Experiential Education

Experiential education involving “learning by doing” outside the Williams Classroom has been a relatively understated but successful part of the Williams curriculum for a number of years. In addition to the use of (traditional) laboratory work in the natural sciences and studio work in art, more and more faculty have been challenging students to become more personally engaged in their learning through field work whether in the form of research, placement in community organizations or special projects.

Courses with an experiential learning component provide students with guided opportunities to encounter firsthand the issues that they read and study about, requiring them to apply academic learning to nonacademic settings and challenging them to use their experiences in those settings to think more critically and deeply about what they are studying.

Experiential coursework at Williams ranges from fully integrated off-campus programs such as Williams at Mystic to courses involving a small field research project. The amount and nature of the experiential component(s) used varies according to instructor judgment.  Williams encourages students to link their community interests to their academic learning through both curricular and extracurricular programming.  See the Visual Summary for information on specific opportunities. 

Experiential learning at Williams fits with the College’s broad philosophy of enhancing student capacity to improve society. See the College’s Civic Engagement Report for more information on the full range of activities associated with this challenge.