associasian

how is the language department at williams?

Catfish

I have heard that romance languages are relatively weak, but I wouldn't know for sure.

ephrhymeswbeef

Yeah, I've heard that too. Others are supposed to be pretty good, though.

ladylazarus12

I've heard the same about the romance languages. I only know about the Classical Languages...Latin and Greek are fairly strong.

mini

One crude measure is simply the percentage of foreign language majors who graduate (or add in "area studies" - at some schools, "area studies" are language majors who take more culture/history classes in the language rather than literature ones - Smith is an example; in other schools, these are mostly 'ethnic studies' majors). At any rate, it is a crude measure because it reflects major interests of the students, not necessarily quality. Other quality measures would be number of upper-class electives actually offered each year (don't count classes in the catalogue, count classes actually offered each semester), or number of faculty who are not language instructors or "visiting professors" - you can check these out for yourself. But the number of majors, though crude, is also a good measure because it likely or often reflects the critical mass needed for language tables, language halls or houses, film series, or top-flight study abroad advising or programs.

Anyhow, the common data sets of a few schools show the following (the first percentage is that of language majors, the number in parenthesis represents area/ethnic studies majors):

Smith - 13.49% (7.61%)
Middlebury - 11% (6.%)
Amherst - 10.6% (6.2%)
Swarthmore - 8.4% (0.5%)
Macalester 7.7% (2.6%)
Williams - 5% (4%)

onemoremom

From the Williams website, average numbers of senior majors in language-related areas:

Asian studies 4
Chinese 6
Classics 7
Comparative Literature 5
English 74
French 2
German 2
Japanese 4
Russian 2
Spanish 7

You would certainly get a lot of individual attention in any of the ("foreign") languages.

mini

http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?vi...pinion&id=8731

Jrock

From personal experience, the french department has not been that adequate. We need better classes and more teachers. The strongest languages here are Chinese and Japanese, and their departments are well funded. Middlebury has a solid foreign language program.

MikeyD223

Williams is small and must make important decisions regarding what classes and majors to offer. I'm not so sure I'm convinced that Williams should beef up the French and Italian departments. Doing so would require the addition of more faculty, and Williams does already have the lowest student to faculty ratio of any top liberal arts college.

If you are interested in learning a romance language, there are many better liberal arts college options.

Corbett

Foreign languages is one area (ice hockey and lacrosse are others) where Williams has traditionally been overshadowed by NESCAC rival Middlebury.

Realistically, Midd has a pretty firm lock on the market for students who dream of studying foreign languages at a selective LAC, in a small town, on US Route 7, in the mountains of western New England, near the ski areas.