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kate_nepveu) wrote2008-06-08 09:49 pm
Weekend in review
We were in Williamstown this weekend for Chad's college reunion. The cult-like nature of Williams alums can be a little awkward for those outside it, but our hotel was within walking distance, allowing me to go rest frequently, and it was nice to catch up with people I knew already and to meet a few new ones.
Also, my reduced presence led to the weekend's great coinage. This morning at breakfast, Chad came over and pointed to me with both hands, saying to someone, "See?!" In the ensuing introductions, I learned that Chad had spoken to the other person three different times over the weekend. Every time, I happened to be someplace else—which led the other person to accuse Chad of having a Snuffleupawife.
If only I'd known, I could have denied knowing Chad when he came over . . .
We also spent a while in the Williams College Museum of Art, which had some interesting exhibits, though occasionally I would have liked a bit more in the way of signs or labels. For instance, the exhibit on manifestos displayed American founding documents with pieces of contextual art (press release). While it was astonishing to see, for instance, a draft of the Constitution complete with editing marks and George Mason's handwritten notes in opposition on the back, there were a number of works in the same room whose relation to manifestos of any kind was unclear; maybe they were just there because that's where they usually are? Not sure. The other example was the Model American Men exhibit (press release), where I wanted to argue with the works more than the labels did.
I was quite interested by a large exhibit on the prints of William Kentridge, a South African artist (press release). The labels here were excellent and gave a great deal of context for the social, political, and technical aspects of his work, which I found thought-provoking and challenging. The "Unchained Legacies" exhibit was similar though much smaller: excellent context for its two contemporary references (images at the bottom of the press release) to the Brookes slave ship diagram, which I hadn't encountered before.
We also saw exhibits of the work of Emily Driscoll, a Williams alum who created open, spare, almost SF-nal works (press release), and Julie Mehretu, who does large-scale abstract reimaginings of the urban environment (press release), both of which were worth seeing.
I don't recall seeing anything that I immediately wanted to take home and hang on my wall, but it was a good afternoon all the same, and much better than our experiences with contemporary art tend to be.
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Trying to be objective, I'll note that the college decision process is really amazingly random. It all comes down to finding a good "fit" between the student and the institution, and that can turn on the strangest things.
On the pro-Williams side, I'll say that you won't find a better small-college faculty anywhere. That's not to say that there aren't a few duds here and there-- there are-- but as a whole, the faculty are remarkably dedicated and highly accomplished. It's also hard to top the facilities-- I played on the rugby club, and the administration didn't exactly love us, but we still had the nicest field of any of the school we played, by a long shot. The academic, athletic, and residential facilities are all absolutely first-rate. Which is exaclty what you should expect from a school with an endowment of better than $1.5 billion.
The down sides are mainly geographical. Williamstown is not exactly the hub of the universe-- it's an hour to Albany, and three hours to New York or Boston. If you're a City Person, you might well go nuts-- Kate went out there to visit with her family, and pretty much got right back in the car as soon as they arrived. The social scene can also get a little claustrophobic-- the whole student body is only about 2,000 people, so just about everyone knows just about everything about just about everybody else. It's also somewhat prone to cliquishness, with lots of very tight social circles.
None of those negative factors bothered me that much. I grew up in a small town, so I didn't mind the rural setting, and I didn't find the social scene to be all that bad, mostly because I had a place where I fit, with the rugby club. I was reasonably friendly with people from a bunch of different cliques, and never had too much trouble finding something to do, but then that's largely a function of my personality.
In the end, I would say that it comes down to individual preferences. If you're really absolutely set on the liberal arts college thing, Williams offers the ultimate liberal arts college experience. If you're not really sure that's what you want, it may get a little overwhelming.
There will be some students around in the summer-- a lot of people in the sciences stick around to do research, and a fair number of humanities types doing honors theses will be there. And, of course, the Admissions office pays some tour guides to stick around. You'll be able to get a little bit of a sense of the people from that. And, obviously, you'll get to see the campus, so a visit will clarify a lot.
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Williams sounds really cool, if I can get in. My major concern, though: how big of a role does sports play? I am not an athlete (toying with the idea of casual intramurals, but I can easily do without) and I generally hate most spectator sports. Especially football. Will that ostracize me at Williams?
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I doubt it.
I should qualify my answer by noting that I do like sports, and played rugby. But sports fandom was not a huge thing that I recall-- I rarely went to games that I wasn't playing in, and I think I may have seen four quarters of a football game over my whole four years (one quarter of the Homecoming game every year, from the tailgate area in the parking lot).
They used to like to cite a statistic about how many students participated in athletic activities-- something like "60% of students are on an intercollegiate varsity or club team," or something along those lines-- but it's not like a Big Ten school where football is everything.
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