Life after the bubble is not nearly as cushy as our life on campus. Work takes the form of a job with actual responsibilities to clients, not merely a hundred pages of sociology reading with the occasional paper interspersed in the middle. Your obligations to your family most likely exceed a phone call home once a week.
Perhaps the most shocking difference, though, is the realization that prepared, edible, relatively healthy food is no longer available nine-and-a-half hours per day. Yes, after Amherst, we won’t be able to simply swipe in at Valentine whenever we want (well, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., at least) for a hearty helping of Bulgogi or Thai Curried Chicken. We won’t even be able to walk to Keefe to get a nice, criminally overpriced wrap from Schwemm’s. Ordering food will still be an option, of course, but—especially in the first years after college—budget constraints might make this less than feasible on a regular basis. Thus, cooking is the most affordable meal option for tightly budgeting college graduates. However, unless you are one of the 22 Zu residents, you probably haven’t cooked a good meal in four years.
While Amherst graduates aren’t alone in lacking cooking experience, many of our peer institutions actively work to prepare their students for the world after college. Wesleyan University, for instance, has a policy of progressive independence. Students have the option to live in apartments—with kitchens—as upperclassmen. As seniors, it gets even better; many Cardinals in their final year live with a few friends in wood frame houses, gaining experience cooking, cleaning and putting out the trash once a week.
Amherst’s way of doing things is not without clear advantages. One of the main attractions of our college is the tight-knit community we possess, and the dorms and Valentine are without doubt a key part of that. After only one year of eating in Val two to three times per day, most Amherst students can recognize, if not name, the majority of their classmates—something few other college students can claim. And the common rooms in dormitories on campus provide considerable incentive for students to venture outside of their rooms. Wesleyan’s model almost certainly decreases the sense of community felt on campus, at least among upper-class students; if students don’t need to leave their houses to eat or socialize, the motivation to venture beyond home, class and party considerably decreases.
However, as Amherst continues to rebuild its residences, experimentation with the Wesleyan model might be worth considering. There are undoubtedly students who would enjoy living in an environment where they could make their own meals, who have no special interest in living in a commune. Providing more independent living options on or near campus would allow Amherst students to live in a self-sufficient environment before the shock of moving out of the bubble.
UMass owns a number of houses in the Town of Amherst; the College certainly has the money to buy a few, at least on an experimental basis. Alternatively, the College might consider instituting this type of housing on the Hill, where the former fraternity houses in Tyler and Plimpton already have kitchens that could be expanded. Students who choose to live where they would forego custodial services and cook on their own would be exempt from the meal plan, and could use money otherwise spent on Valentine for groceries.
The liberal arts experience is one of experimentation. We explore new systems of thought and seek to broaden our cultural horizons. While there are certainly advantages to the current system of a single dining hall and kitchenless residences, many students would enjoy having the option of experimenting with living more self-sufficiently. Since this type of exploration will be beneficial to adjusting to life outside our little bubble, facilitating it might be a particularly salutary move on Amherst’s part.