<p>I am a student at Smith wanting to transfer somewhere more competitive either as a Sophomore or a Junior. I know a boy whose sister transferred from Smith to Wesleyan, and was a lot happier with the intelligence of the student body at Wesleyan, but actually said that she thought teaching was better at Smith. This disturbs me, as I was a little underwhelmed with both the student body AND the teaching at Smith. I've also heard comments about Wes being particularly weak in certain depts, like math and humanities. What do you think about teaching at Wes? Does anyone know in particular about environmental science, political science, or biology?</p>
<p>My D was in poli sci (they call it government there), and she thought the profs were excellent.</p>
<p>To tell the truth, I was unimpressed by my biology profs... partially personality, but also teaching style. On the other hand, I did think I got a lot out of the course (pretty rigorous) and I've heard good things about next semester's profs. I'm an aspiring MB&B major, and I've met some of the profs in that department, and they've been amazing people. My friend's advisor is a bio professor and she loves her.</p>
<p>As for math, I've yet to take a calc class (I want to take multivariable now, scheduling conflicts though) and I've heard mixed things about the intro to calc profs. The only criticism I've heard of the math dept. itself is too much of a focus on topography, but apparently that's been addressed... I'm no expert here. One of the upper level profs (algebra, I think) was one of my judges at Intel STS, though.</p>
<p>I loved my sociology professor - that was an amazing class. No clue about government. I hardly think Wes is weak in humanities.</p>
<p>No one has ever had a class with more than (about) 32 out of the 300 some odd faculty, so it's hard for anyone to make a general statement about the faculty. Also, different people prefer different things in regards to professors. So I don't think you're going to get a satisfying answer to this question on College Confidential.</p>
<p>Well, I did ask about specific depts to help narrow down the question. I agree with you though that I'm not going to get two answers that are the same.</p>
<p>i think there are already some topics about humanities departments here: english, theater, arts, language. you can check them out.</p>
<p>If you are looking for somewhere competitive, Wesleyan may be not a good choice. The classes are rigorous but the students are not competitive with each other. At least that's how I feel.</p>