Matthew Tesch is used to a small campus, one much smaller than Brandeis. "I'm used to all my classes being in the same building," said Tesch, a senior at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Mass.

Tesch is one of several Olin students currently taking classes at Brandeis, part of the University's growing relationship with the small, five-year-old engineering school.

That relationship took a new step this semester when Allison Balberg '07 enrolled in a laboratory class at Olin. Balberg, a physics major, is the first Brandeis student to study there.

"I enjoy learning to think as an engineer," she said.

Olin College, founded in 2002, has 300 students enrolled primarily in engineering classes. Olin students do not pay tuition and live on the small Needham campus.

Although the school offers arts and humanities courses, students can also take them at Wellesley College, Babson College-with which Olin shares a dining hall and other facilities-and Brandeis.

Most Olin students do not take classes in Waltham because of a lack of transportation between the schools; about 10 Olin students take courses at Brandeis each semester, according to Rod Crafts, Olin's dean of student life.

Both Tesch and Balberg characterized the relationship between the universities as mutually beneficial.

Because Olin is a small college, new people on campus are quickly noticed and welcomed into the community, Balberg said. Tesch, who is enrolled in Brandeis' Jazz Ensemble, echoed a similar sentiment about his time in Waltham.

"The people [at Brandeis] are nice," he said. "Olin can get a little claustrophobic."

Tesch said taking a course at Brandeis is not very different from studying at Olin because the ensemble is a small class and relationships with the professor are informal.

Unlike Olin, Brandeis does provide Balberg's transportation-through the BranVan escort service-to and from Olin, something Balberg said she is grateful for.

"Having no car, I would not otherwise be able to take the course," she said.

The two universities' student governments have also begun to foster a relationship, starting with a recent dinner at The Stein.

"The way their student government works is very interesting," Student Union President Alison Schwartzbaum '08 said, noting that student government representatives at Olin are also liaisons to the nearby universities.

"They were a fun bunch of people," Schwartzbaum added. "On a personal level, I really enjoyed the dinner with them.