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Off-Campus Study: Not Always Abroad............................ |
Spending one's junior year abroad adds an aura of glamour and mystery to the burning of the midnight oil. But staying at home in the United States to hit the books at a campus away from Smith can be an adventure, too. Students have a smorgasbord of domestic educational institutions from which to choose, ranging from the Ivy League to historically black colleges and embracing both coasts of the United States. "It's a matter of space, available funds and meeting the requirements," says Mary Philpott, dean of the sophomore and junior classes. Through the Twelve College Exchange Program, students with a minimum 2.8 grade point average can sign up for a year at Amherst, Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Wheaton and Williams colleges. One-semester programs associated with the Twelve College Exchange include the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut, sponsored by Connecticut College. Williams College also runs the Williams-Mystic Seaport Program in American Maritime Studies in Mystic, Connecticut. Last year 18 students went on exchanges, says Philpott. A total of 136 students from participating schools took advantage of the program during the 1994-95 school year. "There used to be a larger number of students participating in these programs," Philpott says, "but when schools became coed the numbers started dropping. When the schools were single-sex colleges, students from women's colleges would go to Dartmouth or some of the other all-male schools. But once those schools became coed, Smith women were less likely to select these schools as well." Lisa Gilbar '97 says she had a blast at Williams last year. "It was wonderful. The people were really welcoming. I really liked the atmosphere," she says. "As much as I love Smith, it was nice to take a break from it and try something new." Gilbar, a theatre major, says that drama at a coed school with a "strong student theatre group" was helpful, especially because there was a ready supply of male players. "You could always get together and do a project," she recalls. "At Smith, it's like pulling teeth to get people to audition for something." Having directed three modern plays and stage-managed King Lear at Williams, Gilbar credits her experience there with making it possible for her to direct last fall's mainstage production of Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy at Smith. Gilbar sees where her formation at Smith played a key role at Williams in giving her the self-confidence to speak up in classes and take the initiative to start projects. "Smith made me more confident and enabled me to get more out of the Williams experience," she says. "At Smith you get an experience you won't find anywhere else, and going away made me realize this." Karla Settles '97 was pleasantly surprised at the way her junior year at one of the historically black colleges unfolded. Part of the success of this venture came from her own determination to peek behind the stereotypes. Settles says that during the course of speaking with about a dozen people about Howard University, she was told that the administration was so disorganized that students had to wait in hour-long lines to register for classes. They also warned her of the danger of being in inner-city Washington, D.C., billed as the country's murder capital and where Howard's main campus is located. She went in spite of the bad rap. "I did not feel threatened at all," Settles says now. "Overall it was a very supportive environment. I had a good experience with the administration. The students were really easy to meet and get together with for different group activities." Settles, who is a psychology major, says Howard's coursework was not as challenging as Smith's. Being around African-American professors who were resource- ful and well connected made up for that disparity, however. "I found it a lot easier to find out about opportunities outside of the university than at Smith," she says. For instance, not only did she learn from a variety of specialists who came to her human sexuality class to share their expertise, but one of those experts was also instrumental in helping her get a summer internship at the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Still, there were aspects of Smith that she missed, such as Friday tea, smaller classes and the house system. Silvia Ruganda '97 says the time she spent at Pomona College in California was rewarding in many ways. But her one venture into the larger Los Angeles community proved too much to write home about, although it was fit for prime time: she witnessed a stabbing in progress. She didn't wait around for the denouement, however. At Pomona, though, she had a wonderful time expanding her horizons. "I participated in a lot of things I normally didn't participate in at Smith," she says. "I tried all sorts of activities." Ruganda, a physics major, took up fencing and ballroom dancing, as well as tutoring inner-city kids in an afterschool program in a Hispanic neighborhood. She also took a course in the history of Christianity. "It's something I wouldn't have taken here," Ruganda notes. Neither was the course in biological anthropology. "But it made me realize that I like taking anthropology classes," she says. "It just gave me a new perspective on things."-WS |
