Imaginative. Inspirational. Demanding.

“Bugs!” It’s a common response around the halls of Slocum if you ask what AS course people are excited about this year. Although the class has not yet happened—it is a spring semester offering taught by Science Instructor Devin O’Brien—AS Entomology is one of many examples of advanced coursework, reimagined and inspired by the passions of our faculty and embraced by students. That journey of experimentation and innovation results in a catalog of about 20 AS classes each year.

During a recent professional development panel discussion with young alumnae, faculty heard resoundingly that the alums felt better prepared for college than their peers who attended other schools. “That’s a reason for us to feel proud,” says Director of Curriculum Innovation Caroline Boyajian. “Our students know how to tackle big challenges without a ton of structure. Advanced Studies helps them do that.”

The keys to success for AS classes include planning and preparation time for faculty and additional instructional time for students, regained by shifting focus away from test preparation. “We have done something so powerful for our curriculum and for our students, in part because AS gives us back the thing that is the most precious to us: time,” Caroline shares.

Given that gift of time, our faculty members thrive. English Instructor Erin Bennett and Mathematics Instructor and Department Chair Chiara Shah are among the many teachers who have invested that gift in creating AS courses perfectly suited to their academic interests and those of their students.

 

It’s math. It’s art. It’s language.

Computer science is profoundly creative and designed to solve big problems—just like Emma Willard students.

Chiara Shah’s AS Computer Science Explorations (CSE) is a survey course that provides students with the history, vocabulary, protocols, and language needed to begin creating for themselves. It answers the questions: How do the most advanced technologies humans have ever created actually work? And what can I do with that knowledge? 

Advanced students in Chiara’s class learn:

• How information is stored digitally. 
• How to count in binary. 
• How hexadecimal works to create color.
• Codes and ciphers and encryption. 
• How data is secured. 
• How the internet works. 
• Processing, a dialect of the Java language. 
• How computers learn.

One of Chiara’s goals is to produce students who are not afraid of technology, even if they don’t plan to pursue it as a career. “They’ll know how to talk about coding. They’ll know how to talk about issues and concerns. They’ll understand the ethical implications of technologies such as artificial intelligence, cryptography, and cybersecurity. I ask them some tough questions—they’re not just memorizing. I require them to always support their answers, justify, and explain. There is a significant amount of writing, which is a surprise to some.”

In the history unit, students learn about the first computer—dating back over 30,000 years to a notched bone used for mathematical computing—and explore how technology has evolved over millennia. 

Students brainstorm problems in the world today and imagine a solution that might exist 100 years in the future. “Many of our students have been touched by loved ones with medical issues, so they envision solutions for problems in medicine. Environmental problems are another big theme,” Chiara reflects. “I get wonderful, creative answers.”

 

The artificial intelligence (AI) unit, which has expanded from a single week of the course to several, is devoted to discovering how machines learn. Chiara developed the unit during her Curriculum Innovation Project (CIP), which gave her time throughout the school year to refresh her skills in the ever-changing world of computer technology. The field of AI grows each year, and the AS structure provides Chiara the freedom to expand her curriculum along with it, diving deeper into the topic rather than just scratching the surface.

This freedom to expand also applies to how Chiara assesses students’ progress. “In the real world, you don’t have tests and quizzes,” she explains. “You’re working on a project, iterating and improving it, going through drafts and revising. Projects lend themselves well to students working collaboratively, solving problems, and creating artifacts they care about. It’s more authentic for the students.”

The beauty of AS is that it also gives students the time and latitude to explore how they might apply what they’re learning to their own interests. “Personally, I like computer science, but I’m not really invested in coding,” says Catherine C. ’26, who was in last year’s AS CSE class. “I really like computer science as a language. I’m interested in how it applies to data science and analysis, which is how I think I will continue to use it in the future.”

This year, Catherine is taking the AS Java course, which is the next stepping stone in building our students’ CS knowledge. “The class I’m taking right now is more challenging than the exploration class, but we use the things that we learned in exploration—I needed to know those concepts in order to be successful in the Java class.”

“The version of Java we learn in AS CSE is used by artists and animators,” Chiara explains, showing how students have translated works of art into their own interpretations, born out of completely original, computer-generated code. “We’re using parabolic equations to figure out how something’s going to move across the screen, and it’s very visual. It makes the code come to life. My favorite part of the course is seeing the things students can create with code.”

The artistry of code is one thing that attracted Annie P. ’27. “I had some experience with Python and HTML and a little bit of JavaScript,” Annie shares. “I really like video games, and I thought AS CSE would be a good way to explore computer science and see if it’s a good path for me. In the end, I decided that it was fun, but I found my passion elsewhere: in art.” This journey of discovering one’s path in the world is central to the Emma Willard experience.

“I want this to be an alternative type of math course to get students thinking critically,” Chiara says. “I really want them to spend time with each project and assignment to do some deeper reasoning. Everything in computer science was designed to solve problems in the world, and in order to solve problems, you need to be thinking outside the box and making decisions that no one else has ever thought of.”

 

It’s literature. It’s history. It’s perspective.

Not only was the AS Postcolonial Perspectives class designed to be like college-level courses; it actually is one. 

Erin Bennett examined postcolonial literature and theory in grad school, and it’s one of her favorite things to study and teach. “One of the issues with postcolonial theory is the inaccessible way some of the writers write. Unless you’ve been to grad school and learned structuralism, poststructuralism, and all the terms and their history, you’re not going to know what they’re saying.” She looks forward to her students being able to walk into their first college-level English class, already having that understanding.

So how do you define postcolonialism? “That’s a great question,” Erin laughs. “That’s something we grapple with throughout the whole year.” The class reads theorist Ania Loomba’s text Colonialism/Postcolonialism, in which she writes about the problems with defining an ongoing situation in finite terms. “Loomba challenges us to think of postcolonialism more spatially and to resist a definition because it looks so different everywhere. We study many different definitions and think about what makes sense and where the pitfalls lie. Generally, we are reading authors who are writing after their home countries have been colonized and often gone through a decolonization process.”

 

In developing the course content, Erin studied the syllabi of university intro to postcolonial studies classes with the Emma student population in mind. “I wanted to represent different parts of the world, different time periods, and have a balance between theory, literature, history, and self-reflection.”

Zahari F. ’26 was one of only two juniors in the class, so she was nervous at first. “I had read some books that take place in postcolonial countries, but I had never really had a chance to discuss what it means to be in a postcolonial country. I didn’t really understand the texts beyond the surface level,” she explains.

Zahari found herself making connections between the literature she was reading and her language and history classes. She made connections at home, talking through what she was learning with her mother, a native of The Gambia. “This class even gave me a better understanding of my grandfather’s role in a postcolonial country—he worked for the United Nations and the Gambian government,” she says. “I think it was the most interesting class I’ve taken during my time at Emma!”

Others in Zahari’s class, now alumnae, are still discovering connections based on what they learned in AS Postco. “I can see colonialism everywhere,” Coco Yang ’25 explains. “What I learned in AS Postco challenged me to think more critically about things I encounter.” 

Zola Kehler ’25 couldn’t agree more. “I find the postcolonial viewpoint is like contact lenses—you don’t take them off. Once the façade is shattered, you really see the effects of colonialism everywhere.” Now in a gap year, Zola is “wwoofing” in Italy—working on a farm through the Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) organization before she begins college at Reed in the fall. “Spending my time on farms, I find people have a connection to the land. Indigeneity is something that most farmers don’t have in the US, and I think that connection to the land can lead to better stewardship.”

Now a freshman at Northwestern, Coco is still reaping the benefits of her experience in AS Postco. “I’m taking a class now that’s strangely related—it’s about translation theory—and I feel like postco definitely helped me, because we talk both about theory and literature at the same time. There are many ways colonialism and postcolonialism come up in translation theory. Because I took the Postco class at Emma, I find that I have more things to say in class now.”

The preparation that Postco gave Coco goes beyond recognizing its themes in the world around her. Coco notes that the class prepared her for how her college classes would be structured. “There is much more reading, which we go through very quickly; we apply theoretical frameworks; we do a lot of writing that analyzes the reading; in discussions, we relate what we see to other parts of our lives.” Coco’s preparation in AS Postco has her up for the challenge!

 

It’s authentic. It’s enduring. It’s creative.

What makes AS at Emma Willard unique? It’s created by our teachers with our students in mind. Rather than prepare students to take a test, it prepares students to apply learning to meaningful pursuits beyond the classroom.

“The priority is authentic learning,” says Dean of Academics Dr. Esther Dettmar. “We’re preparing students for college in all of our classes, but AS goes beyond college preparation, actually allowing students to experience what it will be like when they pursue a particular discipline.”  
 

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This article was originally written for the Fall 2025/Winter 2026 edition of Signature magazine.
 

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Interested in learning more about classes you might find at Emma Willard? Visit our Advanced Studies and Academics pages, or contact Admissions today!