<p>How are philosophy, political economy, and sociology at Williams College? I am wondering if I could get current Williams students that partake in these majors to share their experiences with me? Much appreciated. Thank you!</p>
<p>Sociology is small but it’s great. Many of my classmates find their experiences with the department to be life-changing. Usually very theoretically-based and approached humanistically in contrast with sociology programs at other schools. Students get a lot of personal attention from the professors who often work together in advising students. The department is shared with the anthropology program so sociology majors are also exposed to core anthropological concepts in the non-elective requisite classes. However, I think most sociology students are double majors and/or are on other pre-professional tracks. </p>
<p>Check out the course catalog at catalog.williams.edu; you can read each department’s curriculum and get a pretty good sense of what the majors are like. :)</p>
<p>I’m a recent Williams graduate in philosophy, who also studied the social sciences a bit. But I must tell you it is difficult to answer your question adequately because the truth is that it all depends on your interests, goals, and aspirations - these being very likely to change. The answer also depends on the other institutions you are considering.</p>
<p>I would therefore advise you strongly to do a bit of research for yourself. Look at faculty members’ webpages for your subjects of interest at the institutions you are considering. Have most of the senior professors published books with the major university presses - Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton? Are they winning awards? Where did junior faculty receive their PhDs? Do they publish in leading journals, or obscure ones? These are reliable indications of good research. For quality of teaching, compare the sizes of the departments: if the number of professors is relatively large given the size of the institution, and if the number of majors each year is also relatively large, then it is probably an attractive and thriving program. If not, probably not. </p>
<p>Also, if a publication on a professor’s webpage piques your interest, have a look at it, if you can. You can tell a great deal about how a prof’s mind works just by reading a bit.</p>
<p>The danger with liberal arts colleges is that one can be stuck with a smallish department, sometimes housing some kooky profs at the margins of the field, or by profs that don’t care to foster a good environment for students. It is hard to credit what students in the department say, if it is merely bland and positive. After all, of course they like what they are doing, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. From them, seek out details, not general assessments.</p>
<p>Now, about Williams in particular I can tell you that the Philosophy Department is excellent, on the whole. Some professors, it is true, anchor the department more than others, but those that do are routinely amongst the very best-reviewed profs at Williams. As a major, I’ve gotten to know some members of the department quite well personally, and I have never been able fully to take the measure of their great warmth and generosity. Their intelligence speaks for itself. The strength of the department, though, is very much in contemporary Anglophone philosophy: ethics, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, of language, and of science. I don’t find this a great problem, but I would have preferred more depth and breadth in the history of philosophy rather than story-book survey classes.</p>
<p>Now, as for the other fields, the Economics Department at Williams is, by any objective measure, superb, hardly to be matched by any other liberal arts college. However, by the same standards, Political Science and Sociology are a bit weak. Sociology in particular is very small department about which I have heard very mixed messages, and only one faculty member, who works on aspects of the sociology of law, is really doing top-notch research. Another is a political conservative - which many find rebarbative. I don’t myself, but it does mean certain kinds of serious work can’t be done with him.</p>
<p>If you are very interested in political philosophy and social theory - of the sort one finds in Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Adorno, etc. - then there are, at the moment, probably several better places than Williams at which to study, places with more professors taking an active interest in this area, both in teaching and research.</p>
<p>That’s a great response, and props for “rebarbative.”</p>
<p>Thank you very much for these informative, in-depth responses! I will do some research and take your advice into my major consideration for Williams.</p>