Hampshire College Top Questions

There are a lot of rich white kids at this school. There are a lot of LGBT people at this school. But, there are still a lot of middle class students and a lot of straight ones too. But everyone seems to be either a liberal democrat or a socialist or an anarchist. I don' think that anyone that would want to come to Hampshire would feel out of place. There a are a lot of different crowds and I feel that they interact. It is easy to get a core group of friends and not reach outside of them but everyone will be nice to everyone. there is no tension between groups. Except the "sub-free" kids and everyone else. That's just a choice of what you do with your time outside of class, where and with who you spend your free time.

If you are a religious student, get ready to meet people who feel that they are above "all that religious crap". Seriously. At times, as a religious student myself, its frustrating, having to deal with people who don't hesitate to say that believing in God is just so stupid, and only an idiot would do so. But don't let this sway you, most people will shut up if you tell them to do so. In terms of racial incidents, once again, you will meet people who call all Latino people "Mexicans" and think that all black people are bad people, or in the case of public safety at Hampshire, that you are from Holyoke Community College, coming to ruin the college. And again, get ready to meet people with lots and lots of $$. Now, people wear whatever at Hampshire, but generally, you get the hipster feel. oh, and this is def a left, very liberal school.

A lot of people would say that Hampshire's student body could be boiled down to three classifications: the hippies, the hipsters, and the geeks. The hippies are predominantly vegan, fight unendingly for various activist causes, fix the yellow bikes on campus and take OPRA (Outdoor Programs & Recreational Athletics) classes. The hipsters smoke, play in bands called things like "Rektal Mucus", do large scale incomprehensible yet impressive art projects, and dye their hair every color under the sun. The geeks watch science fiction movies every Saturday night, have a bi-annual role playing tournament, fight with foam weapons on the library lawn, and play video games in the ASH lab. I realize, of course, that these are all stereotypes, and certainly not everyone Hampshire fits into one of these three categories (and students would probably be angry that I tried to fit them into categories at all). But I will say this: Hampshire is a college made up entirely of those strange kids you knew in high school. Wonder where they went? They all go to college together, right here.

Hampshire is a predominately Caucasian campus, but it is open to all people. There are a lot of students of color, but there are more white students. I know people of all religions (although there seem to be a lot of Jewish folks), ethnicities & races, genders (male, female, gender queer, undecided etc), races, economic backgrounds, sexualities (it seems like at least half the campus is bisexual or pansexual, but there is a large queer AND straight crowd) etc. I think the only kind of person that would feel out of place here was someone filled with hate. There are some conservative people who attend and even if they don't agree with any economic and social thoughts of anyone else, most people here just want to make friends. You see people come into class wearing very, very little to, barefoot folks, dressy people, people all in black, people dressed casually in jeans and folks with mohawks. It really varies. A lot of Hampshire students are from Massachusetts and New York. I think that's where I see most people coming from. But we also have a lot of international students and people from other states as well. People are very politically aware. I watch the news regularly with me house mates and we like to keep on top of the political debates (especially for this up and coming presidential election). They like to being active in activism and make a difference both on campus and off campus.

Ugly, ugly people (honesty points?). To be fair, it's more that (for some absurd reason) Hampshire kids don't feel like they have to be presentable. Which is great, yay for what's on the inside. But it seems really disconnected from the real world. On the other hand, there are tons of attractive people at the other four colleges (cough, UMass). But in all seriousness, Hampshire kids are wicked smart.

i pretty much hate most of them. people glare at you if you try to dress up and look nice, i think it's because they're still angry at the popular people in high school who were mean to them and want to maintain their image of hampshire as its own private haven for those poor, hurt, misunderstood, "intellectual", trust-fund babies. people don't smile enough here. people aren't kind enough here. they're too busy with their fucking work, not to mention talking talking talking about shit that doesn't matter in the real world anyway. i know i sound bitter, but a lot of people here really do suck, and they're hard to put up with...finding cool people to hang out with is pretty hard when you're just sort of a "normal" person with no particular agenda...like i said i'm just here for the film program.

There are three different types of Hampshire students: hippies, hipsters, and geeks. Most people are a combination of those three types of people. The hippies are the activists, people who work on the farm, people who don't wear shoes, people with dreadlocks, people who eat lots of organic food. The hipsters are the "cool" people. They dress like they are poor, they are very confined to their social groups, and know more obscure things about whatever you like. The geeks like role-playing games, video games, comic books, and anything else that could be considered "geeky".

I think Hampshire students like to think that they're politically aware, and that we're a very socially just and active community, but I don't think we are as much as we'd like to believe. Many students are and there are many student groups on campus to address issues, but overall, I think most students don't take an active interest in the outside world, due to lack of time, mostly. It is a very leftist and liberal school.

The student body could maybe be described as 1/3 who care about thing like anti-racism and politics in a progressive or radical way, 1/3 who are frighteningly conservative, and 1/3 who don't care and are absent from the discussion. Students are friendly though.

Any student who cannot motivate him or herself will bomb at Hampshire. There are interwoven social clusters of every persuasion from LGBTQ to chefs to geeks to frisbie players. There are some cliques, but mostly people find groups of friends and these groups interact freely with other ones. Students are painfully aware of everything left, and painfully ign'ant of anything right. Nobody talks about future earnings, everybody talks about current and future projects.

Very white student body. Quite a number of wealthy kids, but they are balanced off by the numerous receivers of financial aid. It makes an odd combination some times. People are friendly but there are also a great deal of introverts at hampshire. The sense of community is a little iffy. They only really pull together when some one throws a campaign about some issue or another. Hot topics are race and sex. Students are almost entirely liberals a couple of anarchists sprinkled in, and supposedly a few republicans. There are students who are politically active but mostly students like to talk about the hot topics mentioned above without an understanding of the big picture, and sometimes without an understanding of the small picture either. This being said Hampshire is proportionatly political when compared with other colleges that I have visited.

I'm not really into groups, but Hampshire has a lot of them. There's something for everyone here. Students are very socially and politically active. Students talk about everything at Hampshire, sometimes at parties you'll hear two or more students talk about a very intellectual topic or about their studies. And yes, we talk about our future, a lot.

Most people at Hampshire are hippies or hipsters, so there are a lot of dreadlocks and green hair. But if someone looks traditional in whatever way, they aren't judged or excluded or anything like that. People are pretty laid back about appearances. There's a serious lack of racial diversity, because Hampshire doesn't have a ton of money to recruit minorities; but there's a huge LGBT community. Almost everyone assumes that they'll live in a cardboard box someday.

I am queer and am part of the QCA, and this is good, but not great. There could be a lot more LBGTQ events, but I think Hampshire is very good compared to most schools. I am also at the very low end of the class spectrum here, most kids have parents who can fly them to exotic countries for vacations and send them money to buy hard drugs, but being a fairly lower class student, I do not even feel left out or picked on for it, just sometimes out of place.

Hampshire students like to hide and/or ignore their privilege. With a lot of students, this means they pretend like they don't come from money and comfort. With a lot of students, this means they think racism or sexism don't exist at Hampshire. There are a lot of students, however, who try to hold themselves accountable and the institution accountable and try to initiate dialog and create a culture of accountability.