Suddenly professors expect me to have serious conversations about my goals, desires, thesis topics (what?!!!) and career choices. The same easy, meandering conversations that I had grown used to are no longer "acceptable." It seems that while I was encouraged to run wild through the fields for two years, trying any class on a whim and enjoying the "liberal-ness" of my education, covertly I was supposed to be calculating a path.
Well, no one seemed to focus on the path part; only seductive notions of "expanding my horizons" and breaking the "three supporting paragraph" paper mold stand out in my underclassman memories. In fact, if you were to take an aerial view of my course selections over the last two years, it would look frankly more like an ant farm than any type of path.
I've gone through brief interludes of thinking I was going to be an Asian studies major, a religion major, a psychology major, and a few others I don't care to go into. Consequently, while I may have taken more classes and tried a few more internships during the summer before junior year, I really don't feel more prepared to sign sheets that tie me to any "declarations."
I guess I just wish that at the beginning of my "liberal" education someone would have alluded to the fact that the level of liberal-ness was going to be drastically curbed my junior year. But perhaps that is the central point of a liberal arts education: students aren't supposed to be "told," they are supposed to be given "the tools" (still pondering what exactly those are) to make independent decisions concerning their own education. Still, a little hand-holding would have been nice at the beginning of this process.
Constriction has not only suddenly taken hold of the academic realm; our quaint social scene has shifted as well. During freshman and sophomore year, "going out" for me meant meeting new people. Every night was a new conversation with a few "unknown" Amherst people. It was great: I would head out with a flock of friends, end up losing them after a beer or two, and spend the rest of the night wandering around meeting people. It's not that I didn't appreciate spending time with my friends. But other than when you are "out," when do you get the chance to meet random people at Amherst?
Class is not the most social period of time, and unless you like being considered "the crazy" who harasses random people at dinner, Val isn't quite the place to start conversations with people you don't know either. Other than those basic points of convergence, clubs and sports teams obviously provide a sphere to meet people with similar interests-but by junior year, you are pretty much acquainted with the people in your respective groups and there is little chance to meet new people.
To get back to the point, as a junior, the random conversation venue just seems to be slightly less accessible. People, including myself on bad days, have generally become more jaded and figure that they have met most of the people at Amherst who they consider worth knowing; others are tired of putting in the effort to do the "where are you from," "what do you do?" (because everyone at this college seems to "do" something) game; and some just don't want any more mailroom "hi" acquaintances. There's also the addition of preconceptions rooted in two years worth of gossip, which can be hard to ignore even if you have never officially met the object of the gossip yourself.
These changes might be a natural result of becoming accustomed to Amherst and consequently losing the initial excitement and enthusiasm about being part of a new place. However, while Amherst is now a very comfortable place that I have called "home" a few times lately, I miss the feeling that new experiences and opportunities lie around every corner. In both the academic and social spheres of Amherst, it just seems that as the years pass by, opportunities and accessible choices diminish.
But, then again, when I was looking at colleges, the Five College Consortium and the idea of being able to access the social and academic scenes of other, nearby colleges was what attracted me most to Amherst. It's true, within a five mile radius of Amherst's campus lie four other small utopias with plenty of activities to take part in and people to meet. However, the scene is not all as easily accessible as pre-frosh would like to believe. Preconceptions spring to life again and the stereotype of Amherst students as "living 'Fred' replicas from 'Scooby Doo'" is hard to overcome when meeting Five College students (not that we don't have our own, semi-brutal labels for the other four colleges). Not to mention the fact that merely getting to the other colleges when you are carless in Massachusetts can be quite an ordeal.
However, my complaints seem to fall under the category of "slight inconveniences" and perhaps I am searching for excuses to make up for my unwillingness to ride the PVTA 10 minutes to "experience" a Hampshire party or a half an hour to see the Smith art museum-which is supposed to be amazing, if anyone out there is interested in pushing their boundaries.