<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Another international student taking a look at Smith. I am thinking about taking a double major of russian/classics and economics, and just wanted to know if smith is strong in these areas. Currently scouting all the women's liberal colleges so it would be nice if someone could inform me. I tried to read the website, but there is so much information that it's rather confusing. Can someone enlighten me as why 5 colleges is so good?</p>
<p>Just gives you a lot of options for courses, libraries, and EC's. Also increases social opportunities.</p>
<p>Smith is strong in economics, it's one of the more popular majors and some of our best and most controversial profs work in that department. </p>
<p>The classics department is good, but it's small. Classics majors tend to be tightly knit and work closely with their professors, and they're one of the only majors with their own exclusive study abroad program, in Rome for classical archaeology. </p>
<p>All I know about the russian department is that it is small as well. And the intro russian language courses are supposed to be easy.</p>
<p>My D took some Econ courses and would have taken more if she could have...loved them. Mahnaz Mandavi and Roger Kaufman wer two of her favorite profs. Mahnaz was received an award for being a distinguished professor at May's commencement ceremonies.</p>
<p>The Five Colleges are good, but not only because one can take classes at any of the five. There are Five College professors - my d's main mentor was a Five-College Professor of Early Music, international famous, based at Mt. Holyoke, but who taught his classes mostly at Smith and UMass. There was one well-known music prof at Amherst who couldn't fill up his ethnomusicology course there, so he taught it on the Smith campus.</p>
<p>There are also Five-College Certificate programs that majorly extend the range of offerings far beyond what LACs are usually able to offer. You might want to visit their webite:</p>
<p>Five</a> Colleges, Incorporated: Departments/Programs/Committees/Councils</p>
<p>I know the language department is good, but what about sociology?</p>
<p>My daugher is majoring in French and Sociology and she really likes the Sociology classes she's had.</p>