‘A liberal arts education prepares you for a professional life’

I think that a liberal arts education is the most powerful way you can prepare yourself for professional life in the 21st century. If you think about what you need,a liberal arts education has it all. You need cultural fluency or the ability to cross borders with sophistication and understanding,it gives you that. You need critical thinking,good writing,clear thinking,it gives you that. Most people can expect in their career,not just to have five different jobs but really have five different careers,so it prepares you for that. Most complicated problems require multiple disciplines to solve,again derived from a liberal arts curriculum.

Graduates pursue careers in every field conceivable—research,finance,business,law,the art world,a liberal arts education prepares you for everything,as it were. And indeed,many employers they look for people who have a passion for doing something and have accomplished it,who can have broad conversation (talk to clients) and who are broadly educated.

But when you say liberal ‘arts’,does it mean one can only study the humanities?

No,it absolutely does not mean that. A third of our students major in the sciences. We have a higher percentage of women majoring in the sciences than the percentage of women who choose to major in science in other elite co-ed colleges. A big problem in the US is students dropping out of the sciences,but at Smith,we don’t have attrition in the sciences,we have an increase.

Smith,in fact,is the first and only women’s college in the US to grant its own undergraduate degrees in engineering. The Picker Engineering Program is project-based,which means that students do hands-on projects and every senior (final year) student does a design project. Here students work in teams of four,and partner with corporate firms to solve some engineering and design problems they need help with. Also,Picker students who maintain an overall GPA of 3.5 and a GPA of 3.5 within the major are automatically admitted to graduate study in engineering at Dartmouth College,Johns Hopkins University,Tufts University and the University of Michigan.

To switch streams a little,how big is the student body and how much of it is international?

It is a very selective institution,with a student population of 2,700 students. The student to professor ratio is very high – of 9:1,i.e.,we encourage small class size so students receive personal attention. Smith has a large representation from across the world,with students from 62 countries,this year,including India,Afghanistan,the UK,Turkey,Bolivia,France,Egypt,Nigeria and many more.

What is one of issues on the Smith campus that students and the administration work towards together?

Sustainability. Smith was one of the first colleges to sign what is called the President’s Climate Commitment,which commits you to reduce your carbon foot-print to zero as soon as possible. We have 25 years to accomplish that goal. We also have a new centre called the CEEDS—Centre for the Environment,Ecological Design and Sustainability that introduces students at all different levels of sophistication to sustainability issues. We have a very powerful,self-formed team of students,faculty and staff—the Green Team—which is always trying to locate ways of reducing ways of reducing our use of energy. So,sustainability is like gospel on our campus.

Last,young women often associate a women’s college with the lack of opportunity to interact with the opposite sex. Is that true?

It is important to recognise that going to a women’s college is not like going to a convent. There are men on campus. We are members of a five-college consortium and three of those five are co-educational institutions. There are lots of opportunities for social life. But the wonderful thing about a women’s college is the way it builds your confidence,leadership skills and it gives you very deep friendships with women that are a life-time resource. All students,past and present,have access to the Smith network,which is a very powerful network of women. Smithies help each other and so whatever city you go to,you’ll have an automatic set of women with professional connections to help you.