<p>DaVinci92: The only “ranking” of creative writing programs that I’ve heard of is the one you mentioned so I don’t have any quantitative data. However, I did have a few friends who were Writing Seminars majors who really loved the program and the faculty. I believe there is a parent (or two?) who have kids in the Writing Sems program that post here on CC so they may be able to provide some more info about the program. You should also check out one of the [blog</a> entries](<a href=“http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/academics/category/writing-seminars/]blog”>http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/academics/category/writing-seminars/) on the Hopkins Interactive site that are related to the Writing Sems program. </p>
<p>As for your concern about the competitiveness of other students: I think you’ll find that students at Hopkins are all eager to do well in their classes and willing to work hard to do so. If that’s what you define as competitiveness, then yes, the students are competitive. However, if you’re thinking of students who try to succeed at the expense of others, refusing to help their classmates along the way, then that’s something that you won’t see. I never once experienced any “cutthroat” behavior during my four years at Hopkins and in fact, I found that students (both in the sciences and in the humanities) were very willing and interested in working with each other and helping each other learn and succeed. </p>
<p>Greekfire: I haven’t looked at the exact credit numbers, but I suspect that it would be possible to double major in Writing Sems and Computer Science. Because each major has a “distribution requirement” that requires you to take courses in unrelated fields, your CS courses will fill the distribution requirements for Writing Sems and vice-versa. However, I would encourage you not to go in dead set on doing a double major. It’s very possible to explore creating writing and take as many creative writing courses as you want without majoring in Writing Sems, and by not confining yourself to the requirements of a second major, you still leave yourself the freedom to take classes in other fields that you decided are interesting. If, over time, you end up taking enough classes to get a minor or major in Writing Sems, then go for it. This is the advice I got from two different professors in two different departments when I considered declaring a double major my freshmen and sophomore years and I’m glad I followed it.</p>