Hampshire College Top Questions

The students are ok.

To preface: there are Hampsters from all over the globe. This is the beautiful bit about Hampshire College and the Five College Consortium: we're an international relations community where people commonly come to study politics, diplomacy, society, and the sciences. I live with my Malaysian hermano and a new girl from China; they've both been tutoring another modmate studying Mandarin (to little avail ;P). Our neighbors are from Taiwan, Nepal, Germany, and France. I'm from far Northern California; my mom is half Chicana. People are just people - we have our cultural differences, we acknowledge them, we work around them. I end up drinking sake rather than Mickeys - so it goes. We're chill with each other...except for that one time that I stepped into the sauna and a randomly naked Tibetan hombre was all disturbed, but I suppose that's just disjunctive cultural interpretation. It happens - like drinking with Germans, you regret it afterwards. The dining hall isn't the primary eatery at Hampshire - people's common troughs are kitchens in Mods, our food is what we can create for each other. My Malaysian bro cooks too many amazing dishes to start listing them here. Of course, this leads to contention among the entitled population whose parents shower them with money and who expect to be provided for (without reciprocation) by their modmates. Dear children from NYC and alike metropolises: the world doesn't work this way and taking advantage of people with a "Fuck you, Buddy" mindset gets you nowhere...except perhaps Wall Street, but the U.S. is just pathetic that way. Isn't it? This brings me back to the privilege question: it isn't a clean split, but I measure it 30/70. 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the kids are immensely wealthy and may be attending 'college' for the wrong reasons (i.e. mommy and daddy told me to, so I might as well attend the hippy/ster school). The majority of Hampshire students attend this college because we're sick of 'academic' nonsense and sophistical 'ideal types' of educational development. For the majority of Hampsters, our camp is a pedagogic statement denouncing the mythology of ivory towers. Concurrently, we attend classes at these ivory towers (through the consortium) where we're welcome to shit all over their structured fallacies. The Amherst students 'on the real' tend to love us, same with the professors; Smith administrators hate us and their students tend to be a bit on the slow-side socially. I don't mean this as an insult to feminisms - I truly believe that Smith students are brilliant, but emotionally underdeveloped. They tend to be very privileged people without much world experience, trapped in a bubble whereby any penis is a biopolitical enemy; Mount Holyoke students are historically the legit feminists and they're our closest/friendliest neighbors. UMass is too diverse to ever classify and an excellent resource - it's a zoo, and I hear that they're gonna start growing medical pot soon (a great opportunity for any aspiring nouveu-botanist. Yes, Hampshire students lean heavy to the left, but the former president of the collegiate young republicans of Massachusetts was a Hampshire Student. This school's philosophy is open to libertarian interpretations. Personally, I've stopped calling myself a democrat and come to identify as a preference utilitarian - if Ron Paul tones down his rhetoric concerning public education and recants his stance on abortion, I just might vote for him. Yes though - in that 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} I mentioned earlier, many kids are politically clueless and de facto 'liberal' (again, because their parents 'said so'). It's super frustrating talking political philosophy with these imbeciles, because the argument inevitably turns ad hominem (e.g. 'you're only rehearsing the patriarchy of dead white men'). Then you turn the argument to Hannah Arendt, comparative to Kant, and they still can't keep up; isn't it shameful when one claims this elitist revolutionary political philosophy without any understanding of the past three hundred years? Anyway, yeah: the school sways left, though there are multiple dimensions to the left. There are no nationalist proto-blood-and-iron, god-and-family Hegelian American exceptionalists at Hampshire; if there were, they'd at once have too many readings to contend with to maintain these positions. I came to Hampshire touting Ayn Rand (who I 'needed' at the time), then I found Mill and recognized how confused a Russian she really was. What do people wear? All sorts of everything - the more outlandish the better. Who would feel out of place at this school? People who came to 'college' as 'to attend college.' People seeking an ideal type of pedagogic development (i.e. 'a major' in 'a dorm' with 'a cohort') tend to fair poorly. Also, religious people from the Midwest may find a culture of 'Easter Keg Hunts,' 'Extravaganjas,' and 'Trip or Treats' offensive. Sorry, it's the community that our combined cultures create. Do students talk about how much they'll eventually earn per their degree? I had to laugh writing this. No. That's an Amherst culture, and they're sick of themselves with it. Life is vibrant and many of us may eventually make money. I'm currently writing my first book, entailing over a year of research - the only Amherst kid who has been able to say this over the past twenty years was Ted Conover. "I happen to believe ya make your own destiny. [...] You're gonna have to figure that out for yourself," -Momma, Forrest Gump. Hampshire prepares you to direct your own fate, and to never stop learning along the way - where adaptation is the catalyst to all life and prosperity, Hampsters carry around an ever evolving tool-kit, all our days. We're taught how to pack it at Hampshire...(I mean this in sooooo many ways xD).

Hampshire is very queer-friendly, even verging on heterophobic in some communities. There are people from all walks of life, but I must say that there are a lot of deceptively wealthy people. They dress like they're homeless, and then, one day, you discover they're a trust fund baby. It's the oddest phenomenon. There is not enough diversity, but "people of color" (as they are ALWAYS referred to at Hamp) are greatly valued in the community. I would say the most popular religious background is Jewish, although most Jews are non-practicing. The most heated debate on campus is Israel vs. Palestine. Many students are politically active, but I've found that issues that don't directly affect their lives tend to be overlooked. Certain causes become trendy to the point of being trivialized. While there are sincere activists, some students compete to be more oppressed-than-thou.

87{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} white. Very privileged overall. But there are lots of us who don't fit into those categories. The valley in general is pretty queer, and Hampshire's no exception. Lots of queer folks, lots of students who don't agree with gender binaries, and this is supported by our institution in certain ways (non gendered bathrooms etc.) but this isn't a place where battles over race and gender have come to some sort of utopian end. The hampshire bubble is a microcosm wherein the realities of power dynamics totally play out and thirve in everyday Hampshrie expereinces. But generally students are willing to fight for what they want be that local food in the dining commons, no coke products on campus, more faculty of color, or more eco-friendly buses.

Hampshire students run the gamut in so many ways. There was one kid who went around barefoot in shorts all winter even though there was snow on the ground. He was an exception, but plenty of people walk around without shoes. Piercings and dreads abound, but there are plenty of people who dress "normally." You can't tell looking at people which friend group they will be in. There is no obvious segregation along class, or pop culture affiliation lines. Most people have liberal political views, some more aggressively so than others. There are some militant vegans you have to watch out for, but most people are very live and let live. Racially, there has been some controversy recently. There are not many African Americans on campus, not because the school doesn't actively try to recruit, but because it cannot compete with other schools in terms of handing out merit and need-based scholarships. The queer community is totally accepted at Hampshire, to the extent that it's not really an issue. Which is not to say that there are not discussions about which pronoun people would prefer to be addressed with, but you'll never hear anyone on campus suggesting that there's anything wrong with any sexual choice consenting adults make. Hampshire does have a Spriritual Life Center, which is fitting since the majority of the student body is into spirituality rather than organized religion. There is a very close-knit Jewish community here, but even some of the Jewish kids would describe themselves as culturally, rather than devoutly, Jewish. No one talks about what they'll earn one day. People come to Hampshire to learn about what they are passionate about, not to add an attractive line to their resumes.

Most students at Hampshire come from the same socioeconomic background, upper class since the middle class is vanishing. There are definitely some students from working class families, but not many. This is not good because it fosters the same opinion from lots of people and not differing opinions from different backgrounds. There is not a lot of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic diversity at Hampshire. This is definitely lacking and makes me wish sometimes that I went to a public university where the conversations and social as well as academic experiences would be different. Also the people of color on Hampshire do not feel comfortable as much as they should, they have expressed it publicly many times. The administration should try to make them feel more comfortable, welcome, take them seriously.

Pretty accepting of "weird" kids, "normal" kids tend to be outcasted by a lot of people.some seem to think if you dont smoke pot you arent a real hampshire student. But I dont smoke and most of my friends dont. i like everybody.

Hampshire can be cliquey, and students tend to keep to themselves. There are safe spaces on campus for students of color, and LGBTQ students. It is possible to put students into three groups, hippies, hipsters and geeks, and then there are hybrids of both. The homogenous aspect bothers some people. Most students are from the east coast, but there are plenty of international and west coast students, they just don't make up the majority.

alternative. kind. unique. politically ignorant

85{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} white, 20{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} Jewish, mostly wealthy or upper-middle class, lots of prep/boarding/Waldorf/magnet school kids who took things like AP philosophy and art history but don't know how to wash their own dishes. Lots of vegans/vegetarians. Hipsters, hippies and geeks are everywhere. We're way below the national averages for all students of color. There's pretty good queer visibility for white women + transmen. Pretty bad ignorance about issues of racism and classism among students who are white and class privileged (the majority.) Decent feminist and queer activism/awareness/allyship and strong concentrated group of white anti-racist allies. People will say that they're far-left but tell you you're hurting the cause for calling them out on their own prejudices. Activists have earned a reuptation for being elitist, even between varying groups, but that seems to be getting better....(?) There are multiple shit-storm controversies every year. One thing it's safe to say is that even people who claim to hate Hampshire really have a stake in the school and will duke it out over important issues.