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since you must be invited to apply by the director of the program,
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<p>You don't need to be invited to apply -- any Smith student who is going to be a junior or senior in the fall is welcome to do so. The application was put in my mailbox in my sophomore and junior springs.</p>
<p>"I'm going to be a freshman at Amherst this fall. Is there any way I could work with Smith's Kahn Liberal Arts Institute on any of its projects?:</p>
<p>I know that in this year's "Undergrounds" project, there are no students from other colleges, but there is at least one faculty member from Mount Holyoke. There are nine Smith students (all seniors), 9 Smith faculty, one Mt. Holyoke faculty, and one teaching fellow in dance.</p>
<p>Borgin - to quote directly from the Kahn page "Each year, at the beginning of the Spring semester, the Director of the Institute invites members of the sophomore and junior classes to apply for fellowship in connection with projects that the Kahn Institute will support during the next academic year." </p>
<p>I too received the application every year, but I don't think that every sophomore and/or junior receives it. More likely, it is like the fellowships email list which is made up of students selected by GPA.</p>
<p>"Iinvites members of the sophomore and junior classes": I read this sentence as "every member of the sophomore and junior classes is invited to submit an application."</p>
<p>In the current Sustainability Kahn Project, there are 5 Smith profs, 7 Smith seniors, and 2 Smith juniors.</p>
<p>middsmith... depending in your interests... I have a pretty strong belief that Smith is pretty inflated :p I could've gotten a 3.5+ in my history/Russian major there... now my GPA has tanked :( (but I still got into great grad schools!). Or maybe my current school is severely deflated.. hard to say!</p>
<p>I don't know how you feel about grade inflation... it pretty much correlates with your ego :) Good grades = big ego boost but then you'll have doubts down the road whether those As were really worth it for the efforts you put in. And grad schools do know which schools inflate and deflate so I wouldn't worry about it but be careful not to overshoot your aims.</p>
<p>well, i need my grade to be as much inflated as possible. ego needs a big cushion. I've always heard but I'm not so sure about grad schools actually know which schools inflate or deflate grades, actually.<br>
For the STRIDE scholars, I received an email a few days ago detailed last year Stride projects and although I'm very impressed with the biology and engineering projects, I feel the humanities projects, especially those that require you to maintain and keep up a website, seem to be junk work. From class, I have a fair understanding of the project and what's needed from me, but I'm wondering why the project for humanities seem so bad?</p>
<p>There is a listing for posters and performances that will be presented this Saturday as part of the "Celebrating Collaborations" affair.
Smith</a> College: Celebrating Collaborations</p>
<p>Are (m)any of these an outcome of STRIDE scholarship work??</p>
<p>Goldblot, yes, a number of them are outcomes of STRIDE work. Search the page for "STRIDE" and you'll be able to see which ones they are quickly -- all the descriptions state what sort of collaboration resulted in the presentation</p>
<p>Midd, my D was included for publication credit for work she did as a STRIDE her very first semester (a Gov/Math major working for a Computer Science professor). </p>
<p>The strength of the science & engineering STRIDE's you can figure out in most cases from reading the descriptions but, imho, the humanities & social sciences projects are all over the map, some very good, some being a way for a prof to get no-cost slave labor to do tedious grunt work. This is where asking about specific profs, either by PM on College Confidential or via inquiry on Jolt can put you ahead of the game. (D's prof got rave reviews, which is why she chose him, and she wasn't sorry. In her case, it led to a summer job for a few weeks her first summer, funded by the NAS.)</p>
<p>I went, talked to several professors but it seemed like they did not care too much about their prospective students. The students were extremely nice, probably the nicest student body I've ever met. I love my host.<br>
I don't like my hosts from the other highly ranked school in the region and I don't like the students there either. Having said that, I spoke to some professors at the other schools and some made an effort to answer every single question I had.
I'm back home now and still not sure where I should go. How do you make a decision when you don't love a school completely?</p>
<p>Middsmith-</p>
<p>Forgive me for sounding like a mother, but it is an occupational hazard. No place, school, relationship, item of clothing or haircut will ever be "perfect." There are plusses and minuses in everything. Your choice has to be based upon the best available between the available options, and then you need to turn your focus into making it the best possible place for you with a positive attitude. </p>
<p>I'm assuming that since you read this portion of the Smith thread you are a potential Stride. I'd contact Peter de Villiers and talk to him about your questions. My daughter and I found him incredibly responsive and he may be able to put you in touch with other faculty who can give you more answers about Smith. After visiting Smith and meeting with him, she has chosen to go to Smith next year- over several other highly ranked schools both in Massachusetts and outside of it. I'm not saying that it necessarily the right choice for you- just that if you are a Stride candidate he is a great person to talk to and I know he sent around an e-mail to all of the Stride and Zollman candidates inviting them to contact him. I also know he was not there on the Friday of open campus so you may have missed the opportunity to talk to him directly. Give him a call or an e-mail. It may help.</p>
<p>Loving a school completely is an extremely rare occurrence. Iow, what Synergy said. And fwiw, my D has found most of her professors to be incredibly engaged with their students. And of the lot, she's probably picked up 2-4 "mentors for life"...which I think is remarkable. For many students, at many colleges, the number would be zero or one.</p>
<p>I'm certain that if I go to Smith, I will have the most amazing time. I just love the people there. Anyway, my intended major is biochem and probably math. I understand why mini's D turned down Williams but for my major, the opportunities available at Amherst or Williams are very comparable to what Stride will give me.<br>
I gathered several professors' contact info before I left. In the next few days hopefully I'll have a clearer idea who I want to work for when I come in if I can convince myself to overlook the name brand.
Thank you all for you feedback and suggestions.</p>
<p>So strange that some of these Smith professors were aloof... de VIllers is definitely great and very, very engaging- literally e-mailed me to meet with him within the first two weeks at Smith! I wasn't a STRIDE scholar but it was for something else that someone referred him to me. I'm trying to think of other good, engaging professors who LOVE freshmen/incoming students- I know that Justin Cammy in the Jewish Studies/Comparative Lit departments is a sucker for younger kids but unfortunately, he can scare the hell out of them because he's a tough guy. :) Oh for math, talk to David Cohen, I think mini's D had him? Though I ultimately dropped his calc class after 3 weeks of struggling, he was AMAZING in helping me figure out what I want and making the transition to college.</p>
<p>Really, I would definitely NOT discount Smith professors right now- you're probably not talking to the right people at the right time of the year. If you have a good gut feeling about the campus, go anyway.</p>
<p>Besides, students tend to be extra nice to prospectives, keep that in mind.</p>
<p>"I'm certain that if I go to Smith, I will have the most amazing time. I just love the people there. Anyway, my intended major is biochem and probably math. I understand why mini's D turned down Williams but for my major, the opportunities available at Amherst or Williams are very comparable to what Stride will give me."</p>
<p>The math department at Williams is indeed one of their best departments, so I can well understand giving them very serious consideration. I not only doubt, but I know for sure that (at least when my d. was kicking the tires) there weren't any paid research assistantships at Williams or Amherst during the school year for first- or second-year students.</p>
<p>At any rate, go where you will feel comfortable, and challenged. You can get a great education at any of them.</p>