Disclaimer: This blog post only shares my personal encounters with the Open Curriculum after one semester at Amherst. It does not reflect the experiences of everyone at Amherst, and my thoughts about the Open Curriculum may look different in the future!
I don’t think people at Amherst talk about the Open Curriculum that much. As someone who chose Amherst largely because of its Open Curriculum, I was surprised that this topic hardly comes up in my classroom or dining hall discussions, even during registration weeks when it should have been the “star of the show.” My high school self would have concluded that perhaps Amherst’s special curriculum is not as impactful as the college advertised, not truly understanding what the Open Curriculum is all about. Luckily, I now know better. Not talking about the curriculum is precisely the point of the Open Curriculum — we want people to talk about their passions, not the curriculum.
According to the Amherst College website, the Open Curriculum refers to the fact that “Amherst has no distribution requirements and no core curriculum.” The only requirements here are the first-year seminars and major requirements, which give us a lot of freedom when it comes to shaping our education. Whenever I ask my friends about their classes, I get to witness their sheer excitement for whatever they’re studying and how these classes contribute to the big picture of who they want to be. “Ah, this is what the Open Curriculum is all about,” I eventually realized. At Amherst, we don’t talk about the Open Curriculum that much because we don’t need to actually hear how great it is to feel its impact — we feel it in the way everyone wants to be in their classes because they are interested, passionate, or curious, not required. That is the power of the Open Curriculum. As Amherst students, we are empowered to take charge of our academic journey. I like to believe that the Open Curriculum makes me feel like a respected scholar rather than an immature college student.
I don’t think I truly understood the value of the Open Curriculum until I came here. Of course, before coming to Amherst, I knew that the Open Curriculum gave students the freedom to explore and choose, but I didn’t know what that freedom actually looked like. Now I’ve experienced it and can finally share my personal experience: It means looking at the 850+ courses Amherst offers every semester knowing that I’ll have the space to fit any of them into my schedule. I also don’t have to worry about checking boxes when it comes to picking classes. It’s more about asking myself, “okay, Thu, what do you want to learn this time?” That’s it! The Open Curriculum gives me a lot of space to consider having two majors in addition to studying away and exploring cool electives. It also means delving into subjects like Religion with people who care about it and come from diverse knowledge backgrounds, rather than only those who need to fulfill distribution requirements or are Religion majors. My first semester at Amherst wouldn’t have been so academically fulfilling without the Open Curriculum.
However, the Open Curriculum doesn’t always mean you can do whatever you want. There are still limits to your freedom. When I told my advisor that I wanted to take two Computer Science courses, one Mathematics course, and one Statistics course in the spring, he immediately objected. My advisor wouldn’t let me take only technical courses, to which I asked, “but shouldn’t the Open Curriculum allow me to study more of what I’m interested in, which in this case are STEM subjects?” My advisor then explained to me that the Open Curriculum gives students the freedom to learn within the limit of a liberal arts education. After all, Amherst College is a liberal arts college and encourages students to constantly expand their worldview. It wouldn’t make sense for, say, a Biology-inclined student to come to Amherst only to take Biology courses.
Unfortunately, a disadvantage of the Open Curriculum at Amherst is that many departments lack 100-level courses that any student can take without prior knowledge in the field. Courses in most STEM departments (including Economics and Psychology) require students to take an introductory course before they can take any other courses in the department. Although it’s important to fulfill the requisites before taking a course, such a design discourages many curious students from exploring STEM electives because of the hassle of taking an introductory course that may not delve right into what they’re interested in. I didn’t realize this only until I came to Amherst. As a result, my understanding of the Open Curriculum expanded once again.
Many have told me that the Open Curriculum is what draws them to Amherst, and I hope you have found my insights helpful. Even now, I still cannot believe I’m at a college where there are no distribution requirements and no core curriculum. What a special place to learn at!