Hi everyone,
I never thought about applying to Williams in the fall until now, but I don’t really know a lot about it besides what they say on their website.
How is William’s CS program? I plan on majoring on CS in college. What makes Williams unique from other schools? How is the social life there? Is the campus in a nice area? How’s the food?
If there’s anything else I’m missing please let me know.
Thanks! I appreciate the responses.
Regarding what makes Williams special, this has been discussed in a few previous threads:
Computer Science at Williams has also been discussed in a few threads (probably on others as well):
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/1876869-williams-cs.html#latest
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/732891-computer-science-at-williams.html
I think it is useful to check out the types of jobs recent CS alums have landed, which is reflective of the strength of the department:
http://www.cs.williams.edu/people/alumni-directory/
The campus is dead smack in the middle of the most drop-dead beatiful natural setting for any northeastern college, not to mention a hot-bed for the arts (nationally-recognized art museums and summer theater festival on or very close to campus, among others), and a very charming, quintessential New England small college town. It is however far from any true urban areas (3.5 hours to both New York and Boston, over 4 to Montreal) and is a fairly rural environment, so it depends on your definition of “nice area.”
@Ephman thanks for your response!!
“nice area” is debatable. Do you like to ski? Willisamstown is near Pittsfield which is Western Ma, ski country. Not much else out there in Winter. My daughter liked the academics and community, but its just so far from everything it got crossed off the list. She was afraid it was too isolated. We’re from MA
@preppedparent I’m from MA as well, in the greater Boston area, and I’m worried that it might be too far out for me as well. I’m visiting in August so I’m gonna see how I like the location.
Though Williams is isolated by most conventional standards, the school seems to feel no need to apologize for this, as the setting appears to match what many of its students are seeking. Even at that, Albany, the capital of a major state, is just over an hour away.
While I did not take any computer science courses myself, my freshman roommate at Williams went on to major in Computer Science and is now a tenured professor of computer science at a well-regarded polytechnic university.
Thanks for your responses! @merc81 @TheGreyKing
The location is (proudly) not for everyone.
The following is a copied post from another thread. It offers a list of LACs, including Williams, with well established CS programs:
Professors from the following LACs appear to be among the first to have designed a model CS curriculum for liberal arts colleges. These schools may therefore offer some of the more established programs of their type (listed in approximate order of key upper-level courses offered at least biennially):
Hamilton
Swarthmore
Williams
Grinnell
Allegheny
Vassar
Washington & Lee
Colgate
Denison
Amherst
Bowdoin
(Sources: The Liberal Arts Computer Science consortium and table provided by ucbalumnus.)
This link will take you to the original thread: