Amherst Other Natural Science And Mathematics Major

They are rich and preppy, and they are not intellectually motivated.

Many of them are rich and preppy; many of them are not. There is no sense of exclusion from groups, however, based on one's background. The people who claim Amherst students aren't intellectually interesting are the ones who are not interesting. My friends come from every part of campus life (jocks, nerds, artists, intellectuals, etc), and nobody has ever turned away from a debate because they're uninterested. I find that most students are highly intelligent and will readily engage you in discussion on any number of topics. Those who say otherwise have simply cornered themselves in a minority niche of uninteresting people, and have made no effort to make other friends in the college community.

Amherst is small and caters very carefully to its students. You can almost literally do anything here. Professors are here to teach and for their students, so there is as much one-on-one time with them as you need; the region is great because of the five colleges and tens of thousands of students--many bands come through, there are hundreds of good restaurants, and plenty of socialization between schools; there is also a huge class selection because of the proximity of the other four schools.

The administration goes out of its way to deal personally with students. The college president is always at athletic events, responds quickly to emails from anyone about anything, and has greatly improved relations with the town and with students.

Amherst has a lot of money, and makes it abundantly available to students. You can invite speakers to campus, put on a show, buy t-shirts to attract students to fundraisers, or get research grants. The school is very generous to its students; the student just needs to learn how to go about getting the money, and then the sky's the limit. (This said, it is not frivolous with the money; there is close oversight, and money is given mostly to projects that will benefit the entire student body.)

My biggest criticism of the school is the lack of school pride. Attendance at athletic events is generally low, except for a few big ones (Homecoming, matches with Williams, basketball games). There could be more school pride in this regard.

Most professors know most students' names and there is plenty of class participation. This kind of reflects the sort of classes you choose, though. Big intro classes will have 100 students and will naturally have less discussion, but few classes are that large.

One example of the good school-student-professor relationship is TYPO. This is a program in which the school will pay for students to take their professors out to dinner at a local restaurant. It is a lot of fun and many students make use of it.

I am an English and geology major. The geology department is excellent. Professors all go by a first-name basis, and the group is very tight-knit. Classes are challenging and fun; there are many field trips to the surrounding areas, as well as winter and summer trips to locations at which professors have on-going projects (Greece, Hawaii, Iceland).

Amherst does not give credit for "vocational" classes, which is sometimes a hassle. I couldn't take a journalism class at Mt. Holyoke, so I had to audit it. Otherwise, the academic requirements are great. There is no "core" curriculum, which allows great latitude of class choice. Some choose not to take advantage of this, taking only science or humanities classes their entire time at Amherst. This is a wasted opportunity. Most students take classes in every kind of field.

Amherst is not a place where many people go out of their way to stand out (physically) in a crowd. Few students dress in overtly attention-grabbing clothes (for example, there are no black-and-chains gothic students, no hardcore punk rockers, etc). There are two or three consistently cross-dressing men, but I think this is mostly for the attention and avant-guardness.

Students are mostly liberal, but politics and assertiveness vary. However, as I said, no student will ever back down from a political debate, even if they are not outspoken about their views.

Students are of all different backgrounds, financially, ethnically, regionally, etc. Amherst currently boasts better "diversity" statistics than any other liberal arts college (greater percentages of minorities, foreign students and low-income students).

Student publications thrive at Amherst. They are entirely student-produced and -run. There are political, scientific, art, literary and miscellaneous publications, each of which publishes from 2 to 10 times per semester.

All the normal varsity sports, plus popular crew, frisbee and rugby teams.

Most students leave their doors unlocked. It tends to depend where they come from more than where they live on campus (students from New York City lock their doors; students from Maine leave their doors wide open).

There are no official frats/sororities at Amherst, but there are several off-campus ones. On weekends the options are generally partying around campus, or going to town for movies, bowling, dining, etc. There are free movies shown in the campus center every weekend and all sorts of events put on by student organizations (speakers, film screenings, theme dinners, ethnic foods, etc).