Noor Dhingra ’20 likes to start her Fridays with a cup of coffee in the Claremont Village before wandering over to Claremont Depot, the gorgeous 1927 Spanish Colonial Revival train station where she catches the 8:42 Metrolink to Los Angeles.
Her roommate, Tulika Mohan ’20 takes a different approach. “I should be getting up at 7:45. I don’t,” Mohan laughs. “I usually end up getting up at 8:10, and then I run.”
Together, with headphones on or book in hand, they ride to one-day-a-week internships in L.A. subsidized by the Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP), a program that provides a stipend that turns an unpaid internship into a paid one, along with an allowance for transportation—in this case, train tickets for Dhingra and Mohan.
Taking the train to L.A. for an internship during the school year takes time—students often start work at 10 to allow for the commute—but many say the train beats fighting traffic even if someone has access to a car.
“I just find it fun. You don’t feel like a student when you’re on the train, which is a really good feeling to have once a week,” Dhingra says. “You’re so used to seeing professors or students on campus, so it’s just nice being with people of different ages. I always hear conversations, and sometimes it turns into a story I write.”