Life at Williams - 2. Social Life

This is the second part of my three-part series about life at Williams as a first year student. I am drawing primarily upon my first semester experience here at Williams. Social life is a really broad term, so I will break it down into different parts: clubs/sports, talks and colloquia, off-campus life.

1. Clubs/Sports

We have many clubs on campus. I will try to categorize the clubs here, but know that this is simply to give the best overview possible. There are clubs that social activity groups, like gaming, go, quilting, book discussion, etc. We club sports here too, notably ultimate frisbee, tennis, and volleyball, along with some other lesser known ones like climbing, martial arts, figure skating, equestrian. Williams has a really quirky social environment. We are NCA Division III so most athletes don't have to commit crazy amounts of time to their sport. As my friends have told me, I would say that at Williams you don't have to commit more time than you usually commit now to a high school sport teams, though maybe just a little bit more.

Then there are probably the most well known clubs on campus, which are the a cappella clubs, the newspaper, and dance clubs. They tend to have a lot more performances and whatnot, so those are very exciting. We have many more clubs that are just groups of people who have a similar hobby hanging out.

There really are a lot of clubs, and if you want to check out the full list, link below.

2. Talks and Colloquia

Williams College's prestigious academic status attracts famous faculty members from colleges all over the U.S. and the world to come and give talks or teach here. There are talks and colloquia almost every day. The most frequent, and perhaps the hardest to follow at times for me, are math colloquia, (mostly given by junior or senior math majors) given every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Second to that is statistics, followed up by the other sciences: biology, computer science, chemistry, physics (about once or twice every few weeks). I try to attend one least once a month. I really enjoy going to a lot of these colloquia, even if the science and math ones can easily go over my head.

A lot of the history, international studies, economics, and music talks don't require a degree in that field to understand. Some of the ideas presented are super interesting, and I'll be sure to note them down, maybe even inspiration for the next blog post.

3. Off-Campus Life

What, I didn't hear what you asked. What is this "off-campus life" you speak of? Kidding. In all seriousness, off-campus, we don't have too much in Williamstown- coffee and cafes, a handful of restaurants (Asian, Indian, American), and some small stores selling general supplies or clothes. There's also a movie theatre, barbershop and salon, and bank (only TD Bank here, you'll have to switch). A short drive away, North Adams has a few more restaurants and a livelier night life. There isn't too much else to say about Williams College. All the off-campus area that is within reasonable walking distance is just down one street, Spring St.

4. The Oft-Not-Mentioned Things

Sex is a thing that people do in college, some more than others. What really struck me as interesting though here at Williams was the commitment everyone had to open discussion of alcohol, drugs, sex, sexuality, race, and other taboo topics that were rarely brought up in my family. During First Days (Freshman Orientation), we all attended a series of talks and follow-up discussions about these topics.

We had a talk about sex, one about alcohol and drugs, one about race, and even another about mental health. Many of the speakers were students themselves, currently or recently graduated, who spoke about their real problems and ways they came to solve them, whether by themselves, with help from friends, or help from psychological counseling services here at Williams. After each of these talks, though it was a little awkward to speak about such intimate topics with other First Years, people I barely knew, I appreciated the effort the college put in to show us that they really cared about our mental health too.

Social Life - 8.5/10

Club List:
http://tinyurl.com/mb7b64z