Traditionally, small liberal arts colleges are considered a good fit for students interested in getting a broad-based education in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. In this rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, there will continue to be a need for people who understand non-technical aspects of AI, its limitations, and how it can be developed and implemented ethically across different industries. Small liberal arts colleges might be just the right place for a student especially interested in exploring AI across disciplines and investigating the ethical aspects related to the development and implementation of this technology, or the relationship between AI and humans and its impact on society. Lately, some colleges have begun offering bachelor’s degrees or significant coursework in AI. For a student who is proficient in calculus but also loves the idea of a liberal arts curriculum, these colleges might potentially be a great place to major in AI. This would allow students to not only explore AI and machine learning (ML), but also be able to take elective classes in ethics, linguistics, cognitive science, and philosophy. Besides allowing students to delve into AI through electives and research projects, these colleges give students the opportunity to choose to combine their studies with other fields such as cognitive science and data science.
Here are some small liberal arts colleges with strong programs in computer science (CS) that might be great options for a student looking to dive deeper into AI.
Colby College
The Computer Science department at Colby offers an AI concentration in the CS major. Also, multiple departments on campus, including African-American Studies, American Studies, Psychology, Anthropology, Biology, Economics, Philosophy, and Music offer interdisciplinary AI courses. The courses provide students unique opportunities widely ranging from using AI to analyze psychological data to exploring the impact of AI on society. Students can choose to take the Integrated Studies cluster by taking the 360 Degrees of AI course. Students can also explore jobs and choose to participate in independent studies, honors, or research related to AI.
Harvey Mudd College
All students at Harvey Mudd start with the Common Core Curriculum—courses in biology, computer science, chemistry, physics, math, engineering, and writing—supplemented by requirements in the humanities, social sciences, and art, allowing them to gain a solid interdisciplinary foundation. For students choosing to major in CS, the capstone Clinic Program provides them with a year-long software design project to work on; students can choose to explore research opportunities as an alternative. For example, researching at the Human Experience and Agent Teamwork Lab (HEATLab) allows students to use ideas from AI to coordinate humans, computational agents, and robots.
Smith College
Smith is an all-women’s college with a robust CS program that encourages interdisciplinary learning. Students pursuing a CS degree can take computational ML as an elective. Working with a professor, they can conduct research over the summer or choose to study abroad. Through the Kahns Liberal Arts Institute, students can collaborate across campus and across all five colleges. Recent projects have explored the impact of generative AI on writing and education.
Swarthmore College
At Swarthmore, students can choose to pursue a degree in computer science, with coursework related to AI, natural language processing (NLP), ML, bioinformatics, and adaptive robotics. They can also pursue AI-related research through independent study, honors theses, and by working with a professor over the summer. Students could also choose to explore majors such as psychology or linguistics if they are interested in AI or cognitive science.
Wellesley College
Depending on their interests, students at Wellesley can choose to pursue a degree in CS with the option for interdepartmental majors in data science, cognitive and linguistics sciences, media arts and sciences, or neuroscience. They take introductory classes such as Artificial Intelligence and Sociotechnical Dimensions of Computing in the Age of AI to understand how computers, the web, and AI work. During freshman and sophomore year, there are numerous opportunities to participate in research, including the First-Year Student Research Apprentice Program, Sophomore Early Research Program, and Winter session Research Week. Students can choose to study abroad in their junior year. All Honors students participate in an honors-quality thesis project, and all CS majors are required to present a poster to fellow students, typically during the Senior Summit. Internships and scholarship opportunities are available along with opportunities to conduct independent research and participate in the Summer Research Program.
As AI and emerging technologies evolve, and our world continues to be shaped by computation and data, small liberal arts colleges will provide new pathways for students to explore AI and ML across multiple disciplines and possibly influence the future of AI. Upon graduation, students will have a wide variety of options, including emerging AI-related jobs such as prompt engineers, digital AI artists, AI writers, AI ethicists, AI business strategists, and AI auditors, to name a few.
Need more help with college planning for your STEM student? As always, feel free to reach out to me via email [email protected], call me at 650-596-9583 or set up a FREE 45 min initial consultation via my contact form. I am here to support you and your family through the college admissions process.