Written by Andrew Patton
Often referred to as a “Little Ivy,” Connecticut College has strong and innovative academic programs. Rather than follow a predetermined list of classes, students are encouraged to actively plan out their education at Conn. Some of the special options include designing a major, developing a concentration, participating in a certificate program, or writing an honors thesis. Many students take advantage of these opportunities, and the variety of individual projects happening on campus make academics exciting. Professors are devoted and helpful both inside and outside the classroom, and because of Conn’s small size, there aren’t many huge lecture hall-style classes. Students usually get to know the professors in their majors very well, which makes it easy to seek out help after class, or fall into research and intern positions. Professors are clearly exuberant about the subjects they teach, but they shy away from monotonous lectures in order to get students to participate in class. In fact, most professors at Conn prefer to moderate discussions rather than dominate them. The assignments are challenging and usually involve a lot of writing. Students take their academics seriously, but academics are not number one on everyone’s priority list. It’s common for students to go through a long period of masterful procrastination in the middle of the semester, generally followed by spurts of hyper-productivity near the eleventh hour of finals week.
Students at Conn are granted a lot of academic freedom. Students usually do not worry about General Education requirements, as most of them can be fulfilled without much effort. Though, while class sizes at Conn tend to be small, entry-level natural science courses are almost always over-packed, which sometimes makes it hard to get into your desired laboratory section.