Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Economics
Minor: Religious Studies
Student Self Identifies as: White Heterosexual Male
Summary
I was an athlete for freshman and sophomore year but I stopped this year and I have [a leadership role] in the Finance Club.
Background
Gender Identity: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
High School Experience: Private Catholic in Massachusetts with a graduating class of about 150 students. There was a culture of going to college.
First-Generation College Student: No
Major: Economics
Minor: Religious Studies
Extracurricular Activities: I was an athlete for freshman and sophomore year but I stopped this year and I have [a leadership role] in the Finance Club.
Did any of your extracurricular activities have a particularly big impact on your experience? In what ways?
[My sports team] did. There are about [2,200] people at the school and the team is big, so the second you get on campus you have a head start over all the other freshman because you’ve already been on campus for preseason with your teammates. It’s nice because you get to know a lot of other people on campus very easily. The Finance Club really helped me professionally because it’s a liberal arts school so you can’t major in business or finance so all the guys who want to work in finance or commercial real estate are Economics majors. While Economics is great, there are definitely some gaps you have to fill in. Through the Finance Club, I got to meet some older guys at Hobart who showed me the ropes and I wouldn’t have met them otherwise. Also, now that I’m older, I can connect with alumni and also help out the younger guys.
Academic Experience
Can you describe the weekly coursework for your major?
We have the core courses, which are the introductory courses, statistics, and econometrics. Those courses are going to be mostly graded on tests. The other electives might have more reading and research depending on what you take. For the most part, the assignments are tests.
Is there anything you feel the Economics department does especially well or poorly?
It’s a great department, but I think what comes to mind first is they lack finance courses. We have one professor who will teach those types of classes. In one semester he might teach Accounting, Corporate Finance, and Intro to Investments and it’s nearly impossible to get into those classes because every Economics major wants to get in them. Meanwhile, nobody really wants to take History of Economics or Economics of Education, so I wish they had more practical courses. In terms of positives, the professors are really great and are willing to help people outside of class. The students are also smart and willing to help people out.
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
Compared to the classes outside of Economics that I’ve taken, like humanities classes, Economics classes are the most competitive. It’s competitive in the sense that they want to get the highest grade in the class or are embarrassed when their friend gets a better grade. That being said, I still think it’s pretty collaborative. Nobody is not going to help you with an assignment. There are Teaching Fellows in the library who are also there to help you out.
How accessible are the professors in your department?
They’re awesome. Basically, on any given day, you can talk to the professor you can. And that goes for all the classes that I’ve had across the different departments. The class sizes are so small that it lends itself to that kind of environment. [The average class size is 16 students.]
Why did you choose your major? Are you happy with your choice?
I’ve always had the inclination to get into business or finance. I wanted to go to a small liberal arts school because I wanted to play [my sport], so I decided that Economics is a pretty good major if you want to get into business. I’m happy with my choice, Economics is great.
How was managing your sport and your coursework?
It’s so easy. You have so much time to do your work because when you take four classes a semester you’re really not in class that often.
Reasons to Attend
1) I think it’s a lot of fun. I was skeptical about it my freshman year, but I’ve liked it every semester I’ve been there more than I liked it the last and I love it now.
2) The small school helps you seek out friends and people who are like you.
3) The alumni network is awesome.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) The weather. If you can’t deal with the cold, you’re going to hate it or learn to deal with it.
2) It’s far from a lot of things.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on campus?
Freshman: Sherrill Hall with one roommate
Sophomore: Bartlett Hall with one roommate
Junior: Caird Hall with one roommate
Senior: I’ll live in an off-campus house
What has been your favorite living situation?
Probably Caird. The thing is one of the worst things about Hobart is the housing. Some of the dorms we get junior year are supposedly the nicer dorms, but it’s still really small. I’m lucky that I get to live off-campus next year [because you have to go through an application process].
How was transitioning from your hometown in Massachusetts to Geneva, NY?
That was probably the hardest part in the beginning. One of the biggest things Hobart has going against it is geography. I used to think a five-hour drive was really long but now it feels like nothing because I used to the distance. It’s just something you get used to.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
I’ve heard that you don’t want to go down certain streets at night because they can be dangerous and people have gotten mugged, but I don’t know of that happening to anybody. There are campus safety officers around 24/7, people don’t really get stuff taken from their dorm, and I haven’t heard of any physical violence or anything happening. The town we’re in isn’t a great town and has one of the highest crime rates in its county. So, there is some crime going on not too far from campus, but the campus is its own little bubble and you wouldn’t even know it while you’re there. [There are about 60 crimes per square mile in Geneva, almost double the national median of 31.1.]
Social Opportunities
What kind of nightlife or weekend activities do you participate in?
If you wanted to go out every night that people were going out, you could go out probably four nights a week. Some people go out Wednesday, a good amount of people go out Thursday, and everybody who goes out is out on either Friday, Saturday, or maybe both. There are fraternities, sports teams, and there are off-campus houses that throw parties that run basically from 9:00 to 11:00 and then everybody leaves and goes to the bar. It’s really a bar school.
What is the impact of Greek life on nightlife?
It’s not really a big fraternity school. A lot of my friends that I played [my sport] with are in fraternities, but because it’s such a small school everyone kind of knows each other and a lot of people in fraternities know people in other fraternities. It’s not crucial to be in a fraternity because they’ll probably have one sanctioned party a semester if they’re not on probation, and they all seemingly are on probation every semester. Plus, even if they have an awesome party, everyone goes to the bar anyway so it’s not really a factor. Also, if the fraternity is having that one party, you can find a way to get in most of the time.
What’s an alternative to going to a party or a bar that you like for a weekend activity?
You might be asking the wrong guy for this, but there are a lot of places that play live music that people will go and hang out at. I know they give out a certain amount of free movie tickets on Fridays. There’s not a whole lot of other things to do for nightlife in Geneva.
How happy are you with the weekend options at HWS? Is there anything you would change if you could?
I love going to a small school, but I do hear some of my friends, not just at Hobart but at other small schools, say they sometimes wish they went to UMass or a big school because those schools have a lot more options for nightlife. Here, you see the same people every night and sometimes that can get stale. There’s nothing you can really change, it’s just one of the disadvantages that comes with going to a small school.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
They all were on my team freshman year. A lot of them actually are not student-athletes anymore.
How would you describe the overall social scene at Hobart and William Smith Colleges?
There is a [significant number] of athletes, but I don’t think they are that important to the social life because guys on teams will be in different fraternities and are in different social circles. There are three ways to break up the people at our school, and we used to have a cafeteria that had three decks to it and you had to walk down a ramp to get to different decks. It was funny because the top deck was “Brobart and Smithie’s” who are the preppy people and Greek life people, the second deck is usually all sports teams sitting together, and the third deck is people who don’t really go out or are in different circles, like the performing arts. [The cafeteria was renovated in 2017.]
To what extent do people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
It seems like all the ethnically diverse athletes mix with everyone else. But, a lot of the people of color or people who identify as LGBT+ all sit in that third deck of the cafeteria that I described earlier. There is definitely a divide between the typical Brobart guy from Connecticut and the more diverse people, which is too bad. [About 73% of the students are White and 6% are Black.]
How do you like the size of Hobart and William Smith? How has it impacted your experience? [The undergraduate enrollment is about 2,200 students.]
I do like that that it’s small. One of the reasons that we don’t have one thing that dominates the social scene is because it’s so small you get the chance to meet everybody. If there’s someone that’s like you on campus, you’re probably going to get a chance to meet them. The downside is that there is a small group of people who go out then and you’ll see the same faces every night.
Careers
Has the alumni network helped you find internships or jobs?
I think that’s the main reason you pay the money to go to Hobart. We have a pretty good alumni network. I regularly will go on LinkedIn and look up people who went to Hobart and either cold call them or cold email them and try to set up a call or something like that. Almost without fail the Hobart guys are always willing to talk to you and point you in the right direction or introduce you to somebody else. I have an interview coming up this week and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity for it if it weren’t for a Hobart guy who graduated 12 years ago. I think that’s the best part of the school.
To what extent have you used the career office? How helpful are they?
That’s kind of a running joke in the Finance Club that the career services are like the blind leading the blind. I don’t think they help that much. I think they put a lot of really good effort in, but I don’t know how much you can expect them to do for you. When it comes down to it, you have to do things for yourself.
Have you learned any computer programs or languages through your coursework that will be helpful to you professionally?
I used SAS, which is a statistics software, and Excel. If you want to get really good at Excel you have to work at it outside of Hobart.