About Us

Williams-Mystic at a glance

Every fall and spring at Williams-Mystic, a cohort of college students study the literature, history, policy and science of the world's oceans and coasts. Our courses are experiential and emphasize original research: it’s not unusual for classes to be held at the beach, on a boat or deep in Mystic Seaport Museum's collections center.

Based in the coastal village of Mystic, Connecticut, students live cooperatively in houses on the riverside grounds of the nation’s largest maritime museum. While taking hands-on maritime skills classes with practicing artisans, students forge iron, learn to navigate, make sails, skipper a sailboat or carve wood.

Throughout the semester, students travel alongside faculty and staff to experience some of America's most dynamic coastal zones, building relationships with community members and each other at each stop. These extended field seminars inform classroom discussions and research projects. Each is profoundly interdisciplinary and involves various on-site experiences that expand our students' worldviews: for example, students witness the effects of sea-level rise firsthand while paddling through vanishing marshes in southern Louisiana.

These experiences create leaders prepared for today's most pressing global issues. Take a step back and look at the big picture: experience new perspectives, horizons and possibilities in a life-changing semester.