Connecticut College

New London, CT: Founded in 1908 as a small women's liberal arts college, Connecticut College has since gone co-ed but still enrolls only 1700 undergraduates. Though the picturesque college is located just outside of New London, the beautiful, tree-filled campus feels secluded. The area around the college campus boasts clean grounds, clear skies, and, right now, magnificent fall color.

Connecticut College has all the usual liberal arts majors with a few notable additions that set it apart from the many other schools in New England: child development, human relations, music and technology, and zoology, just to name a few. The school is most noted for its International Studies program which allows a student, as a supplement to any major, to pursue four years of a language with an internship in the junior year in the appropriate country. The placement is found specially for the particular individual so that it accurately coincides with the student's major and thus provides valuable foreign work experience. Back at the college, the classes are small, with the exception of a few introductory classes which still contain no more than 100 students.

Connecticut College has many dormitories that students choose by lottery. Housing only 60-100 students each, they are all divided equally between the classes; one-fourth of each dorm is occupied by freshmen, one-fourth by sophomores, etc. As a result of its international programs, there are also several language dorms where one must speak the dorm language at meals in the cafeteria. Students I spoke to who lived at these dorms liked this concept because they felt that their language skills had been maintained or even improved.

Connecticut College's new sports complex not only contains the usual sports facilities such as a gym, pool, hockey rink, and fitness center, but also has a climbing wall and rowing tanks. The boathouse, which is the farthest building from the main campus, is only about a ten-minute walk.

My tour guide, as well as the other students I met, were friendly and happy to be at Connecticut College. I was very impressed with the campus itself and with the attention being given to visitors by the admissions office. Except for the drawback of no real campus town within comfortable walking distance, Connecticut College is a largely undiscovered, top-quality New England liberal arts school. n



Review by A. R., Fall River, MA


Reviewed in 1993