“They give us these big, bulky Pratt t-shirts. They were really oversized. I would say the last-of-the nineties grunge to them, they were long and boxy. They had a big yellow Pratt logo across the chest..everyone had the same size so the little kids were basically swimming in them.”

Ayan Gorsline

Ayan attended Pratt’s Summer Youth Skills and Development program for two summers, 2001 and 2002, when she was 7 and 8 years old. She remembers that for her it was similar to a day camp experience with other young people from a mix of class backgrounds.

And I also think it was kids from different economic backgrounds to try and give us access to the facilities and also have a bit of a day camp situation. I did like to draw and paint and they had a separate room for us with different counselors, they separated us by what we wanted to do. Like if we wanted to read or if we wanted to paint and they would let us have a lot of the access to a lot of the supplies that they had there. But it was predominantly pretty active.

She remembers field trips to a science museum, local farmers’ markets, and swimming in Pratt’s pool. And in her second year, she remembers being tutored in math in one of Pratt’s math classes. “I think we were being tutored in math. But I know that was optional and I’m pretty sure it was just to kind of keep us relatively educated throughout the period of the summer.” She remembers that the professors popped in, I would say for the more rigorous things, we were definitely taught by a woman professor who was doing the math tutoring. Another young woman professor would come in to teach us the arts and crafts. And every now and again, we had access to pottery and a basic kind of kiln.

Ayan remembers that there were 60 to 70 kids, “maybe like three classes worth of children of all varying ages. So we were all kind of just together.” The kids wore T-shirts that were “big, these bulky kind of Pratt t-shirts…they were really oversized…last of the nineties grunge to them, they were long and boxy. I think it was white and yellow and they had a big yellow Pratt kind of logo across the chest. And I’m pretty sure that they all gave us the same size. So the little kids were basically swimming in them.

Ayan also attended Saturday Art School during the school year and the Pratt Pre-College program when she was 16. She said she remembered a lot more about those experiences because she was older when she participated. She attended an arts program in a Brooklyn public high school, Edward R. Murrow, focusing on theater but also studying visual arts and music. She chose not to pursue a career in theater but thoroughly enjoyed her experience at Murrow.