What Students Say
Likes
- All of our professors were either business owners or corporate employees who brought immense day to day knowledge and experience to our lectures.
- Our assignment were done with real time brands ranging from Fortune 500s to Startups and many of our assignments were adopted through the incubations. More than 70% of our assignments were as such while rest were case studies, field exercises and presentations preparing you to manage a through and through organization or team.
- We were not only facilitated with great lesson plans but also resources who did eventually hire some of my fellow classmates. The program ensured we land jobs.
Dislikes
- Timings, our classes were over weekends
- Challenging execution of tasks with sometimes no support for extensions
- Low pay for incubations and campus jobs
Course Curriculum
8
- I had a balance of 80-20 of practical and theoretical subjects. Positive is definitely having nontraditional and industry experts as our professors. Negative experience would be that some professors were changed last minute and were not informed.
- Many students in the US take up a certain programme for a particular professor. There were 7 Indians in the class and the total strength was 40 on average. Classes were on weekends only as this program was for people who worked their 9-5
Admission Experience
- Parsons – accepted by the university but I did not choose it because of the high tuition fee
- RMIT Australia – rejected, maybe because I applied for an entrepreneurial programme, but my SOP was talking more about how I can be a good design manager at a company and did not exhibit entrepreneurial qualities
- University for the Creative Arts London – accepted. I did not choose this because it was a 1-year programme, which is too short to create an impact and land a job
- I chose Pratt because of its name and stature as a design school that was established over 150 years ago. I had heard great things about campus life experiences and support in extracurricular and cultural exchange, which I was seeking after coming out of a very traditional Indian college. The eligibility criteria on TOEFL was 100 out of 120 and the application was smoothly managed by their application tracking system. I went through 2 rounds of interviews, 1 case study presentation, SOP, grads from all my educational years and a final round to discuss scholarship.
- Fall intake and the timeline were about 3-4 months. Your basic admission application along with toefl and transcripts go first and it takes almost 1-1.5 months to hear back and start the interview process. I had a very good experience with Pratt but Parsons was too long and slow.
- I think total admission process also depends on at what point during the opening and closing do you apply and on volume of applications
Faculty
8
- 1 faculty for every 50 students was the ratio and we feel all of us got personal attention and a chance at discussions since each block of ours was 1.5 hours long. 99% of the students worked either industry-level jobs or on-campus jobs and most of them worked 2-3 jobs together as well.
- All faculty members helped us in achieving our goals of getting jobs by helping with our portfolios, LinkedIn, resumes, cold emailing, etc. I did not have a specific faculty member who I admired the most.
Campus Life
8
- We had many cultural groups and a very active student body who hosted parties for all festivals of all cultures. I got to experience Latin, Greek, Jewish, Catholic, Chinese and Korean cultures through foods, movies, dance parties and music parties. We did not have any 1 major festival. Only small celebrations that lasted only 1 day.
- We also celebrated Pride month and had activities around that.
Part Time Jobs
- Within the department only 3 seats per year open up for student part-time jobs but Pratt allows you to apply to jobs in any department within the institute. I did an assistant job in Ceramics department for 3 semesters and 1 semester in the IT department. It was not easy to land these jobs because of the volume of applicants. I took extra efforts to go and meet each faculty to land all the jobs listed. I was allowed to work 20 hours a week during classes and 40 hours during holidays. And was paid $15 an hour.
- Many Indian students are dedicated and flexible to take whatever job they get, especially because it’s an expensive country and city. Many students also do internships in summer. Campus jobs for us were listed in the Jobs portal of our unique login and we also got emails of urgent hiring. Submitting applications was via email or through the portal and interviews were, of course, in person. If you went for a technical job you were trained and tested for 1 month, and then your job was confirmed, whereas for more clerical jobs you had no parameters. It was more first come, first served.
Placement
6
- My course was very fluid and you could pick a major and a minor. I chose advertising and marketing and built my portfolio through assignments that focused largely on marketing. Many of my classmates went into Project Management and Operations and some retained their profiles as of joining and got promotions.
- Deloitte, Restoration Hardware and Point72 are the top hirers. We did not have a traditional placement experience but were individually helped based on our needs.
Accommodation
Off Campus
10
- I chose off-campus accommodation with some friends I had in the US. My college’s dorms were at a different campus, which was far from the building my classes were at. It was also more expensive and limiting. We found apartments from online websites such as apartments.com and it was not too difficult for me to find one, as it was a period right out of covid and condo owners were hungry to let out their apartments. My accommodation was 15 mins away from colleges and most Indian students stayed where I did because of the cost.
Exams
- Toefl is the only exam you need to take for my programme; other than that, you need undergrad transcripts, a degree certificate, basic ids, proof that you have studied subjects close to the master's, recommendation letters (2), an SOP for admission and Letter for Scholarship.
- Yes, the interview was part of the entire application process and some people got assignments too but I did not get it
Fees
- The fee was $80000 for 2 years and I got a $20,000 scholarship for the entirety. It was paid on a semester basis. The tuition included labs, studios, IT and tuition fees, along with a small international student fee and admission fee.
- My monthly expenses excluding tuition were about $1000 including rent, transport and groceries. There were no regular expenses other than this. Anything for leisure was an add-on if I saved money.
Scholarship
- Yes, there are many scholarships given by Pratt; I got a merit-based scholarship for $20,000 for the entirety of the programme. On average 5 students per programme get it every year based on their experience and merit in their undergraduate degree.
- 4 other batchmates of mine got the scholarship. There are many different scholarships even by private organisations, that you may qualify for based on your nationality
