I used to ride for Amherst-I'm just a social member right now. This spring I'm riding with the UMass eventing team. I started when I was eight, when my parents gave me lessons for my birthday.

I've been told that your uncle is a professor here. Do you have any qualms about having family members around you while you are at school?

My uncle is a biology professor here. I was worried freshman year that people would think I didn't really deserve to be here or that I got accepted because of my uncle, but it doesn't really matter now. It's not something I think or talk about very much.

I hear your hair was once blue. Is there a story behind this?

You're thinking of my ID photo, in which my hair was dyed blue and turned out slightly blue-green on blonde hair. It's actually my senior photo, that my high school required to be formal, which entailed (for the girls) wearing this stranger's-armpit-sweat-soaked piece of cloth called a drape, and, for the guys, a fake tux. Multiple rebellious teenager heads were dyed before senior photos, and mine was one of them.

What is your favorite movie and why?

I'm so behind on movies. Anything I could recommend, everyone here would have seen already. I'm pretty much a pop culture black hole; that's what Amherst has done to me in the last three years.

What has been one of your favorite College experiences?

I can't say much about my favorite experience, except that it happened one night in the Boltwood Tavern, with a broken martini glass, an attempted strangulation, and the first sentence of a potentially great English paper written on a napkin and forgotten.

Which countries would you visit if you had the chance?

Honestly, I'm from rural southwestern Virginia, very near Jerry Falwell (I'd use red-state, blue-state, but think it's too annoying for words). The Northeast is already a bit like being abroad.

What is one thing that most people don't know about you?

Something that I probably wouldn't tell the school paper.

Any favorite experiences from back home?

I love being at home. I live on a 220-acre farm, and so am rarely ever bored-there is always a cow to chase back in, or a horse or a four-wheeler to ride. Also, when I'm home I foxhunt with the Bedford County hunt (red coats and horses and hounds, and no, we don't kill the foxes).

Do you have any pets?

I have my horse here, just down the road in South Amherst. At the farm the abbreviated list of animals includes 60 cows, five horses, two goats, innumerable chickens, cats, dogs, turkeys and a peacock.

What is one thing you cannot live without?

That's kind of a dramatic question. Air?

Thoughts on the Amherst "party scene"?

Call it a "party scene" and of course it's going to sound bad. But I've been to some good things here-Amherst just gets a little small after a while, and that's probably the biggest problem and no one's fault. We could use playlists that are a bit fresher-this semester it seems the same five songs are on everywhere.