Hi, everyone. Thank you
so much for joining.
We are all tour guides that have
been giving tours this summer,
and we're going to be talking about
our favorite parts about Amherst.
So a little bit about myself.
My name is Lucheyla and I'm a rising
sophomore class of 2023. I'm from Lynn,
Massachusetts, and I am a prospective
Spanish and anthropology major.
Hi everyone. Welcome. My name is Diego.
I'm a rising junior at Amherst
originally from Boston, Massachusetts.
I'm a double major in
history and computer science.
I'm also a tour guide
during the academic year,
and I'm also on the men's club rugby team.
Hello, my name is Alexa and I'm also
rising sophomore so I'm the class 2023.
I don't know what I want to major in
yet. Maybe biology, maybe psychology,
maybe Asian civilizations. I'm not sure.
But I am on the premed track and some
stuff that I do outside of academics is
I'm part of the equestrian club.
Hey everyone, I'm Blake, also
2023, rising sophomore. I'm a
prospective Asian languages and
civilizations major with a specialism in
Japanese and an econ major as
well. As you might be able to tell,
I'm an international student and I'm
coming at you live today from North
Yorkshire in the UK.
Hello. Hey guys, I'm Fiona.
I'm also a rising sophomore.
I'm originally from Princeton,
New Jersey and like Blake.
I'm also a prospective econ and Asian
language and civilization double major on
campus and involved in our
music programs, and like Diego,
I'm also part of our student tour
guides. So that's about all of us.
I guess most of us are
all rising sophomores.
So we just made the transition to
college life, except for Diego,
sorry for leaving you out.
And I was just wondering like how you
guys made Amehrst your community and a
second home,.I feel like
everyone definitely had a
very different experience,
but at least for me, before
the admitted students weekend,
I didn't get to visit Amherst at all.
And I didn't know where
Amherst is exactly.
And it was really scary cause I was just
thinking imagining a small college in
the middle of nowhere. But during
admitted students' weekend,
I was finally able to
visit the physical campus.
And I was really happy to see that we
have so many nice towns and malls around
us.
So we're not in the middle of nowhere and
basically our college is in the middle
of Amherst town, which is
a really nice college town.
And the benefit of living inside a
college town is that you have so many
different restaurants,
stores, places to explore.
And personally it was super reassuring
for me to be able to find so many ethnic
restaurants and Amherst,
especially like Asian restaurants,
just so I can get home dishes to
prevent me from like homesick.
And I'm originally from
Princeton, New Jersey,
which is also a pretty small college
town and feels really similar to Amherst.
So those all really made it feel a lot
like home for me and made the transition
a lot smoother.
I actually had the opposite
sort of experience.
So I'm from New York city and I was born
in the city. I was raised in the city,
I am pretty sure I'm going to stay
in the city for the rest of my life.
So I really wanted to go to college that
was a little outside my comfort zone
outside and get a different
sort of environment.
So I knew I didn't want to be really in
the middle of nowhere where it was just
a campus and nothing else was around.
I am comforted that
Amherst does have a nice,
cool town where you can go out and
eat, you can go out and get cool stuff,
go to museums and movies. And
so that made me feel good.
And just to know that there's stuff
outside of campus for students to do.
And the other thing was that I was really
impressed by how pretty the campus was
and how involved in nature it
was. There's a cool forest.
There are lakes nearby, you know,
fresh air and wide open spaces
isn't really a thing in New York city.
So I was really happy about that,
but even though it's a
different sort of environment,
it's a small town instead of a big city,
it's really the people that
made me feel really at home and
made me feel welcome,
especially because Amherst does so many
activities when you first come in for
orientation and for your first year to
help build those relationships and build
a foundation.
So those first year experiences
were really great for me.
I know for my,
one of my best first year
experiences was the Leap trip.
I went off campus and I know Diego also
went off campus. How was your Leap trip?
Yeah, so absolutely for me as well,
I think being around other
people at Amherst who
were going through a sort of similar
experience in this very new place
altogether did help it feel a
lot more like home very quickly.
So my LEAP trip as you said
was called Taking the Leap.
So we went hiking on various hiking
trails throughout like the Pioneer Valley
region, which is the general
geographic area around Amherst.
And I was skeptical at first I'll admit,
I thought it was going to be one of those
things with like adults telling you,
Oh, get off your device and get out
into nature at the end of summer.
So I was definitely skeptical at first.
But it ended up being much more like,
because we were all first years in an
environment in Amherst that was very new
to all of us
but also getting out into nature on these
trails that were completely unfamiliar
to any of us with like nature
insights that would just blow your
mind. Getting out of our comfort
zones physically in that regard,
helped us to get out of our comfort
zones mentally and emotionally as well.
And I think we were able
to, because of that,
we were able to develop much deeper bonds
and relationships with other students.
I think about probably 30 students in
my LEAP trip that we all grew very,
very close, very, very quickly,
even in just the sort of three day span
much more so because of this experience
than we would have just from three
days of hanging around campus. So yeah,
absolutely the LEAP
trip and the experiences
in that really made Amherst feel like
a much more natural place for me to be.
I actually had the opposite experience.
I actually stayed on campus for my LEAP
trip and I think Fiona did as well.
But I went to an arts leap
trip and we did a couple of
community building activities and like
theater activities and stuff like that.
And it was really nice.
We would just go to the dance studio
and do a couple of things together.
We did a lot of reflective activities
and at the end we had sort of an open mic
night to perform poems and songs
and people playing instruments.
So I feel like even if
you did stay on campus,
there was still so much to offer where
you can build community with the people
around you,
other than the people you had just spent
so much time with in your orientation
groups. The leap trip happens on
the weekend right after that week.
So you have another group of people that
you can sort of get to meet and lean on
before going into your
first week of classes.
So I think the leap trips are great
regardless of on campus or not.
It's a great time to just meet
more people in your class.
Absolutely My LEAP trip was called
green buildings and we basically
looked at some green architecture
around the pioneer valley. Really cool,
and really got to know my classmates
very well. I really enjoyed it.
I think as well as part of the first
year experience that many students have,
I think we also have,what's
called a freshmen seminar Amherst.
So pretty much after you
come back for a LEAP trip,
you're straight into classes and
the freshman seminar is essentially
essentially a class with the people
you took your LEAP trip with.
So you still get to build
up those relationships.
So it's literally a writing
class taught by the college.
The college knows that everyone's coming
in from different parts of the world,
of schools, et cetera, and really wants
to make sure that you're in a sort of
immersed, I guess,
is a good way to say in college
writing styles and techniques,
as soon as you get here, like they're
treating you like legitimate academic,
which I think is amazing. A little
bit about mine in particular.
I really loved it taught by
the amazing Professor Ringer.
If you guys are all are interested
in middle Eastern history,
I really would recommend
taking a class with her,
but it was the class
itself was called Progress.
And we essentially looked at different
authors and sort of contextualized
different views and attitudes towards
progress. Like a marxist perspective,
like a native American one, like I
guess, traditional Western liberal one.
And it was a really interesting way to
sort of start engaging at Amherst and
look at things through a
multidimensional liberal arts lens.
I guess it sort of feeds in my
love of academics at Amhearst.
The open curriculum is amazing.
You don't have any requirements apart
from your freshman seminar that the only
class you have to take.
So you're never going to be stuck in
like meeting a requirement that you hate.
I decided to take up Japanese.
Obviously now you know that I'm an
Asian languages and civilizations major.
So probably wouldn't have been in fact,
I wouldn't have been
without the curriculum.
So I guess that's a really good
example of what you can do with it.
But just because of the flexibility
you're given the choice and ability to
explore and develop interests, like you
can literally start from the bottom.
So I [inaudible] with no prior
experience of Japanese. I sort of,
I've worked my way through like
the intro very basic intro class.
Because we are such well resourced schools
like we have a lot of office hours.
Professors at Amherst for you guys,
not familiar with the terminology,
have to put, they're required to
[inaudible] so many hours for students,
but like every professor has
more hours open to students.
And like office hours
available than, you know,
more than they're required to by contract.
And you can really get a very
personalized education here.
Like the classes are small and the
professors have always got time for you.
I love Japanese department.
They're amazing if you're at least
interested in it a little bit,
like the intro classes is there everyone
to take and I really would recommend
it. But I know in academics, I'm
interested to hear what you guys,
what experiences you've had, because
I know that we're just so broad,
I think it's hard to know about
them all and experience them all.
We literally that widely funded.
Yeah. I would definitely echo what Blake
said about the open curriculum since we
really have no required core classes.
So you can really focus on what
you're interested in. It was,
you still have a lot of space to
explore new things. So for me,
I am also a double major like Blake,
but I'm still able to take classes that
are completely irrelevant to my majors
that is just of my interests. So for me,
I played flute in high school,
but I stopped junior year since I was
busy with all the college applications and
everything. And when you
stop playing an instrument,
you just no longer can play
the instrument anymore.
But during my first semester
here at Amherst one of my
upperclassmen friends who
was really involved in the
music department told me
that you can take private
one-on-one lessons here
with a scholarship.
So basically if you're on any sort of
financial aid from the Amherst College,
you can apply for a music scholarship
that will cover the cost of private
one-on-one lesson for all four years.
And the only requirements they have,
I guess, are you have
to take it for credit.
So all these lessons are half credit and
you have to take one music course your
freshman year. So it really
doesn't take that much.
And I really appreciate
opportunities like this,
to be able to learn a
new thing from scratch,
like what Blake said about Japanese and
the private lessons really allow me to
pick up my flute again and gain
access to performances opportunities.
And it also really connected me with
other musicians here on campus who are now
some of my best friends.
And I definitely encourage everyone to
take advantage of the open curriculum
here to really explore new things, things
that you don't get to really
explore outside of college.
Yeah. I would echo that as well.
I think part of what makes taking full
advantage of the open curriculum so
accessible and so doable is how
supportive the professors at Amherst are.
Like math has really never been my thing,
but I've taken a math course almost
every semester that I've been at Amherst
because the faculty members are just like
absolutely incredible and take so much
time out of their own schedules to help
me whenever I am having trouble to just
check in on me and see how I'm doing
both in the class and also just like as a
human being.
And so I think taking advantage of like
the office hours that Blake was talking
about that every professor has several
times a week is really just invaluable in
terms of the relationships
that you develop, because
we're such a small school,
you can get very close to your professors
and you'll get so much more out of the
class by having that sort of rapport but,
but also you can start to develop
professional connections cause they know
people in their industries
that they can give you,
they can put you in touch with for
internships and even like full time jobs
after college. You can
develop opportunities even,
even for during the academic year, during
your summers, like research on campus,
which I know is a really popular thing
for students to do throughout the four
years. In all academic departments,
not just like the hard sciences.
And that was actually something that I've
been able to take advantage of because
of these relationships
with faculty members.
One of my professors for a course I took
over the interterm between the fall and
spring semesters, put
me in touch with an economics professor
who was looking for someone with skill
in a particular piece of software that
I had experience with just because
me and the professor who put us in touch
had this relationship and he was able
to connect me with that. And
so in summary, because of this,
I was able to become a history and
computer science major working for an
economics professor, studying meteorology,
which are all completely distinct topics.
But because I think also it's
a credit to the liberal arts,
which makes you a much more dynamic
thinker that you can apply lessons learned
from history, computer science classes,
to economics and to meteorology.
So I think the professors at Amherst
really contribute far more than their
frankly paid to do.
And really the Amherst campus
wouldn't be the same without them.
Yeah, definitely.
Aside from professors just being great
advisors and really helping you out,
there's also really good opportunity for
help and resources in the Loeb Center.
So for career advising in particular.
So like I said, I'm on the premed track.
And one of the first things that students
who are interested in the pre med
track do is have a group introductory
meeting just with other premed
students and at the Loeb
Center. And we just talk,
we get to know each other and they
give us a general overview about what's
required for the premed track and why
we're interested in the track as a whole.
And we have a one-on-one
meeting with Dean Aronson,
which is the health professions
advisor at the Loeb center.
And so I was a little nervous.
I wasn't sure what to expect,
but I was really surprised
because it wasn't
something that made me feel
uncomfortable or uncertain
if this track was really for
me. He just sat down with me,
asked me questions about
myself, just to get to know me,
but then also made it clear that
the track, especially at Amherst,
isn't meant to be
something that's limiting.
Isn't meant to be something that
you are permanently in forever.
And so it's really there
if you're interested in it.
And then you have all the freedom you can,
especially with the open curriculum
to major in something that's non STEM.
Take whatever courses you
want, do study abroad,
which are all something that I'm
interested in. So that was really nice.
And the Loeb center as a whole is a
great resource to have because they have
advisors that can cater to specific needs,
a specific industry. So there's the
pre health advisor, there's law,
there's entertainment,
education, business, and finance.
So the Loeb center is really a great
place to go to for advising in careers
where they can point you in the right
directions for internships and for other
job opportunities.
There's also general advisors if you
have no idea what you're interested in.
I met with one just to see what
it was like. And it was very,
very nice and it gives you a sense of
things to try out and to do if you don't
really have a general direction
just yet. So that was,
that was a really nice opportunity for me.
I know there's lots of resources
also on campus that's not
specifically, you know,
between student and adult.
And I know Lucheyla knows
all about that. Take it away.
Yeah, sure. So I don't know if
I mentioned it in the beginning,
but I work at the queer resource center
and that's part of the five resource
centers that are available to students
that have student employees in them.
So in this building right
here, the Keefe campus center.
We have all of our resource centers,
so we have the queer resource
center for LGBTQ and trans folk.
We have the women and gender center. We
have the multicultural resource center.
We have the center for international
student engagement and we have the center
for diversity and student leadership
and that resource center specifically
caters to first generation and low income
students as well as undocumented and
DACA students.
So whenever I'm not working
in the QRC I always head over
to the center for diversity in student
leadership because I feel like I can get
a lot of advice. I, myself, identify
as first generation low income,
and I just love being in the
resource centers in general.
These spaces provide, you
know, safe spaces for people.
You don't have to necessarily identify
as queer to be in the queer resource
center. It's open to everyone.
There are always programs that are
organized and also just open hours from
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM for students to
come in and do homework, hang out.
There will usually be like music
playing or like Netflix on the TV.
There are couches to
hang out, free snacks,
free printing and free coffee,
free tea and free like
sexual health resources.
So I think the resource centers are
just a great space to hang out and,
and find the things that you need.
You don't necessarily
have to feel embarrassed.
There are always people coming into
the resource centers to ask for help,
especially because there
are student employees there.
It might feel a little bit more easy
to talk to a student than an adult.
So I definitely would recommend checking
out the resource centers if you ever
get a chance to come onto campus.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like the resource centers are a
really amazing space that Amherst has.
Like they're fairly recent,
but I think they've really been embraced
by students. Students love them.
If you guys ever in Keefe, ever on campus,
you got to go see the [inudible] and the
QRC. I think that's an obligation now.
Like they'll always
have [inaudible] people.
I guess my biggest experience has been
with CISE thought I am pretty active in
the sphere of the CDSL as
well. I'm a Micklejohn fellow,
which is like a cool careers
program run with the CDSL.
You can find out more on the
Amherst website. CISE, I guess,
is really close to my heart
as an international student.
I guess many of you guys
will have seen in the news,
all the different things that are
happening for international students.
If things are developing really quickly,
I think that CISE being that sort of
help us advice us through how best to
approach these things, what we need
to do, has been like a godsend.
And it really important for us. The
two directors of the center, Hannah
and Gabe, are amazing people.
Anyone who's sort of interested in
issues pertaining to the international
student experience should
definitely get in touch. And also,
I think outside of the sort
of professional legal side,
they put on really cool events throughout
the year for not just international
students, but for all students. So
we had a global kitchen in November,
which was basically the students came
and started cooking food from their
cultures and countries, which was
amazing. Like if you're a foodie,
I really couldn't
recommend anything better.
For students over the holidays as well,
it's kind of common that international
students stay. So they put on dinners,
community events,
made it so students didn't really feel
isolated being on campus by themselves.
I know let's of students
do end up staying.
So CISE is there to support everyone
on campus. They're really amazing.
Yeah. I definitely agree
with what everyone else said.
We have a lot of wonderful resources
here on campus and some of them are run
by the college, like the resource centers,
which Lucheyla passionately talked about.
But there are also a lot of student
organizations that support students.
For example, I'm involved in ASA,
which is the Asian Student Association.
It's one of the affinity groups here on
campus. So from my personal experience,
I really value the Asian
community here at Amherst.
It's not like I need to be in
the Asian community all the time,
but it would be really awkward for me if
there is not a space provided for me to
interact with other Asian students
like me from similar cultures.
So I really appreciated that space and
looking back on freshman year so many of
my, really the best memories from
Amherst come from these ASA events.
So the social events like the parties or
the weekly meetings really give me the
chance to interact with people that I
would not have interacted with otherwise
who are now some of my best friends. And
even though we're no longer on campus,
we still have these online events that
provide a space of support for Asian and
Asian American community here at Amherst.
And ASA is just one of the many wonderful
groups and clubs here that support
students and provide students with
a sense of community here on campus.
And I'm just curious to hear you guys,
if you have any personal experience,
was that I know Diego is
in one of our clubs sports.
So if you want to talk about
your experience and take it away.
Yeah, so,
so my probably biggest time commitment
for extracurriculars at Amherst is being
on the club rugby team which
although on its face is very
different from like the ASA and
many other of these student,
sort of student-run support organizations,
rugby has still been an incredibly
valuable experience for me
in terms of supporting me academically
and personally which you wouldn't really
expect from a sport. And
if you ask me, when I,
the day I arrived on the Amherst campus,
if I thought I would be speaking
this highly of rugby two years later,
I would've told you, you were out of
your mind. But basically there was a,
there was a club fair at the beginning
of my first semester where all the
student organizations lined up and were
trying to talk to the new students and a
couple of guys on the rugby teams,
basically just like yelled and hollered
and waved at me until I went over and
decided to talk to them a little bit.
And after that,
basically they started emailing me every
day until I relented and showed up to
one practice. But at that practice,
despite having no clue what I
was doing, I had so much fun,
but I decided to on a whim pretty
much join rugby at Amherst.
And in the two years since then,
I have been winded after big hits,
I've been cold, muddy, bloody, bruised,
sore but I've not once
regretted that decision,
even though it was made in
pretty much a split second.
Rugby has been incredibly valuable
as an experience in terms of me
being physically active.
We are good enough that we smoked
our rival school Williams 24,
nothing last spring, which I
have to mention for the rivalry.
We came second in our
championship last fall,
but it's helped me socially as
well. It's just an incredible,
wonderful bunch of guys on the team
who welcomed me really with open arms,
despite as I said, I had no
experience with rugby before.
And I didn't know anyone because I
was new at Amherst when I joined.
It's even helped me academically and
professionally as well because of
developing these relationships
with upperclassmen through
extracurriculars gives
you so much more insight into how
Amherst works an an institution,
tips and tricks to start
to build your resume,
what classes you should and shouldn't
take for what you're interested in and how
to get internships and
opportunities like that. So yeah,
even though you wouldn't expect, you know,
club sport on its face to be something
that has helped me through every aspect
of my Amherst experience,
rugby absolutely has.
So unfortunately, I'm looking at the time.
I think this is all we've got time for.
I hope this gives you guys a
well rounded view of Amherst,
some of our experiences.
If you're interested in hearing more we're
going to be in the office all summer.
So please get in touch. Likewise,
admissions are always happy to
hear from you guys. And yeah.
Thanks for tuning in. And hopefully
we'll see some of you guys,
if not this fall, then maybe
the next, so take care.
