Hampshire College

Date: Feb 09 2010
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
I wish I had access to forums like this before deciding on which college to attend.

If you are far left-leaning, conform to anticonformism (hipsters, punks, vegans), able to bend shiftless professors to your will, not concerned with the school you are attending's reputation and opportunities, and you TRULY appreciate the Pioneer Valley (do your research, very few people can actually palate the place), then perhaps you should attend Hampshire College.

If you simply want to spend four years passing a joint around a drum circle, there are ways to do so without spending $40k/yr.

The administration of this school is a wreck. Do not be surprised if you never get to take a course in the field that you applied to study in, or if you are unable to find a professor in your field to chair your senior thesis work (an issue that will indubitably shatter any idealistic image you might have retained into your 3rd year at the school). Should you find yourself stuck at Hampshire, be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to take classes at the other five colleges, but realize that administrative obstacles will stand in your way, and, if the thought of two all-girls schools in the vicinity is an attraction, consider that said schools don't tend to attract very attractive ladies.

Most importantly, WHERE you spend your undergraduate years is of great importance. And on that note, Amherst and Northampton are totally debauched localities. There is a week or so during the early autumn when the leaves turn colors, and the harvest occurs. It is very magical. Aside from that week, it is dismally cold and there is little to keep yourself occupied. Worse yet, the culture manifested by 'failure to launch' five-college graduates that occupy half the residences in the area is best described as grimy.

Though Hampshire's image of being a "free-spirited, design-your-own-major, get treated like a grad student, bask in diversity, take-it-easy institution" may be a hollow vestige of a failed idea (looking back, I was a fool for thinking that such a place could actually exist) it has succeeded in attracting some brilliant and really cool students. SOME. For this I have to acknowledge and respect that I have met some of my closest friends at this school. To be united around having fallen for the same scam though, is unfortunate.