
Report from My Williams College Teaching Sabbatical Semester (2016) [pdf] - lgessler
http://www.csc.kth.se/~jboye/Boye_WilliamsCollege.pdf
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lgessler
Adding a comment to explain what's inside: the author, who is on the CS
faculty of Sweden's top technical university, spends a semester teaching at
Williams College and uses most of this report to reflect on differences
between KTH (a large elite European research university) and Williams (an
elite American liberal arts college). An excerpt:

> The fact that Williams students are so consistently strong (with very few
> exceptions) have some implications: Most or all students can be expected to
> pass a given examination, whereas at KTH a course which everyone passes is
> looked upon with suspicion (this is particularly true for intro courses).
> Unless the admission procedure at KTH is changed to involve some kind of
> aptitude test, it is unavoidable, I think, that the intro courses at KTH
> will act as that filter instead (even if it seems a wasteful system both on
> a individual and a societal level). Moreover, at Williams lots of
> individually adapted help can be given to the few students who experience
> problems in a class. At KTH, fewer such resources exist (although there is
> some help to be had in basic math and computer programming). The Williams
> students always have the option of contacting their professors directly, and
> visiting them during office hours. Very few KTH teachers have office hours
> to my knowledge. A female master's student of mine described the situation:
> "At KTH one reads a number of very difficult courses at a very high pace,
> and there is really nobody there to help you. Unless you're able to find or
> create a good study group among your peers, you're unlikely to graduate".

