There’s No Place Like Home: An ISC4 Review

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After years of watching the construction of the Integrated Science Center’s newest addition from afar, graduating senior and data science major Alisha Khodabocus ’26 takes a tour and gives her perspective of the new ISC4.

There’s a certain irony that comes with spending hours at a sink when the place you’ve been dreaming of is taking shape right outside. During the 2024-25 academic year, I worked as a chemistry department assistant, meaning my Friday mornings were routinely spent elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing away at glassware. It was mundane work, but what kept me going was that I could look up from that sink, through a hard-water-stained window, and see the construction of Integrated Science Center IV. Week after week, I watched the building grow from a metal skeleton, to brick and drywall, to the glassy, modern building I yearned to enter one day.

I realize that sounds a touch dramatic. It’s just a building, after all. For context, I’m a data science major — the kind who proudly dons an “I Love Data” sticker from Earl Gregg Swem Library’s Love Data Week, and who physically jumps for joy when her code runs without errors.

The announcement of ISC4, and the rapid growth of the data science program that followed, resulted in major excitement from many students, including myself. I had been eyeing ISC4 since its construction began February 2023, and in the meantime, excitement only grew. In July 2024, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia approved the School for Computing, Data Science and Physics — the College of William and Mary’s newest school in over 50 years — and was shortly followed by the board of visitors’ approval of the data science department that November. Although originally intended to open fall 2025, the ISC4 ultimately opened its doors January 2026, just in time for the spring semester. 

The first time I entered ISC4, however, was October 2025 — months before the building’s official opening. For Homecoming Weekend, the School of CDSP arranged “sneak peek” tours of ISC4, and I eagerly joined one. 

The moment I stepped inside, I was greeted by natural light spilling through tall windows into the atrium. Because the building was unfurnished at the time, the open space felt even larger. Pristine white tile and geometric wall decorations created a sleek, modern atmosphere, but accents of color and pine balanced it with warmth. I wandered empty hallways, and peered diligently into the classrooms and labs I knew I’d never enter again as a graduating senior. My favorite moment was on the staircase to the ground floor, when I gazed all the way up to the mezzanine of the third floor — the future data science department floor — and imagined what it might feel like once the space became officially open and lively with student chatter. 

By the time the First Day of Classes rolled around and I had the chance to enter a fully-functioning ISC4, one could only imagine the anticipation brewing within me. I stepped inside, and it felt almost magical, like an urban legend finally brought to life. ISC4 carried that sense of shininess that only exists in a building’s first few weeks. But as the initial novelty began to wear off, a strange feeling settled in. I found myself missing Boswell Hall.

I realized that, while ISC4 is a source of pride, it doesn’t feel as homey to me as the windowless labs of old ISC, the drafty hallways of Jones Hall, or (dare I say) the “brutalist” atmosphere of Boswell. There is an unspoken bond formed when you and your peers are huddled in a space that is slightly falling apart. The kind of camaraderie that doesn’t always happen in a building where everything looks perfect and works perfectly. Walking through the halls of ISC4 made me nostalgic for the less-than-perfect spaces that allowed me to call the College and the data science department my home over the past four years.

Take the new seating, for example: modern, with blue and green accents, but also thoughtfully designed, with soft cushioning and outlets tucked into the side tables. One of my favorite spots is the study nook off of the second-floor atrium, overlooking the sundial and greenery surrounding Swem.  A massive, funky yellow couch is positioned against the wall of windows, offering the perfect mix of openness and privacy. One Sunday morning in February, I brought my roommates to ISC4 to show them around, and they immediately gravitated towards it. We soon found ourselves smushed together on said couch watching the Winter Olympics, with our “oohs” and “aahs” filling the silence of the empty second floor.  

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But as cozy as that yellow couch is, it isn’t quite as memorable to me as my other study seating choices. I once spent an afternoon in an armchair in Read and Relax, engrossed in a machine learning assignment, only to realize I was seated on a pile of ants. I had to run outside and beat my bag against the brick building to shake the ants off. It was chaotic and objectively terrible. Yet  it’s the kind of “only at the College” memory that I find myself clinging to. ISC4 offers a lovely, ant-free place to study, and I certainly gravitate there over Swem on most days. But I never go long without returning to the dusty, well-loved corners of campus because they feel more like home. 

The same tension exists on the ground floor of ISC4, where the new Makerspace is set to open this spring. The massive 8,000-square-foot space will house large 3D printers and laser cutters, as well as multiple workstations for students to build and experiment. The space is open for all to see through walls of glass, allowing passersby to peek inside and feel inspired to innovate. 

I often pass the Makerspace on my way out of ISC4, and each time I’m reminded of the first time I used the old Makerspace in Swem two years ago. I had signed up to be trained on one of their elaborate sewing machines to embroider a sweatshirt as a holiday gift. Instead, the machine tangled and subsequently ate the embroidery thread, while the Makerspace employee was nearly in tears (from both laughter and frustration) trying to troubleshoot it. Eventually, the machine became inoperable, and we had to stop. When I think of the Makerspace, that silly afternoon makes me smile — the nervous laughter, the uncertainty of whether something will work, and the realization that it absolutely won’t. Does having a shiny, new Makerspace remove that part of the process? Not necessarily, but these shared human experiences may require more effort to create in a space where everything functions without flaw. 

ISC4 is also home to an array of new classrooms which, like much of the building, are defined by floor-to-ceiling glass. As a graduating senior, I haven’t taken a class there, but I do slow down whenever I pass a class in session — like programming fundamentals or applied math — and peer in at the students and the sleek interior. In doing so, I’m reminded of how different this is from where I first took those same classes, hidden away in Boswell or Jones rather than a glass fortress of a data science floor.

I think back to DATA 201, the first class I took with the department (before it was a department), held in ISC 1127. ISC 1127 is everything ISC4 is not: windowless, slightly dusty, constantly oscillating between freezing and sauna. Yet it was there that I fell in love with data science. My professor had a way of making things feel discoverable — every concept sparked a sense of “I can do this” and left me curious about what I could build if I tried. I was heartbroken when she left the College shortly after that semester.

Regardless, I often smiled in that dingy lecture hall, for DATA 201 and later classes that shaped me. It holds a warmth that, to me, ISC4 cannot replicate. My best learning happened in the imperfect spaces, not in the shiny new classrooms. So, I sometimes feel like I’m still looking in at ISC4 from outside the glass, from the window above the sink, waiting to break in. 

(I had originally intended to end this here — a bittersweet acknowledgment that, while the new building is impressive, it’s not quite home. I was content with that conclusion, until new data presented itself.) 

Remember how I said the professor of the beloved DATA 201 class left the College two years ago? She returned to campus for a Q&A and lunch with us this March. We learned about it only one day before, but when we arrived in the ISC4 classroom, it was packed full of seniors wearing our department t-shirts with pride. We forgot about the shiny building we were in — what mattered was sharing gratitude and excitement for the person who helped us survive the early years of the department.

Afterwards, a group of us migrated to the data science floor and did something the architects probably didn’t plan for: we squeezed around a table and played cards. For an hour, the sound of our laughter and teasing echoed off the walls. The pristine “new building” smell vanished, and it was replaced by the familiar, warm energy of ISC 1127 — where we’d all taken DATA 201 together years ago. 

In that moment, ISC4 felt like ours. We were leaving our mark for future students, making the space feel lived in. I’m graduating soon, and leaving the window above the chemistry sink behind, but for the first time, I feel at home inside the new ISC4.