[1] She taught at Wellesley College and the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture before going on to become Dean of Women Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[2][3] She spent World War I as a conservation instructor and director of agricultural courses at the recently founded Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture in Massachusetts.

However, when increasing traffic along Massachusetts Avenune shifted the campus's de facto entrance, the great-court design was replaced with streetside plantings of privet, oak and maple trees, and other plantings that would create a transition from the busy streets surrounding the campus to a quieter oasis within.

[2][7] MIT had only moved to its current location in 1916, and Babcock went on to become involved in the landscape design of the entire campus.

[2] Babcock served as a technical adviser on the landscape program at Bates College in Maine and designed several areas of the campus.