September 29, 2011
For the past 12 years, Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology Dan Chambliss and a team of faculty and student researchers have studied what students can gain from a Hamilton College education. One hundred students from the Class of 2005 were randomly selected to be followed through college and five years after graduation. A large amount of data was collected from the students, including their transcripts, papers from both their high school and college careers and information gathered during annual interviews. Chambliss and his team were looking for trends that would reveal what students can intrinsically gain from a Hamilton education and take with them into their lives after college.
One part of the study consisted of the researchers asking a qualified group of college professors from other schools to evaluate the students’ high school and college papers according to a specified list of criteria. After everything was graded, each student’s name was related back to his or her own set of papers. The overall trend that emerged was that the evaluators gave the lowest ratings to those written by students in high school and the highest ratings to papers written in students’ junior and senior years of college. This proved to researchers that Hamilton students significantly improve their writing over their time here. Also noted was that many make the most drastic improvements during the first semester of freshman year.
Another trend that emerged from the research was that the relationships that students form early on in college are often the most influential throughout their college years and beyond. When asked if they would choose Hamilton if they could go back in time and decide again, the many alumni who answered yes were mostly those who had also been to a faculty member’s house at least once for a dinner or other occasion. Over 80 percent of students interviewed in the study stated that they had a close relationship with a faculty member who was not even their academic advisor. Both of these facts show that close relationships with faculty, often due to the small class sizes at Hamilton, strongly affect the way students look back on their college experience.
Emma Leeds ’12, a sociology major, was one of the students involved in the study. She interviewed students from the classes of 2005 and 2006 about the effects they thought their Hamilton education had after graduation.
“Many [alumni]… doubted the value of a liberal arts education while they were at Hamilton… [but] felt prepared for many jobs out in the ‘real world’” often more than their coworkers were,” said Leeds. “They felt like their writing, speaking and critical thinking skills were superior to those around them.”
Through research gathered from Chambliss’ project, many students were found to be more prepared for jobs after college because of the structure of their classes here at Hamilton. Since classes stress critical thinking and the development of the ability to see a problem from a variety of different perspectives, Hamilton alumni are able to clearly state their ideas orally and in writing at a higher level than people who attended equally or even more competitive colleges.
Though the research for this project was time-consuming and expensive to carry out, it fortified many of the claims that have been made about the quality of a Hamilton education. The emphasis on writing and critical thinking at Hamilton obviously benefits graduates life off the Hill, and the relationships founded here are built to last. As Leeds said, “friendships… and relationships that students build with their professors last. As stressed out as we let ourselves get, the friends who help us through that stress now will be there for us for years to come.”