Life of a Musician in the Amherst Symphony Orchestra

Amherst Symphony Orchestra members performing at a recital.

Believe it or not, years ago the Amherst Symphony Orchestra (ASO) was partly made up of professional musicians and a few student musicians. Mark Swanson, the Director of ASO made an effort to bring all the Amherst musicians together, therefore, the ASO is now an orchestra of Amherst musicians and some UMass (University of Massachusetts)…Continue Reading Life of a Musician in the Amherst Symphony Orchestra

Burnout

5/5/2023 Hi everyone, I hope you are well! For the last few weeks, as the semester wraps up, I’ve been feeling pretty exhausted and unmotivated. I thought that for this week’s blog I’d talk about my experiences with burnout, and how the College attempts to minimize its affects on students. If you have any questions,…Continue Reading Burnout

City Streets Festival

Every year Amherst hosts the City Streets Festival which features international cuisine from Greece, Japan, Cuba, Africa, Sri Lanka, Southwestern U.S, and more. For a little background, the festival was established on April 2013 as an opportunity for Amherst students to come together and celebrate our heritage and cultural food. Unfortunately because of the rainy…Continue Reading City Streets Festival

Class registration

4/28/2023        Hi everyone, I hope you are well! In this week’s blog, I’m going to tell you about the process of registering for classes, for both incoming freshmen and existing students. If you have any questions, please email me at sgoldsmith24@amherst.edu! Class registration for freshmen Registering for classes for freshmen looks different than class registration for…Continue Reading Class registration

Visiting the Five Colleges

Did you know that Amherst is part of a five-college consortium? My previous blog mentions the University of Massachusetts (UMass) regarding the students that rehearse and perform with the ASO (Amherst Symphony Orchestra). Those are one of the many connections you can get through Amherst. The consortium consists of five sister schools Amherst College, Mount…Continue Reading Visiting the Five Colleges

January Term

Though winter break for Amherst is only two weeks long, usually students view winter break as a one-month-and-a-half long break simply because January term, known as J-Term, starts after winter break and ends right when the spring semester starts. As someone from the West Coast, having J-Term feels strange as lots of my high school…Continue Reading January Term

Dining at Amherst

4/21/2023 Hi everyone, I hope you are well! In this blog, I’m going to talk about the different places one can get food on campus, and my personal preferences. If you have any questions, please email me at sgoldsmith24@amherst.edu! Valentine Hall Amherst has one main dining hall, which is named Valentine Hall (although students refer to…Continue Reading Dining at Amherst

The 5 Colleges

Oftentimes, many people choose not to come to Amherst because of the location. Though the school is located only an hour and a half away from Boston, it can be inconvenient to travel outside of the college and Western Massachusetts, especially since a large number of Amherst students don’t own a car. However, the great…Continue Reading The 5 Colleges