Accionará

I know this might sound silly, but is there much at Amherst?

TianXia

Amherst is desperately trying to diversify. All the time. You won't be disappointed, I think.

shellzie2006

But more "diversity" doesn't guarantee better racial interaction. I believe that latter is far more important.

tkm256

Maybe I'm naiive, but for me racial interaction just means you go up to someone from somewhere else, say "Hey, how's it hangin'?" and start up a relationship. Amherst's a small school--people will interact regardless of race (unless MA is so vastly disparate from SoCal that people aren't used to saying 'hey' to people different from them, which will be weird to me).

shellzie2006

Well, I currently go to a small (<100 per grade) private school with approx. 25% "students of color". For my area (Mpls/St.Paul metro area) this is actually overrepresentative of the non-white population. However, so many people complain about how "homogenous" the population is (well, it's Minnesota, after all- there's a lot of Norwegians up here!). These complaints are encouraged by the administration in some sort of weird effort to encourage "diversity" but they really serve to divide the community. While most students don't pay any attention to race, there is a small group that hang out only with students of the same color- not because of any overt racism, but at least in part because it is constantly emphasized how important race is (essentially equating it with culture) by the administration (which is trying to be accepting or something)- which is all BS, since we don't really have multiple cultures at our school, we have multiples races (predominantly upper middle class from the suburbs, etc.). In any case, schools that may seem to be very "diverse" based on statistics, may not be as integrated as one might think. Anyway...I'll end my rant here- I just thought I'd make the distinction.

tansytroll

Although there are people of one racial or ethnic group that hang out together a lot, it is never exclusive. I have friends here that are of all races and cultures. Granted, I'm not with them 100% of the time or anything, but I think that racial and ethnic interaction is really good. Students tend to be more divided by interests rather than anything else. For instance, a lot of athletes and friends will tend to eat together or the "Northies" (freshman sub-free) have their own area of the dining hall that they sit in. This certainly isn't representative of the whole school, but i'd say interests are more divisive than race or ethnicity.

ajh33

it seemed like there was a decent amount of interaction when i used to visit my bro there. the only place that seems divided is valentine...with the athletes sitting in one place and everyone else sitting in other places and w/e

ahobbitinside

A lot of the athletes will eat together, that is true, and the reason they all eat in about the same place is probably because that is where all the long tables which can accomodate a large group of people (such as a team) are, instead of because it's "the place for athletes."

I agree that people are divided more by interest than race, though I do see some racial self-segregation. I feel like that will happen to an extent anywhere though.