Hello hello! Welcome back to the blog. I hope that everyone has had a great week, and for those of you attending Admitted Students days at colleges, I hope they’ve been super fun and informative! As many of you may know, Amherst College is one of the handful of schools in the nation with an open curriculum, meaning that we have no general education requirements. Because of this, students here have the opportunity to explore classes in so many different subjects, both to narrow down their areas of interest for a major (or majors!), or just to take classes for fun that genuinely interest them. So, in case anyone was curious about the wide variety of classes offered here or the ways in which students choose to take advantage of the open curriculum, I thought i’d highlight a few of the classes i’ve taken so far that were unrelated to my majors (Psychology and Spanish), but that I really enjoyed.
Exploring the Cosmos
First up, we have “Exploring the Cosmos”, an introductory Astronomy class that I took the Fall semester of my first year. Before taking this class, I knew essentially nothing about Astronomy. But the description of the class looked super interesting, so I decided to take the risk and enroll in this course with a subject that I knew nothing about. As it turns out, leaving your comfort zone academically isn’t actually all that much of a risk here at Amherst College, because the school both encourages students to explore new areas and supports them as they do so. There was everyone from physics majors to senior English majors in the class, but the content still always felt extremely doable and accessible. And, while I really enjoyed the entire class experience, my favorite part of the course was actually our final project. Instead of taking a final exam, we were tasked with creating a fun and interactive way to teach people about a topic from Astronomy, and during our last week of classes, local families and elementary school children were invited to the college to take part in our Astronomy night. I spent around three hours teaching little kids about the life cycle of a low mass star, and at the end, all of us students in the class were able to go up to Amherst’s observatory (as seen in the photo to the left and this blog’s cover photo). While it’s unlikely that I’ll be an astronomer one day, this is still a class I’ll never forget.
Sexualities in International Relations
Last spring, I took a class cross-listed in the Political Science and SWAGS (Sexuality, Women’s, and Gender Studies) departments called Sexualities in International Relations. As both my first Polisci and SWAGS class in college, I learned a ton about International Relations generally, and also the ways in which gender has really impacted the world’s political history and decision making. As an assignment for the class, we were all tasked with creating an “intervention” project that raised awareness about a topic related to the course material that we were passionate about. So, for our intervention project, Dakota (my brunch buddy!) and I designed fliers and Barbie themed stickers about abortion myths and pro-choice activism that we handed out at UMass and Amherst College. It was a really fun experience, and now it’s really cool to see our Barbie stickers on people’s laptops and water bottles all over campus.
Introduction to Playwriting
Last semester, I took a playwriting class for the first time. While i’ve always been someone who loves to read and write and grew up involved in theater, I had absolutely zero experience writing a play, and was honestly pretty nervous going into the class. However, the course immediately felt like a judgement-free space, and I realized that playwriting was actually a lot of fun. Our instructor was a visiting professor from NYC who is currently a working actor and playwright, so he was a super interesting and insightful person to learn from. At one point, when our professor had to return to NYC briefly to work on his play that was soon to open on stage, my class got the chance to listen in on his workshopping session. I ended up writing a play I was pretty proud of, and overall the class was just a wonderful and unique opportunity for a creative outlet in an academic setting.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed hearing about just a few of the very many awesome classes i’ve taken here at Amherst College. As always, if you have any questions at all about student life here, feel free to reach out!! My email is eknauer27@amherst.edu. Bye for now!