<p>I've heard great things about the sciences at smith. What about English? Would I be better off looking at other women's colleges for English?</p>
<p>You hear great things about the sciences at Smith only because Smith is putting a lot of resources into the sciences, e.g., the new science/engineering building, thus making those fields unusually strong for a women's college. </p>
<p>The English department is very good. I think my D's biggest academic regret is that by double majoring she hasn't had time in her schedule for an English class until her senior year.</p>
<p>Agree with TD. The latest thing at Smith is to beef up the sciences, but there's no denying that Smith has traditionally been strongest in humanities (largely because historically those were fields more women could enter) and that's definitely still true. </p>
<p>Smith 's English dept. is really excellent, some of the best professors I've had come from there (Michael Thurston, Annie Boutelle to name two). Even the survey classes are really great, and my reading and writing short poems colloquiam (sp? Hah, so much for English) stands out as a favorite. </p>
<p>English is one of the most popular majors, and one of the largest departments, on par with, if not better than, any other women's college. Plus, you get the added bonus of walking in the footsteps of Sylvia Plath, Madeleign L'Engle, Ann M. Martin, even W.H. Auden (Smith prof of yesteryear). </p>
<p>One note however, is that Creative writing is not the focus of the Smith dept. They offer 100-level colloquiam on writing short stories, memoirs, poems, etc that are great. And they offer 300-level seminars on creative writing topics that are also good (so I've been told), but not a lot in between. Nor can you major in CW. It's not that as a writer you won't find outlets in the English department, but it is focused on study of English.</p>
<p>All the top women's colleges and former women's colleges have top-knotch English Departments, and good cases could be made for anyone of them. Smith's is the largest, and hence there will be the largest number of choices. And the Smith Poetry Center is a hub of Five-College activity.</p>
<p>Smith has been strong in English and in languages/cultural studies going back a long way. The combination of the STRIDE scholarships, the new engineering program, new buildings, and new faculty in the sciences reflects the college's desire to be among the top institutions of choice - coed or single gender - for future female scientists.</p>
<p>Even though they don't offer a Creative Writing major, will there still be plenty of outlets for me to WRITE as an English major? I'm considering a career in journalism so I think that this is important. I'd imagine there would be, right? Just not as much creative writing?</p>
<p>A lack of sufficient opportunities to write will not be a problem, most assuredly.
You will have tons of analysis and close reading. If you go to Smith and become an English major, someday you will look back and laugh that you ever asked this questions.</p>
<p>yes, the most important thing for aspiring journalists (so multitudes of career development seminars have told me) is to develop a set of clippings so that you have something solid to show when you go applying for jobs. I used to be opinions editor for the Smith paper (prior to my leaving for JYA) so I recommend you write for the Sophian. It's not the New York Times, but anyone can write for it who wants to, and writers have a large degree of freedom choosing topics, so you can sort of craft the clip portfolio that you want (investigative, op-ed, etc). Also, many Sophian writers have side jobs/internships/after college jobs working for the Daily Hampshire Gazette which is a REAL newspaper (real experience, as you probably know, counts the most in journalism). </p>
<p>there's a news magazine too called "Period", which is sort of a Sophian alternative, but I don't know if that will be running next year. </p>
<p>If you plan on joining the Smith Democrats, you can also write for and possibly run "That Damn Liberal" the Smith Dems monthly (which I was also in charge of). We always need help laying that out too, and the Sophian is always in need of layout help, which can be another good skill to accquire. </p>
<p>And obviously, you'll be writing your hand off for class assignments if you're an English major, and you can submit your best work for the College Prizes at the end of the year and maybe win a little cash. The English dept. offers some of the highest number of prize competitions.</p>
<p>I loved Smith when we were looking at colleges, and I don't mean to be a Barnard chauvinist here, but Barnard is known for turning out writers, Anna Quinlen is active on Barnard's Board, Mary Gorden is chair and Jhumpa Lahiri is an alum.</p>
<p>I'd call Plath, L'Engle, Mitchell, Frieden, Steinhem, and Yolen vs. Quinlen, Gordon, and Lahiri a draw. ;) Seriously, you wouldn't do badly at any of these places.</p>
<p>I also plan on applying for Barnard. I think I'd be really happy at either place. Now it's just a matter of being able to afford it..</p>
<p>Well, Barnard & Smith are very similar but they're also very different. I recommend visiting both if you can if you haven't already.</p>
<p>By the way, the well-respected syndicated columnist on international affairs, Trudy Rubin, based at the Philadelphia Inquirer, is a Smithie, and I'm told has been helpful to Smith alumnae trying to break into journalism.</p>
<p>Vonnegut also taught at Smith.</p>
<p>Vonnegut taught at Smith? I'm sold! Well.. not quite. I definitely want to visit. I just don't have the money to fly all around the country. (I'm from Colorado)</p>
<p>Vonnegut at Smith:</p>
<p>The trick to visiting is to cluster. D's junior Spring break we did what I call the Boston to NYC death march, 7 colleges in 10 days. Flew into Boston, made our way by car to NYC, flew back to SoCal. We packed a couple of vacation days in NYC at the end. It's difficult to see more than one college per day and give them fair shakes that make the visit worthwhile. Even though they're across the street from each other, I believe we saw Barnard one day and Columbia the next or vice versa. We did double NYU with one of them, seeing it in the afternoon...info session was so bad that we didn't bother with the tour. It was a long shot in any event in that high-level ballet classes aren't available to those who aren't in Tisch, i.e., you can't take those classes if you have academic (non-performing arts) majors.</p>
<p>Hi, I am Mythmom's daughter and she just asked me to post to mention a few things about Barnard's writing program. I didn't read all the posts on the thread so I hope I am not stepping on anyone's toes in this post.</p>
<p>I am not an English major but 2 of my very close friends are and hoping to do creative writing as well (including my roomate so I was kind of going through the process with her haha). The way it works at Barnard is we have a great English major which is quite large and very heavy in crit to prepare you for academic work. At some point in junior year you apply for the creative writing concentration which is rather competitive. However, until then you can take as many creative writing classes as you get into. Many of these classes are actually taught by Mary Gordon herself. I was lucky enough to have one of the main creative writing teachers as my first year seminar prof and she was my favorite teacher so far at Barnard. She helped me a lot with my writing and was simply brilliant and inspiring. The creative writing program is such a big deal at Barnard I almost feel sad sometimes I am not taking advantage of it. I also have to mention that Anna Quindlen, as a Barnard trustee, serves us food at the Midnight breakfast just because it amuses me. I suppose simply put, English is the biggest major at Barnard and the creative writing concentration is supposed to be great with many classes ranging from journalism to essay writing to short stories. I'm sure the other schools mentioned on this thread have great English departments also but I hope this information is helpful.</p>
<p>TheDad: Dads love Smith. Both D and roommates dads wanted them to choose Smith over Barnard. (Not to imply that many daughters don't also prefer Barnard. BTW one of mt favorite English profs. was a Smith graduate and an actual student of Sylvia Plath whom she adored!</p>
<p>I'm sorry if it looks like we're highjacking your thread. Smith is an incredible institution, and neither D nor I think Barnard is superior. (D reserves her ire for Vassar because she does not approve of their policy of privileging male applicants. Even so, S almost enrolled.)</p>
<p>Oh, I can't believe I misspelled Mary Gordon's name. I knew it looked wrong. My spelling is going.</p>
<p>Well, I don't think anyone was trying to put down Barnard. As you explained, it has a very good Creative Writing program, which (as I explained earlier in the thread) Smith does not have. I also was considering Barnard and Smith as my first choice, nearly went with Barnard but ultimately decided to go with Smith for a number of reasons. I was trying to explain the strengths of the <em>Smith</em> program, since that's what the OP asked about. I'm sure that Barnard people are more qualified to explain the <em>barnard</em> program, which the OP probably asked about on the barnard thread. </p>
<p>Let's not play my college is better than your college, it really doesn't serve the purpose of helping students make good decisions. I think that one of the great benefits of CC is it lets each school have a forum where those connected with it can present their take on what they know best.</p>
<p>SmitieandProud: I'm so sorry posts came across that way. I agree with you. I think TheDad was being playful & I took his post in that spirit. I'm sure your English Department is excellent and you are rightly proud of it. My reason for pursuing this was for OP because Barnard seems unusual in creative writing. There are many areas Smith leaves Barnard in the dust. (Ph.D. students and Fulbright scholars for example.) So forgive D & me if our tone was offensive.</p>
<p>BTW: The architects who built your glorious student center have now designed for Barnard. It is very different because it's designed for urban space,</p>
<p>This is really helpful. Thank you so much. I'll keep this all in mind.</p>