UNIGO SUMMARY
Despite its reputation for obsessively avoiding classification, Hampshire College is indeed a liberal arts college, complete with a rural, bucolic setting and a mission statement that stresses education itself over letter grades.
At Hampshire, letter grades do not even exist – the school prides itself on guiding students down individualized paths, culminating in a year-long project that synthesizes all the aspects of a student’s studies at Hampshire (and the Five College consortium to which Hampshire belongs). While some students do submit thesis-style papers for this final project, many choose any number of creative, mixed-media projects. The curriculum opens up a lot of opportunities for students to direct themselves and focus on their own agendas, which most students love. Conversely, this also means that less self-motivated students can have a hard time staying in line. As far as the student body goes, the one word that comes up over and over again (to many students’ chagrin) is “alternative.” In this sense, the students themselves certainly share most of the qualities that the school’s curriculum stresses. They are usually loud, outspoken, creative “hippie or hipster” types who fall on the very, very, very far left side of the political spectrum. To entertain themselves they smoke a lot of pot, drink a lot of beer, and have “spastic dance parties” in their classmates’ apartments and dorm rooms.
UNIGO REVIEW
Hampshire College has built its reputation on going against the grain, and students find themselves either attracted to or turned off by the do-it-yourself academic environment. A sophomore from London says, “The best thing about Hampshire is the freedom that you get. Unfortunately, some people are not self motivated and need more guidance and are therefore kind of disadvantaged by the structure.” Most students self-design their majors, and the workload varies by discipline. The academic guidelines and core requirements are wholly unorthodox—the core curriculum is made up of “divisions” which culminate in an extensive, year-long senior project—and the school has stayed true to its original mission of discouraging letter grades, encouraging student-led discussions, and championing its unique brand of education.
A senior Environmental Studies major explains: “Hampshire's learning is geared towards whatever your mind is geared towards. If you are job-oriented, you will research and study things you need to know to be successful in that field. If you are idea- and fact-oriented, you will spend your time learning theory and concepts. Hampshire is what you want it to be and what you make it be. The rules at Hampshire are more like guidelines than rules. If there is a rule there is an acceptable way to break it.” Professors encourage students to go against the mold, go outside their comfort zones, and bend disciplines to fit their interests. “If you want to do some weird shit (I do neurophysiology and creative writing), it is completely possible and even encouraged. Professors love that kind of thing, and will support you.”
Hampshire is a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which allows students to take classes and use the facilities of any of the other four Amherst, MA schools that belong to the consortium. Considering Hampshire’s small endowment, this relationship has had immediate benefits. One dance major writes, “After my first year I took most of my classes at Smith because they have more to offer, but still worked very closely at Hamp with my advisor to cater my studies to my needs.” A music major agrees, explaining that the Five Colleges consortium “has been a lifesaver for me, since, for example, Hampshire currently offers no Music Composition classes, so I took Music Comp. at Amherst.”
The complaints about diversity heard at other northeast liberal arts schools occur at Hampshire as well, especially considering the liberal activist sentiment on campus. Any qualm is magnified a thousand times over, though most students will stress that there is no segregation along class or ethnic lines, and their universal weirdness is what ultimately unites them. A theater major says: “There's this saying on campus that Hampshire is made up entirely of kids who were the outcasts in their high school, which I think is pretty spot-on. It's strange, because everyone is so unique individually, but when you see us all together, we all look the same.” The off-kilter quality makes Hampshire a welcoming haven for students looking for that atmosphere and links students who, before coming to college, might never have thought they’d fit in.
Hampshire struggles with its physical infrastructure, and students often complain about the decrepit state of the buildings and the administration's lack of energy when it comes to fixing problems. Hampshire housing, however, is said to be pretty impressive—it’s guaranteed all four years, and most students live in single rooms. Students generally live in traditional style dorm-housing or in the “Mods,” apartments that house four to ten students. “Mods are usually filled with close friends, and mod culture and dorm culture are different. Students in the dorms eat in the dining hall and have more chance to see other students. Some students who live in the mods get more insular- rarely leaving their own mod or grouping of mods, and others spend a lot of time in other people's mods and hanging out with friends who aren't modmates. The mods are definitely the site of the most parties, and each of the three mod groupings has a different reputation.”
Most Hampshire students are involved in some club or organization. For a small campus, there are an impressive number of ways to get involved. According to one linguistics major, “We've got everything from a cappella groups to a barbecue club to a horror and special effects club to a hip hop collective to our own circus troop.” Athletics are practically nonexistent, though some point out that the Ultimate Frisbee team is very popular and competitive in its own right. Others note that outdoor activities—hiking, cycling, kayaking—are prevalent as well. There are no fraternities or sororities of any kind, which makes parties spontaneous affairs. This isn't to say there aren’t huge, campus-wide extravaganzas—including Hampshire Halloween, which is a massive, notorious music and drug- and alcohol-filled rager complete with insane costume parades and dancing. There's also the Easter Keg Hunt, when "Hampshire kids go into the woods early easter morning and tap kegs, people stumble back onto campus drunkenly later" and the annual spring Drag Ball including burlesque and performances from campus groups.
Students usually stay on campus on the weekends, although excursions to nearby Amherst, Northampton, and Springfield are common. In these areas, students shop at any number of the predominantly boutique stores and restaurants. There are bars and clubs in the area, too, but Hampshire students aren’t seen in them too often. One senior says: “Amherst is a great little college town with an interesting subculture for almost everyone...good coffee, good food, good wilderness to explore, and other outside activities.”
One junior sums up Hampshire’s overall experience like this: “If you don't like arguing, the general spirit of activism, the smell of marijuana, really smart people who do too many drugs and manage to write insanely good essays anyway, or woodland creatures, and if you do like a whole lot of direction in your academic work, you'll be better off elsewhere.” Another interesting fact: despite the lack of cohesive structure at Hampshire, its students have one of the highest graduate-school acceptance rates in the country.