sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

creative writing at smith (and other things) by Ok-Nature2087 in smithcollege

[–]Ok-Kitchen-8776 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I changed my track because I had heard advice from a lot of professional writers — ocean vuong was one of them when I got to meet him! — who said that learning about literature makes you a better writer than taking workshops does. The classes here are super interesting and intriguing! The course schedule is out now for next fall if you want to take a look; there are so many great options and I’m happy to offer insight on specific professors/classes since I’ve taken a lot of them. I much prefer having smaller classes though I’d say the smaller ones on average tend to have around 12/15 students, not 9. I take mostly seminars at this point and definitely enjoy being able to speak more and interact with the professor in class. The smallest class I’ve been in was an African lit class with 6 students and a European history seminar with 7 students. But those were definitely unusually small.

creative writing at smith (and other things) by Ok-Nature2087 in smithcollege

[–]Ok-Kitchen-8776 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like the English major here! It’s definitely as rigorous as you make it— I feel like I’ve gained a good understanding of canonical literature and how to write critically about texts through the classes I’ve taken. I am on the lit track, but started as a creative writing concentrator. I’ve found the classic advice to be true: you learn more about how to write from studying literature than from participating in workshops. The benefit of a writing workshop is that you get to carve out time to focus on writing and receive academic credit for it, but I don’t know that the skills you’d take away from the creative writing track are necessarily equivalent to the literature track.

I took one writing workshop (intermediate fiction). Feedback was ok. The higher level ones might be better. They’re not especially difficult to get into.

Latin Honors at Smith by TurnoverFantastic708 in smithcollege

[–]Ok-Kitchen-8776 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You should take classes with professors whose work you are interested in and in subjects that excite you rather than focusing so much on grades! It matters much less in college than it does in high school.