City of amherst

paying3tuitions
Sun, 11 Feb 2007 02:13:57 +0000

Another thing I recall about Amherst entertainment: lots of students become fans of the different a-capella singing groups. There are at least 5 groups, and they introduce themselves with a concert at freshman orientation weekend. Don’t miss it; they are all awesome.
Then, what happens is: your friends (or you) get into all kinds of theater, orchestral music, dance, classic choir or a-cappella singing groups and you find yourself going to hear and see great presentations and support your friends’ efforts. It’s very exciting when you see the people you know doing all these things.
There are speakers on all kinds of academic, political, scientific, literary and social topics (see this year’s website for a sampling).
People go and see each other in sports.
Since Amherst College encourages EC’s as equally important to academic coursework, the students generate tons of cultural performances themselves.
They are top quality because the faculty supervises, even if behind-the-scenes; in other words, there are “department-sponsored” plays and concerts, so the quality of performances is very high. Some of them are the senior thesis projects of people majoring in these departments.
TIckets are free to students, and reasonable for townsfolks. I know a lady who moved to Amherst from Manhattan to retire, just to take it all in each evening and pay $7, not $70, to see a play or hear a concert.
If you want to take a hike, see if you can get onto the trail across the top of the East-West mountain range that runs just south of town (Holyoke Range?). It’s the only East-West oriented range in the East Coast. Really goofy if you’re used to the Appalachian Mountains or the Rockies!
WIldlife: Quabbin Reservoir
Small town architecture, maple syrup and all the good New England flavor is in every town around Amherst (as well as Amherst): Deerfield, So. Hadley, each l0 minutes away by car.
Something akin to Seattle or San Francisco in political environment is Northampton (where Smith College is). Drink a thousand cups of latte, a zillion LGBT posters, great bookstores. I believe they also have a restored historic theater there now that brings in national acts (Arlo Guthrie is the only one in my memory right now; google up Northampton and see).
Over on the Hampshire College campus is a wonderful new Museum of Children’s Literature with a permanent exhibit of Eric Carle’s work (Hungry Caterpillar). Also the National Yiddish Book Center, which has occasional cool programs like klezmer bands or plays/readings/speakers re: immigrant life in America.
Most evenings my son had about 3 evenings. He’d go to one event at 8 p.m., meet friends at a second event that started at l0; then eat out with them or go to their rooms and watch movies on each others’ computers.
He was always busy, engaged and happy – socially, culturally, artistically.
So that’s why I’m saying…the “partying” is only one way to create a social life at Amherst. Not the only way.