Amherst College Top Questions

Academics are probably the best part of Amherst for a number of reasons: -small class sizes -great faculty who enjoy interacting with students -research opportunities within each department

The classes are pretty small and there's always a lot of class discussion going on. My only problem is that most of the time people talk just to hear themselves speak, so the discussions are not always informative or interesting, but when they are its great. If you're into learning from the professor Amherst isn't the place to be, most of the time I'm just hearing my fellow classmates talk. I'm an English major. The department is okay, I just wish there were more courses exploring media studies, multimedia and the like to reinforce what we learn in the class room. More classes with multimedia project components would be great. You'll hate the academics here like I mostly do if you're into more hands on, application stuff that improves your technical skills. Oh and the open curriculum is the best, it's the reason why I chose Amherst.

The open curriculum is great. You are only required to take one course, the Freshman Seminar, and the topics are always interesting. The open curriculum lets you either focus on your major right away, or experiment and take different classes. The majors aren't necessarily geared toward getting a job. The college really emphasizes the liberal arts aspect of learning.

Professors all make the effort to know all students' names, and I haven't had a class yet (I've taken 8 of them) in which the professor didn't know my name. Amherst kids have intellectual conversations outside of class, but the length and frequency vary greatly depending on the group of friends you hang out with. Amherst's open curriculum attracts lots of people, although I feel like some people come here never intending to extend their horizons on their own, which was the original intention of the curriculum. I like it a lot, but sometimes I wish I had the room to take artsy classes and such without feeling pressured to take "useful" or uber-challenging classes instead. Amherst students are secretly competitive. In other words, competitive mindsets are not noticeable, but most kids think competitively. We are just good at hiding it. So we don't do stuff like, throwing away a classmate's calculator or intentionally letting your roommate oversleep. haha

The professors are very much into creating relationships with students. They'll take you in. Even in the big lecture classes, which are themselves rare, the professors seem to make it a point to know every single person and their name and everything about them. The whole school revolves around the students. They baby us- there are so many resources that they don't let anyone slip through the cracks. The professors and everyone else are very attentive to our needs. And all the professors seem to be brilliant/the expert in something. There are a lot of hot shots/experts in their fields, but even they know all your names.

I'd say the best part about Amherst is its terrific academic life. Professors, though spectacular and often world-known in their field, know your name, classes are small and participation is often lively, there is a lot of opportunity to do independent work with close individual attention from an expert in the field, students often take conversation from class into the dining hall and dorm room (making the school a 24/7 learning experience), and though a small school, by virtue of the Five College Consortium, virtually every class one would want is available! My department in particular, Political Science, was phenomenal. There's a good balance between political theory, international relations, constitutional law, history, political economy, etc. The professors are often extremely accomplished. Bill Taubman (specializes in Russia) is a Pulitzer Prize winner, Austin Sarat (constitutional law) is one of the five most cited public law experts in the country, Hadley Arkes (political theory) is the architect of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, Ronald Tiersky (European politics) was a State and Defense Department consultant. However, despite being so accomplished, the professor are accessible and phenomenal teachers as well. I've gotten to know several of my professors well outside of class. I think Amherst's lack of distribution requirements and/or a core curriculum allows one to get breadth in a variety of disciplines outside of one's major. By virtue of the open curriculum, I was effectively able to triple minor. I took many courses in economics, philosophy, and music. Hence, I became very intimately familiar with textbook economic theory. Before school, I couldn't interpet the Wall Street Journal. Now I read it almost every morning with a great foundation for understanding. Before school, I'd never heard of Kant or Hume. Now, I've closely analyzed everyone from Plato and Aristotle to Kant, Hobbes and Locke to Rawls and Nussbaum. The journey through the Western philosophical tradition has made me reflect differently on many decisions, including career decisions. Finally, I didn't play instruments before school and now I'm a proficient guitarist. In many ways, the open curriculum let me quasi-quadruple major. Though professors greatly contributed to my intellectual development, fellow students who also loved the material made me reflect on the material more closely and improve my understanding. These discussions ranged from debates with students over whether the US' hand in mediating the Israel-Palestinian dispute would be improved or not after the 1st gulf war, whether utilitarianism can be made compatible with our moral intuitions, whether allowing college students to sell stocks in themselves would made economic sense, and instructions on how to best voice a certain jazz chord on the guitar. These conversations were all spawned by coursework. As you can expect from that explanation, many students at Amherst appreciate learning for its own sake. However, a very large portion of the school doesn't value its education outside the benefits it will yield in Wall Street, etc. The open curriculum allows students to pursue their vision of what a proper curriculum should be--pre-professional or an intellectual odyssey.

Given the small nature of the student population (1600-1700), the classes are generally small and intimate. However these are not like small high school classes, in that the professors are of an incredibly high caliber. They challenge, argue, lead, and educate in such a fashion that students want to study and do well because they are interested by the matieral and impressed by the the faculty. The faculty rewards the students' genuine interest and hard work with decent grade inflation so that it is hard to get below a B with an honest effort, although recieving an A- or above is still very impressive. Generally they is a lot of reading in the arts classes, and less reading but more class in the sciences. There are no distribution requirements, so students take classes they want to take from the very begining. Classes are not very difficult to get into, yet are still very small. Both of these attributes add to a healthy relationship between students, professors, and academic interest/achievement.

If you talk in class the professors will get to know you, and they are definitely accessible if you take the time to go to them. When I was really stressed out about my thesis and only sleeping never, one of my professors actually asked me to come see her because she had noticed I seemed a little out of it. She just wanted to make sure that everything was going ok, and once I told her I was a thesis writer, she understood and told me if I was ever really buried in my work just let her know, and she would help out.

Most classes are small, with the exceptions of certain very large intro classes. You can really get to know your professors and there are programs that help encourage interaction outside of class as well. Most of the professors here are very good, but there are a few truly awful ones, not because they are unqualified, but simply because they do not teach their subjects very well. Luckily, the curriculum is completely open (no universally required classes) and there is an online resource known as Scrutiny which provides reviews of professors and classes to help you avoid classes which you would not enjoy/get much out of. There are many lectures and discussions on many different topics if you are interested in attending them. Certain departments, such as Computer Science, Political Scienece, and several others have some really great professors. Unfortanately, in terms of politcal discussion there is usually only one side of every argument represented (the liberal one of course). Although I considered myself moderately liberal when I arrived here, the extreme liberalism and supression of conservatives really disturbed me and I think this is an issue not really addressed by enough people here because they all hate conservatives anyway. Outside of this tragic underrepresentaion of an entire class of ideas, the education you can get here is really great, and they are really helpful to graduating students, whether you are looking for a job or to continue your education.

Professors at Amherst are 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} accessible and invested in their students' educations. When I was a freshman, I was hesitant to "bother" professors at their office hours. By senior year, I learned that even though professors are absolutely brilliant they are also friendly and approachable (with some exceptions, of course), want to hear what students have to say, and treat students as equals, just in an earlier stage of their careers.