Engaged Students

Washington College empowers students to become the kind of strong leaders and active independent learners the world needs...

A place of opportunities

• Washington’s dedication to connecting students to the world begins in the first year, when students take Global Perspectives: Research and Writing  (GRW) seminars. Being a contemporary citizen requires the ability to consider problems and issues from international and global perspectives. Global Perspectives seminars, required for first-year students, offer a range of courses that encourage thinking beyond national boundaries. Topics may include global warming, world hunger, nuclear proliferation or post-colonial literature.

• The most popular majors are biology (including premed), business management, English, history, international studies, political science and psychology. WC’s vibrant creative writing program benefits the entire campus community by bringing writers such as Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and The Onion’s features editor, Joe Garden, to campus for seminars, dinners, and time with students.

• Biology and environmental studies majors take advantage of WC’s waterfront location and facilities, where students conduct fieldwork during the school year. During the summer, students can participate in fieldwork trips to Bermuda, Ecuador and Mount Desert Island.

• Aspiring writers can enjoy the facilities of the Rose O’Neill Literary House, a living/learning community for writers, or explore the landscape of the Romantics during a summer program at Kiplin Hall in England. Every year, one fortunate graduating senior is selected to receive the Sophie Kerr Prize, the largest undergraduate prize in the nation. Recent winners have received over sixty thousand dollars to help them pursue the creative life after graduation.

• WC’s flagship academic enrichment program, the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows, offers funding to students for a variety of self-directed projects. Requiring a grade point average of 3.6 or better, membership in the Cater Society is highly competitive and offered only to students who achieve distinction among the school’s top scholars. Junior Fellows who have completed independent projects give short presentations to the entire campus community about their experiences. Recent funded internships have been with the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC; the British Museum; the dolphin research program at the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory in Hawaii; the Philadelphia Theater Company; and the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland.

• Students may also take advantage of the opportunities offered by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience to explore the rich American heritage of the Chestertown region, including a public archaeology laboratory housed in the college’s restored colonial-era Custom House on the Chester River. The Center for the Study of the Environment and Society also helps sponsor underwater archaeological explorations of the Chester River.

Great Teaching

Members of the Washington College faculty are leaders in their fields with real life experience who put their students first and challenge them to be independent thinkers...

Vibrant Community

Washington College students have the opportunity to explore a multitude of interests and activities outside of the classroom and the Eastern Shore of Maryland is a great setting for rigorous academic pursuits...

A community with something for everyone

• The comfortable and relaxed atmosphere of the small, historic community of Chestertown, Maryland, is shared by WC’s intimate campus. Nearly 80 percent of WC’s students live on campus, many in theme houses such as the Leadership and Service house, in which students agree to perform community and campus service. Service organizations range from well-known programs like Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International, and the Special Olympics to local environmental programs like Furthering Outreach in the community and Environment (FORCE), and Neighbors for Good. The fraternity and sorority community at Washington is also active in service, sponsoring fundraising and other charitable events throughout the year.

• WC offers over seventy clubs, a strong athletics program, and frequent concerts on campus. The college has a vibrant theater program, open to majors and non-majors alike. The Riverside Players, for example, sponsor a number of programs, including the Royal Fakespeare Players, a parodic Shakespearean acting troupe. WC also offers a variety of intercollegiate and club sports, including rugby and equestrian programs.

• Chestertown is located on the Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore, which is forty-five minutes from Annapolis, and ninety minutes from Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Chestertown offers coffeehouses, art galleries, and a vibrant community theater in a peaceful small-town setting. Local residents attend college events, such as lectures given by top-notch speakers, many from Washington, DC, including Senator John McCain, Ralph Nader, and Plácido Domingo. WC also hosts other community events and fund-raisers, and many students are involved as members of local environmental clubs and even the local volunteer fire department.

Successful Outcomes

Washington College has a proud tradition of working with students to generate great outcomes...

A proud history of great outcomes

• Students praise WC’s career services program for its strong influence. “They will find ways to help you do what you want to do,” one student explained. About 25 percent of WC students attend graduate school at a top-ranked institution in the first year after graduation, 45 percent in the first five years. WC alumni are proud of their college and serious about preserving it; alumni regularly participate in fundraising and other school events.

• Washington’s alumni testify to the breadth of preparation available at the school, as well as to its commitment to public-minded service. Noted literary alumni range from the classic, James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, to the contemporary, Jonathan Segal, senior editor at Knopf. Other notable alumni include actress Linda Hamilton; Harris Whitbeck, an international correspondent for CNN; Joe McLain, a pioneer in pyrotechnic chemistry, Louis Goldstein, the longest-serving politician in the state of Maryland;,William O. Baker, former president of Bell Labs, Ralph Snyderman, a genetics researcher and former chancellor for health affairs at Duke University, and H. Lawrence Culp, president and CEO of Danaher. Their varied paths mix community service, alumni loyalty, and creativity in a way that would surely please the school’s most public-minded namesake.