<p>Hampshire College
Academics:
Undergrads come to Hampshire College “seduced by the prospect of designing [their] own program of study.” The school offers students “a self-designed curriculum” facilitated by “close relationships with professors, small classes, and the great combination of communal living and individualism that a true Hampshire student embodies.” A “divisional system,” with a student’s academic career consisting of three divisions, imposes some sense of order. Division I “is first-year requirements and such,” while “Divisions II and III constitute the core of your time. That’s when you focus down upon the areas that interest you more than the rest of the school.” Undergrads explain that “in class, students learn as a group in discussions or hands-on activities (few lectures, no tests), while outside of class one focuses on independent projects (research, reading, writing, art-making).” The experience culminates in a ‘Division III,’ an all-consuming year-long senior thesis project “that allows students to become excited and completely invested” while “producing a unique product at the end of the year.” Students “receive evaluations instead of grades, which we feel is a much more productive system.” While Hampshire “is very small,” which might limit students’ choices, “it belongs to the Five Colleges consortium,” a group that includes the massive University of Massachusetts-Amherst. With the course offerings of 5 colleges available to them, Hampshire students can “take any course we could dream of.”</p>
<p>Student Body:
“Picture all the various groups of misfits in high school” and you’ll have a picture of the students at Hampshire, a place where “Nonconformity is so normal it’s almost conformist to be nonconformist. You can’t say ‘the kid with the dreadlocks’ because the person would reply with ‘Which one?’” Undergrads assure us that “Hampshire is really open to any type of student. There may be some discrimination against the preppiest of individuals, and they will have to endure the occasional ‘Shouldn’t you be going to Amherst?’ comment, but that is really as bad as it gets.” The common threads among students: “They are all interesting. They all have talents, stories, and are just plain interesting to be around. They are full of creativity and life and seem to really enjoy where they are.” They also tend to be “socially conscious, left-wing, and artistic. We are fond of do-it-yourself philosophies, from [magazines] to music and film production to designing ecologically sustainable communities.” One student warns, "this is not a good school for fundamentalist Christians.</p>
<p>Campus Life:
“Life at Hampshire seems extremely spontaneous,” so “while one minute we may be complaining of boredom, the next we may start doing something fun and exciting. We are normally very good at entertaining ourselves.” “Usually what people do is just hang out with a small group of friends,” and “there is partying on the weekends,” although “parties here consist generally of 50 people or less, never the roaring, dangerously wild parties that are often found at colleges.” Parties often take place in the “mods,” apartment-style housing favored by upperclassmen, where students “throw a lot of sweaty dance parties where hippies, scenesters, and geeks all grind up against each other.” Also, “live music is very common” on and around campus, “drum circles and random games of Frisbee are unavoidable,” and “going to the nearby towns of Amherst or Northampton isn’t bad.” Students can also choose from “tons of clubs, from Spinsters Unite! to the Red Scare Ultimate Frisbee Team, [or] Students for a Free Tibet to Excalibur, which is the sci-fi and fantasy club. You can even take yoga, karate, or tai chi classes. There are parties all the time for those who like that kind of thing, and movies, video games, clubs, and playing in the forest or on the farm for those who don’t.” There are also "five colleges in the area to hang out at. Enough said.</p>