Double Major - Math and Music

jeke
Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:36:29 +0000

When I looked at Oberlin, my impression was that their math department was about an order of magnitude below Williams. Math at Williams is very good. (as are sciences in general)

Of course being a conservatory Oberlin has a stronger music department than Williams, but the flip side is that they have a much stronger pool of music students and so my impression was that it’s hard to stay competitive there without dedicating your life to music. A lot of musicians at Williams are double majors or non-music-majors who play on the side. Music performance at Williams is generally pretty non-competitive and low-pressure, with the one exception of Berkshire Symphony which is fairly high-pressure and quite difficult for non-string players to get into (since it’s half-professional, there’s only one or two student spots per wind/brass instruments).