<p>My daughter really liked Smith, but was not impressed with their CS dept. She feels that she would sacrifice rigor & opportunities in CS for a great supportive atmosphere and being surrounded by smart strong women. At UW she has an great CS department with more rigor than she could avail herself of but it would be the big university experience, except for the honors program classes, with only 20% women in the CS dept. She met seniors at Smith who take a full load in CS at UMass. But UMass is not better than UW & she has women mentors at UW that she knows well already. There is a price difference as well. With Zollman & a couple of small awards, Smith comes in just under budget, no extra money for unpaid internships or summer abroad, limited trips home. At UW she has a full-tuition scholarship so she can afford some extras or have a small nest egg for post-graduation. Is Smith CS program good enough to make it worth it? Every day she keeps changing her mind. </p>
<p>I just want to address a tiny piece of this. Smith has the Praxis scholarship which every student receives. It’s specifically money for an internship experience. They also offer funding for study abroad and specifically have programs for CS majors so that they can study abroad too despite the rigors of their major. As well as the fact that funding is available for things like attending conferences and the like. I don’t specifically know about the CS program at Smith compared to other schools, but it really is an amazing feeling to take a “difficult” field that is commonly populated with males on all levels and do it in such a supportive and uplifting environment. </p>
<p>I’m not so sure that the Smith CS program is less rigorous than Washington, it’s just a lot smaller than Washington, so has fewer courses. Smith has about 10 CS graduates per year, whereas Washington has about 200, so it really would be a different experience. On the other hand, over 1/3 of Smith students major in STEM areas, so there is a large science and technology community that your daughter would be part of at Smith.</p>
<p>In addition, course opportunities for CS students are richer at Smith than most liberal arts colleges because of its engineering program (students can supplement their CS courses with EE courses) as well as its proximity to UMass. </p>
<p>With your daughter’s Zollman scholarship she also receives a paid research position for her first two years. Have you explored research opportunities at Washington for first year and sophomore students?</p>
<p>HampshireStudent mentioned the Praxis stipend that’s available to all Smith students for one summer if they’re in an unpaid internship. However, many (most?) STEM students don’t actually use this since they find paying summer internships or research (including over 150 research positions on campus each summer). One of the study abroad programs that HampshireStudent mentioned is the new year-long Science in Paris program that’s designed explicitly to support students in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. It allows students to study abroad with only a year of college French.</p>
<p>Hi, I’m a current CS major, class of '17. I wouldn’t say the program is less rigorous either, but it is true that it’s smaller. We don’t have a lot of classes, and there’s only a few professors, but they’re brilliant. It also looks like they’re hiring a new one for Spring of 2015.</p>
<p>Something I really appreciate about the department being so small is that you can always get help directly from the professor if you really need to. There are also student TA’s almost every night (I’m one of them, in fact, haha), so you can always get help, and I think that’s extremely helpful for CS. Sometimes your code just won’t work and you have no idea why, and staring at it for hours makes no difference, and in those cases, a fresh pair of eyes is extremely helpful. I don’t think I’d be learning nearly as much if it weren’t for the opportunities a small school offers. Also, since your daughter got a Zollman, she’d be able to do paid research for 2 years, an opportunity that is not typically offered to undergraduates, so that is also something to consider. </p>
<p>As for summer jobs and internships, I think Smith does an amazing job helping students get those kinds of opportunities. There’s Praxis, but photodad is correct in saying that a lot of students simply find paid internships. I know CS majors who’ve gotten some pretty good summer jobs/internships at places like Google, and a lot of my friends (mostly first-years) already have a summer job related to CS. I didn’t apply to one myself because I’m staying in my home country this summer, but from what I’ve seen, Smithies have no trouble finding internships/jobs for CS.</p>
<p>We’re also working on making the department larger. Not large enough that the benefits of a small LAC are lost, but enough that we can get funding for events and possibly more professors. We recently created the Smithies in CS (shameless advertising!) club, and we’re aiming to improve the department by getting more people interested in CS, getting funding for going to Hackathons or conferences, finding opportunities for CS internships abroad, and organizing events at Smith. So while the department isn’t huge, there is definitely a lot of interest and we’re working on improving it.</p>
<p>In the end, I think your daughter should think about the kind of environment she’s looking for. I personally love the supporting environment of Smith, but if your daughter prefers the big university experience Smith might not be the best choice. </p>