In Conversation With
why we should care, and to how it connects to or
to pick a range of them. That’s exactly what I did.
enriches our personal lives and the world around us.
I know that some people will look at the range of
Amherst College advocates for lifelong, interdisciplinary options that I chose and think ‘well, that’s not a
learning through a unique open curriculum. Students have standard English degree’… but I will tell you that
the opportunity to select from a catalog of as many as 850 I read and wrote in every single class that I took
courses from Amherst College and its neighboring insti- in college, whether they were designated English
tutions. As an alumna of Amherst College, in your opinion, classes or not. That’s also a part of a liberal approach
what are the greatest merits of this type of curriculum and to education, expecting students to express, both
access to various fields of knowledge? orally and in writing, their engagement with the
text that they’ve being given, whether that text is
a a piece of philosophy, a math problem, a painting,
Bachelor’s degree in English, but I actually took a film, or a piece of literature. When I look back
Rachael:
I
graduated
from
Amherst
with
courses in more than 20 different departments! I on my undergraduate education, I took calculus,
went back and counted. It’s crazy that I came out ancient history, literature from around the world,
with a degree in anything! Part of that is because dance, art, black studies, economics…it was really
so many courses are interdisciplinary and listed in all over the map. I still remember the insights I
many different departments, so you might have a gained from my psychology course and connect
course that’s listed in both psychology and history, them to all kinds of things in my life.
for example.
I’m not too intimidated to have a conversation
I also took classes on three different campuses in with an economist even though I didn’t major in
the five-college area, so I tried to take advantage economics. It shouldn’t be the case that you can
of any and every opportunity that the school was only speak with an engineer if you’re an engineer
giving me because I could. There are a couple of or that you can only speak to a politician if you
different approaches in schools of thought within know all there is to know about politics. Politics
these small liberal arts colleges. Some colleges will affect everyone’s daily life. I have a daily life, I have
require you to take courses in designated areas and opinions about things. I think a big part of having
you can choose within them. The IB works similarly those experiences is developing the confidence to
to that as well. It requires students to at least touch engage, broadly, in our personal and work lives. It’s
the key areas that the school values. very difficult to quantify.
Amherst doesn’t do that. They considered whether As a ninth-grade student, I was extremely shy. If
they should have a core set of requirements or you had told me then that one day I would get up
whether they should just let students choose in front of audiences of thousands of people…in
whatever they want. The reason they let students China… I would’ve thought that you were com-
choose so freely is because when they allowed that pletely crazy. Due to the education that I received
to happen they realized that the students naturally through high school and college, I was often in
chose a liberal path. They didn’t have to make them small groups of students in a class, all of whom
choose all of these different options. I think this were smart and inquisitive. In that context, you
is because of the types of students that Amherst have to be prepared and ready to participate fully.
selects. They’re choosing kids who are really All of that is good practice for being able to express
curious and involved and when you give curious yourself in a way that people can really hear you.
people 850 different course options, they are going
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