<p>Great, thanks Catfish :)</p>
<p>froghorn-This is stating the obvious, but it is a pretty intense amount of work. Most of my classes are in the humanities, so my day-to-day work is reading, reading, and more reading. An important life skill you learn in the first semester of college is how to prioritize your work. If you ready every line of every page carefully, you wouldn't have a very fun life. Professors don't expect you to have internalized every bit of the reading. I've found it very doable and rewarding, but there's time left over to have a life. Some people are more intense than I am and stay in the library much more, some people are more slackerish than I am, but I try to find a balance between the different aspects of my life at Amherst. This is no Swarthmore, where people compete to see who has it worst, but it's definitely a lot of work. But you knew that when you applied, right? :)</p>
<p>cdog08-Yay English! The Amherst English department is terrific. Most of the professors have been here for a long time and are really experts in their fields. As for creative writing, there are a lot of offerings--fiction, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, imitations, etc. And even if you're not in a creative writing class, there are lots of opportunities in our campus lit mags. Also, my English professor this fall offered to look at some of my writing, just out of the blue!</p>
<p>Kristina-Amherst's small size is one of the reasons I love it. I meet new people all the time, but see the ones I already know around all the time too. For whatever reason, I don't have many friends who are taking a lot of science courses so I can't really help you there.</p>
<p>thanks for taking the time to answer all our questions! i went to amherst for diversity open house as well, and i absolutely loved it. do you know anything about the visual arts department? i heard from various people that williams has a better art program (and more resources, because of the Mass MoCA and Tanglewoods and etc), but after visiting both schools i think i'd be happier at amherst. </p>
<p>also, you mentioned swarthmore. i also went to swat's discovery weekend and was a little intimidated by the stories of academic intensity. did you talk to swarthmore students when you were applying to colleges, and would you be able to compare the two schools outside of the workload?</p>
<p>Do Amherst graduates get jobs abroad? Like in investment banking?..</p>