I’m currently seriously considering applying to Hampshire College, and am planning on applying to grad school for a Ph.D in literature after I graduate. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the English department and if this would be a good place to go if I have this goal in mind.
Another thing is, I was wondering about the other 4 colleges I can take classes at if I go there, (Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and UMass Amherst), I was curious if taking classes at these colleges was an easy thing to do, or if there are a lot of rules and restrictions on this program.
Hi - I don’t know anything about the English department at Hampshire but can address your second question. My son who just graduated from Hampshire (he tracked in theater) took classes from all but Smith and found it relatively easy. I believe the only rule is that you can’t take 5 college classes as a first semester Div I (that may have changed since my son’s first year) and I think the only exception to that is language classes. Bus service from Hampshire to the other colleges was pretty easy, according to my son. He definitely felt having the consortium was a huge bonus for him. https://www.hampshire.edu/central-records/five-college-course-registration There’s also information here: https://www.hampshire.edu/academics/the-five-college-consortium
Our daughter graduated in '13, so her info is relatively current. She knew a lot of students concentrating in English-related fields. According to her, Hampshire is well known for it’s creative writing curriculum and faculty, but less so for literature. She told me that her impression was that the literature offerings were ‘uneven’ in the sense that they reflected the specific interests of the literature faculty. So, if you are particularly interested in Russian literature, you are in luck, but not so much for (e.g.) early American literature.
My advice would be to look at the courses that have been offered over the last few years. Go to https://thehub.hampshire.edu and select ‘Search for Courses’ on the main page and then the next page as well. Select a term (it goes back about 5 years), and then in the ‘Subjects’ field, select ‘Humanities Arts Cultural’ from the drop-down menu. Click on the ‘Submit’ button and you will see all the courses offered by the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies (all such courses are prefixed ‘HACU’). If you look at several terms, you will get an idea of the literature-related courses that have been offered recently.
As BTMell mentioned above. it is ‘relatively’ easy to enroll in courses at the other colleges in the Five College system. It is a little cumbersome and time-consuming, because there is a 2-part approval process where you need to obtain approval from your Hampshire advisor and the professor teaching the class in question. The latter isn’t too hard if it is clear that you have the course prerequisites, but Hampshire being what it is, with some of it’s funky course titles, sometimes it it not entirely clear that a student really does have the appropriate prerequisites. Having said that, both my kids successfully took several classes at each of the four other colleges.
By the way, you can look at all the Five College classes as well from https://thehub.hampshire.edu if you select ‘Search for Courses’ from the main page, and then ‘View Five College Courses’ on the next page.