Hi there,

Even though I’m a freshman, computer science is one of the things I am studying here at Bennington that I know I will continue with. I can honestly say that my intro computer science course last term was my favorite class.  I’ve asked around, and there are probably around five to ten people whose primary focus is computer science.  But because there are so few people concentrating in the subject area, you get tons of personal attention.  Wil Doane (the professor) is great, and extremely helpful with whatever project you may be working on.  And just because there are only a few students concentrating in computer science, doesn’t mean that nobody else takes computing classes.  Plus, I know a senior who already has job offers from previous programming FWT positions.

So the short answer to your first question is yes, it’s totally worth it to study computer science here.  I’m attaching a link to the spring curriculum so that you can get a glimpse of what the courses are like.  The computing courses are on page 70. http://www.bennington.edu/Libraries/docs_Academic/Curriculum_S12.sflb.ashx

As far as FWT goes, a great majority of internships are unpaid anyway.  What a lot of students do is use their supplemental hours to get a paid job doing something else (working in a supermarket, restaurant, etc) in order to fund their FWT. Bennington also offers FWT grants, so you can try funding part of your FWT that way as well.