producer on TV’s “The Walking Dead”—a dream job for a “shy, awkward kid” who once considered a major in marine biology.
Whether it’s singing, dancing, acting, or painting, performing and visual arts opportunities abound. The Oxy Glee Club performs both at home and abroad. Dance Production draws hundreds of happy feet to Thorne Hall each spring. The New Play Festival puts student-penned projects in the hands of professional directors. And the Weingart and Mullin art galleries exhibit student and alumni work year-round.
ATHLETICS Bring Your Best Game With 21 varsity squads—10 men’s and 11 women’s teams—as well as an array of club sports and an active intramural program, there’s something for every stripe of athlete. And with a modern fitness center and a climate that allows for year-round outdoor activities, Oxy offers plenty of ways to stay active and fit.
As a student-athlete, SHAWN LAWSON-CUMMINGS ’86 (independent pattern of study) was a two-time NCAA heptathlon champion. Her drive has served her well in a marketing and global branding career that includes work for Timex, Major League Baseball, and “Peanuts.”
ENVIRONMENT We Engage, You Sustain
Former New York City transportation commissioner JANETTE SADIK-KHAN ’82 (political science) is credited with transforming the car-clogged streets of Manhattan. Her philosophy has spread from Indianapolis and San Francisco to Auckland and Buenos Aires.
Students have an active voice on Oxy’s Sustainability Committee, a task force that implements the College’s commitment to Earth. Occidental generates its own solar power, composts in the dining hall, and requires all new construction and renovations meet LEED silver standards. From the student garden, bike-share program, and even a Food Justice-themed residence hall, students feast on conservation ideas.
Oxy Facts & Figures Oxy offers 33 majors, including a self-designed course of study. The average class size is
19 students.
Our 2,100 students come from 37 states, the District of Columbia, and 42 foreign countries.
55%
42%
75%
hail from out of state.
are students of color.
of our students live on campus.
100% have stories worth telling.
There’s much more to the Occidental story, of course. Please visit our website at oxy.edu to learn more about us. To be added to our mailing list, visit talent.oxy.edu.
Where might your Oxy story take you? 2016 / Illustrations by Todd Webb