Hampshire College Top Questions

So basically Hampshire was designed to give students more freedom concerning their area of study, and to allow them to work (kind of) at their own pace. At first I guess there was a lot more wiggle room, but Hampshire is expanding at a pretty good rate. By good I mean fast. Most of the classes are discussion based so it's important that the class sizes remain small. Last year people had to stay at hotels. The campus needs a lot more funding... some of the mods (on campus houses) are being renovated each year, but others havent been touched since the 70s and are pretty much falling apart. Lots of school pride... and people lovvve Amherst. It's a pretty cute town, and Northampton is right next to it.

Why I decided to go to Hampshire: I was visiting people I new at all of the schools that I was interested in. Everywhere I visited, people seemed totally unenthused about their areas of study. People were good students, but it did not occur to them to talk about a really good class or a new idea from a book with friends. Hampshire was the only place where I found people genuinely excited about their courses of study as well as interested in hearing about other peoples' intrests. People at Hampshire really are passionate about what they do, and aren't afraid to let that show.

While I dont regret my choice to come to Hampshire, I have found several negetives to balance the core positive trait: large degrees of acedemic freedom. 1) Red Tape. There is an unbelievably convoluted system to everything at hampshire. Even professors who have been here for 20+ years dont know all the seemingly illogical twists and turns. 2)Division I. Hampshires answer to traditional college structure. Take 5 courses, at least 3 of which you won't need, want, or put any effort in to. I, a Genetics major, had to take Creative Writing and a Welding course. A waste of my and many students time and money. 3)Odd requirements. Others schools require calculus. Hampshire requires "Multicultural Perspectives" and 30 hours volunteer work. Only students majoring in these feilds find these worthwhile (and will riot, complain, and shut down buildings to maintain these). Most students pay only the thinest of lip service.

The school is too small. You see everybody all the time. It is nice in a sense because you feel known and everywhere you go you see someone you know and can talk to. It also sucks because no matter where you go there is someone you would rather avoid. You are never alone unless you go deep into the woods which fortunetly is not that hard to do. Good luck studying in the library....it is more a social junction than an academic stronghold. The best thing about Hampshire is that gone about the right way, you can do almost literally whatever you want to do academically and socially. If I could, I would change the academic system to be more rigorous. I would insitute not grades, but reading quizzes and some sort of system to chart knowledge gained in students. No one does the readings and for discussion based classes there are always only two or three kids with anything to say and half of these kids didn't do the readings either and are just talking out of their butts about something their brothers ex-girlfriends brother told them once. My friends think my school is a joke. I spend most of my time on campus hanging out with my friends that haven't dropped out yet and sleeping. I find most of the happenings on campus to be too radical and change oriented for me. When I am not sleeping and doing non-school related readings and research I am getting drunk and watching tv on the internet. I hate the town of amherst. The last thing that I find appealing is being surrounded by 50,000 of my peers. I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet a ton of people and make great friends but no, umass kids are assholes, amherst college students are pretentious, smith is full of militant lesbians and mt. holyoke full of those girls who wished that they were cheerleaders in high school. Awesome. Sure those are stereotypes but honestly, I am not generalizing far from the truth. The pioneer valley is abosolutely breathtakingly gorgeous. Everyday I am surpriesed that I still remark everyday about how beautiful the mountains and the fields are. Hampshire's admistration will ignore you until you become so annoying that they must pay attention to you or until you find a professor to harrass them for you. If you have any sort of financial hold on your account I wish you the best of luck registering for class and functioning within the community. Hampshire has surprise kicked out my same friend twice. Every year she has a financial hold and every year she gets an email tellling her to pack her things and be off campus within two days. The biggest recent controversy is over nooses hung around campus. Students made a list of demands and asked Hampshire to follow the demands and to become actively anti-racist. The administration side stepped fufilling the list by providing distracting, ineffective students of color only housing. The students think that the administration doesn't care and won't listen and the administration thinks that the students are being extreme and irrational. I will always remember when my friend got caugt growing several marijuana plants in her room and got off. She wasn't placed on housing probation and her parents didn't even get a letter home. If I can say one thing about Hampshire, their greatest strength and weakness lies in how laid back they are.

I think the best thing about Hampshire is the freedom that it allows undergraduates. There are close to no requirements, at all, nothing. After my Division One everything that I do is dictated by a contract that I make with a committee of faculty members that I choose. In my second year I will be spending most of the year in New Orleans researching and writing about Katrina's affect on the public school system. That's just awesome. Most people have not heard about Hampshire College. They don't get it when you say that you don't have a major, so just pretend that you do. It is really really rural. We have a farm on campus and all of our neighbors are either farms or woods. But what is nice about being in the middle of nowhere is that we have a bunch of woods that are ours but we don't do anything with, so you can just go and have bonfires and do whatever you want in the woods without worrying about being on someone's property. The biggest recent controversy was about race discrimination at Hampshire. Yes, it is a very aware campus, but racism comes in all shapes and sizes and close to nothing goes unspoken at Hampshire.

First off, sometimes you do feel as though you go to the school that all the slackers go to. But once again, this all depends on just who you run into. I met amazing people at Hampshire, and am really happy about my choice of school. However, as a student of color, sometimes it does get a bit over whelming with the school being currently 87{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} white, and there are many stereotypes that people will hold about you, but this can be said about any college. About the class sizes, they are just right, for me though. They generally are about 15-20 people, some classes are even smaller. However, this means that it is very discussion based, and you NEED to speak up and have the professor notice you if you wish to have a good evaluation. If you choose this school, just get ready to meet RICH people, and people who say that they poor, but just don't really know what that term truly means.

When you tell people you go to Hampshire, you get one of three response: 1) "Hamster?" 2) "That's that hippie school with no grades or tests, right?" or 3) "Hampshire is that really innovated self structured school". With a new President, Hampshire has been moving away from its hippie roots and moving more mainstream making it more accessible for general America to accept Hampshire's unorthodox academics. And Hampshire's reputation continues to grow in a positive way. Being young, established in the 1970s by the 4 other colleges in the area (Amherst, UMass, Holyoke, and Smith), Hampshire had some great infant years, got past the terrible toddler years, and is growing up into a respectable college with an innovated academic structure. Even though it is a small school with a student body of around 1400 (and rising each year with its growing popularity), Hampshire is located in Amherst, a true and lively college town, with over 30,000 college students in the area due mostly to UMass's large student body. Plus, the city-like Northampton is just around the corner thanks to the free bus systems that connects all the schools and top hot spots. There is plenty to do, plenty to eat, and plenty of people to meet.

My favorite thing about Hampshire is the lack of tests and grades and the freedom of educational choices. I am a terrible test taker. I just don't do well and I freeze up, thus having classes that are evaluated instead of tested and then stamped with a letter grade works really well for me. Evals can tell you and the real world full of careers just where weak or really strong points are unlike one single B or D etc. I get really frustrated with some of the requirements and the lack of communication here however. One of Hampshire's biggest selling points is the "create your own major" idea. THAT part is completely true. You can basically do whatever you want, but what they don't tell you is that you have to take a LOT of classes that can frequently feel like a waste of time. There's a lot of red-tape and bureaucracy at this school that can be easy to work with as long as you ask a LOT of questions. Even if you don't know what to ask, just talk to your adviser or the people in Central Records about requirements and what needs to be done when. With this self-motivating school comes a lot of responsibility. I really enjoy the size of the school. There are approx. 1,300 students which for me is perfect. I came from a 500 student high school so this is great. Amherst and North Hampton are nice towns, but there isn't always a lot to do... You kind of have to do some searching and find out what you enjoy in the area. There's a mall and some plazas, some parks, out door mini-golf and driving range (but that's seasonal) and North Hampton has a nice feel with a lot of fun, trendy stores. There's also different stuff in the surrounding areas (the Holyoke Mall, for example, is massive).

Hampshire is a giant farm that happens to be close to the two most amazing towns in Western Mass - Northampton and Amherst. It's fantastically small in that you know everyone. Bad in that you see everyone. It seems to me like everyone makes a big deal out of nothing, primarily because there's very little to worry about (e.g. Div I, race). There also seems to be this ridiculous feeling that "radical" and "open-minded" are synonyms. That said, Hampshire is an awesome school with a LOT to offer.

student body is a real disappointment and TOO SMALL, after a few years (or months, for that matter) people start hooking up with the same people as their friends (which can cause a lot of drama) cattiness is a problem, rumors are a problem even though most people would never admit that because they think that sort of talk is below them when IT'S JUST AS BAD AS ANYWHERE ELSE...campus can be isolating, saga (the cafeteria) is okay but the food is often boring, campus housing is okay but could be better, there are NOOO frats, sororities, or sports teams (the frisbee team doesn't count...get serious). it's easy to get really fucking bored here, basically. if you are the type of person who needs to stay busy to feel sane, consider somewhere else....or get a job of campus, hang out at the other schools, etc.