My kids and I recently visited CWRU and it became a surprise favorite. But both of them are humanities people with interests in political science, anthropology, languages, etc., etc. (although my son intends to be pre-med as well). The school of arts and sciences at Case is a comparatively small part of the university and itself contains the science and math departments. I would appreciated some comments on what the experience is like for students whose main focus is on non-STEM fields. It seems as though there must be a very small cohort in such majors, maybe 1000 students. Is the experience richer or poorer for being in the midst of all those engineers? I can think of reasons it might go either way.
Hi @twinsmama
My daughter is a current music major, with a social justice minor and French minor. She was originally an engineering major but her love of the humanities programs and how strong they are at CWRU won her over, and she is now looking at grad school or possibly law school in the future. She has raved about all the opportunities she has had. She has been involved with several nonprofits opportunities through the CCEL center. CCEL brings in all sorts of social justice speakers and volunteer opportunities. Really, I can not believe all the things they do and the activities that are available to the CWRU students. She has a lot of STEM and non stem, artsy friends. The arts community is very active on campus. So, I would say while CWRU is probably best known as a top level science and engineering school, it deserves to be known as a top level humanities and arts school… and I think it is known that way with the right grad schools, law schools and employers. One last important point, her arts & humanities classes have been very small and all of her faculty know her well, and they have offered all sorts of opportunities as well.
Thank you, @Wizard2 , that is very helpful and great to hear!
Remember that the Western Reserve part of CWRU was Western Reserve College, a Liberal Arts College, which joined with Case Institute of Technology in 1968.
Check out Medical Anthropology as a pre-med major…one of my classmates did that and is now a doctor.
Thanks, @bopper, sounds interesting!
My DD is visiting as a potential geosciences major. When I asked on a high school parent eloop, one family had a son there. The son’s review was that they were an engineering and premed school, and there were better choices out there for other majors.
I wouldn’t say that this is a reliable review of the quality of the smaller majors, but it’s probably a good sign that the engineers and premeds look down on everyone else.
They are also strong in nursing, and business.
The link to what majors have how many students is here:
http://case.edu/ir/media/caseedu/institutional-research/documents/students/Enr_UG_Major_Fa2016.pdf
My non-STEM/Engineering kid took a good hard look at Case and it was a contender until the very end of her decision process. While another school won out, she was impressed by its offerings in Psych, Anthro, History, Classics, Music and Dance, among other strengths. There seemed to be lots of opportunities for undergraduates to work closely with professors in the humanities and social sciences.
You don’t really need to guess at questions like this as NCES Navigator is definitive (excluding double majors) https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Case+Western&s=all&id=201645
Since links don’t always come through…in the referenced year, CWRU:
- awarded 1137 Bachelor's degrees.
- 0 degrees in the Area...Group Studies fields
- 14 degrees in English
- 10 in foreign languages, literature and linguistics
- 11 in history
- 4 in philosophy
- 31 in the visual and performing arts
It’s a small cohort.
Also this is the “Graduate Survey”…shows what graduates are doing after graduation and number of graduates per major (fragbot seems to have left out other majors like anthropology, etc)
https://students.case.edu/career/resources/survey/doc/2016fds.pdf
Very comprehensive, thanks for the link!
If you’re okay with a small department, you’re fine. Bit for humanities check out larger state schools or private colleges
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@twinsmama My son graduated Case with a lot of humanities classes in philosophy, religion, English and economics with a physics major. The humanities are strong at Case Western because of the faculty recruiting from U of Chicago’s stellar humanities PhD programs. Those professors from U of Chicago are truly fantastic and demanding. I don’t hesitate to recommend Case Western as a humanities strong program, although my son did not major in humanities. Case’s President is a law professor and she keeps the focus on humanities and social sciences strong at Case. Every freshman gets a “freshman book” to read summer before college starts.
The 300 level religion and humanities classes are amazing at Case. Also, undergrad professors use the Fine Arts Museum, walking distance, as a playground. Fine arts and music thrive at Case, also because Cleveland Institute of Music is on campus, and those students take general education classes at Case, so lots of musicians. The fine arts institute in Cleveland has a relationship with Case and also located in University Circle. Case Western’s theatre program has ties to Cleveland’s Playhouse Square and New York City theatre.
Your son will get a lot of attention as a humanities major with a premedical focus. Needless to say premeds do well, and Case will even let a premed undergrad finish in three years, if they get into med school early. Phi Beta Kappa is strong at Case, and many students are well rounded and are inducted into this very old club for the liberal arts focused scholars. Phi Beta Kappa inducts only students who have a wide variety of classes in humanities, science, art and social science.
There is some complaining about SAGES, which is the core humanities and writing requirement. Every student, whether an English major, a nursing major or business major takes three writing classes to graduate. I rather liked that my son had to read 6-8 books for each class and write about them. The upper level humanities classes are more demanding than SAGES, but SAGES gives freshman an anchor before they choose a major.
Another positive about Case is the flexibility to double major and the two med schools with clinical experiences for undergrads, all within walking distance: Cleveland Clinic is a separate hospital and med school from Case Western University Hospital and Med school. I stayed near Cleveland Clinic and walked, to campus, but there is also a bus, maybe .5 miles to campus.
@twinsmama Your son can write directly to the political science, world languages, and anthropology department heads at Case to learn more. We did that, when we were investigating options and Case professors and department heads write back to potential students.
Thanks, @Coloradomama , very helpful!
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but humanities and social science majors get A TON of attention from professors here. I had two professors offer (didn’t even have to ask!) me to join their research projects within the first two months. All of my classes are below thirty kids. And probably most importantly, Case does NOT cut short their humanities and social science funding just because there is not many students. Therefore, there is a lot of independent research money, internship opportunities, job opportunities, study abroad openings, and other activities that humanities/social science people can easily take advantage of solely because there is not a ton of competition. In my opinion, Case is one of the few top schools where you can both get a top notch education and not feel like a small helpless fish in a big pond, especially when it comes to humanities/social sciences.