Sunday, February 12, 2023
[Mood of the Week—Settling in. Super pumped for the semester!]
It’s the end of the second week of classes… time to reflect on how it’s been going. Saturday: after a busy week, I spent pretty much all day away from campus at a track meet. Almost all of my Saturdays in the spring semester are filled by meet travel and racing, so for those not on a sports team, it’s very possible to build in a weekly “off-day” to travel, sleep, and just not do homework! For example, I had a few friends go on a ski trip with the Outing Club today, and rentals/day passes were fully funded by Amherst! After the cold snap last weekend (-10 degrees Fahrenheit, -23 Celsius), the weather this weekend was FANTASTIC, and later this week it’ll be up to the 60s (15 Celsius). Winter has been very kind to us.
[Side note: I’ve also been busy with tour guide training this week, so hopefully see some of you on campus!]
New Balance Track at Boston
As an extension of last week’s post, I wanted to elaborate more on the classes I’m taking this semester, because I’m very happy with my selections. Some core major requirements and some legendary Amherst classes—it might be my most stacked semester ever… both in workload and quality.
My two math classes have a lot in common. Groups, Rings, and Fields, is a hefty theory class, whereas Cryptography has more computer science applications of Groups, and it’s always a pleasant surprise when these intersections happen after choosing your classes.
(But Tom, I hear you saying, isn’t that content-building guaranteed with a more rigid curriculum? Why would I want to take the risk of the liberal arts, where I could choose classes that have nothing to do with each other? Glad you asked! I’ve touched on this last week, but it boils down to liberal arts giving you CHOICE in your education. With the open curriculum, you won’t always find these closely related classes, but when it happens, it’s great. Most importantly, it’s satisfying because you’ve chosen something you’re actually interested in! Who knows if I would have liked these two math classes if I didn’t know that I liked the math + computer science combo? Amherst’s open curriculum allowed me to avoid the risk of preemptively committing to a set major path, which is what you find at most larger institutions.)
Another fantastic thing about Amherst’s math department: they heavily value student feedback. Right now, they are hiring a new math professor, and students are extremely involved in the process. After interviewing hundreds of candidates, 10 or so reach a final stage and each come to campus for a day. We’ve had plenty of these “candidate days” during January and February, and students get to sign up for a lunch with candidates (with catered food!), ask questions, and get to know the professor. We can then attend a candidate’s math talk in their area of expertise, and the current math professors then ask for student feedback, which they incorporate into their own opinions. There’s a reason math is one of our most popular majors at Amherst! It is obviously a very rigorous major, but one that is very accessible due to the quality and care of our professors!
One last example: one of my math professors takes care to curve our test and homework scores based on our prior knowledge. So if you came into the class with no knowledge about coding or group theory, he would make sure to level the playing field and remove those with prior experience from the curve calculation!
For my third class, I’m in a research seminar on America’s Death Penalty, with 6 total students. Yeah, a prime example of our great student-faculty ratio. The class also guarantees funding for summer research (a paid 6-week campus internship, basically), and I’ll get to collaborate with my professor and co-publish an article—maybe even a book. Professor Sarat specializes in America’s Death Penalty and the politics/laws surrounding it, and past publications from this class have even been cited in U.S. Supreme Court cases. It’s a highly reputable class, and there are plenty of research seminars in other departments offered to sophomores/juniors. They are all fantastic opportunities to learn and do real PHD-level research alongside professors. Also, FREE T-SHIRTS!!
Lastly, but perhaps most excitingly, I am taking a political science course in an Inside-Out prison format class. Professor Bumiller, a leading scholar in criminal justice, leads this program where 12 Amherst students travel to a local jail, and we take a class together alongside 12 inmates. It’s early in the semester, and due to confidentiality rules, I can’t say much about the class, but it’s a very unique opportunity to experience a non-traditional classroom setting. Much to learn!
All in all, I want to highlight my 2 STEM and 2 humanities courseload. It’s a pretty varied schedule that is surprisingly common for many students at Amherst. I’ve really touched on all my interests this semester, thanks to our open curriculum!
