<p>I am interested to know if Amherst students actively take advantage of both courses and social activities at the surrounding schools. One of the many reasons I am interested in Amherst is the consortium. How easy is it to get to those schools at night? If one of the schools has a concert etc does Amherst have shuttle buses taking and returning at end of event? Does the consortium have a web site that announces lectures, concerts etc? Thanks for your response. Dana</p>
<p>hey all of you Amherst students could you please respond to this thread as I am very interested to hear from someone about this aspect of your school. It is one of the benefits that they spoke about when I was at the school this summer. I wanted to know if the hype met the reality. Thanks, danashu</p>
<p>ditto that, i'd like to hear some responses too... the consortium is a big part of the attraction so it would be good to hear if it plays that big a part in student's lives...</p>
<p>Tough time to get any responses from the students. The big game was today and it was away, and as usual before a holiday, the students are swamped with papers, studying for tests, etc. so there won't be any work during the holiday. However, I can tell you that my D has a couple Holyoke students in her classes. There are limitations on how many you can take per semester and the kids would be better at answering that. I know my D rides the bus for free merely by showing her ID. It makes the rounds to all the colleges.</p>
<p>the consortium is a great element of the Amherst experience both socially and academically. every weekend students from the five colleges--especially smith and mhc--come to Amherst for parties, and Amherst students go to the other colleges for parties too, but also for events, speakers, etc. The bus system is convenient--it stops at all the colleges and runs until 2 a.m. on weekends. five college events are publicized on the daily jolt, which is a popular website that is a sort of online hub for Amherst's social life. From the perspective of academics, somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of Amherst students take a course at one of the other colleges in the consortium at some point in their four years, and among those students, the vast majority take at least 2-3 courses on the consortium campuses. i am planning to take a class at smith next semester. course offerings at the other colleges can be very helpful, particularly in filling in areas that our departments may not cover quite as well.</p>
<p>Smith has alot of programs that are better than Amhersts such as dance and italian...I think there are a few more too. But the bus system is def convenient (the hours are great and they go late for partying and other purposes) and its nice to go to another school for change. I go to smith, so this really isnt an amherst opinion but hope it helps! go to <a href="http://www.fivecolleges.edu%5B/url%5D">www.fivecolleges.edu</a> for more info.</p>
<p>Yep, this is currently a crazy week. (Why am I procrastinating? I need to go write a paper and read three acts of Much Ado About Nothing by tomorrow.) </p>
<p>Students do take advantage of the 5 college consortium, which is a really nice thing. There's a UMass girl in my Psych class. I have a senior friend who's taking courses at UMass and Smith.</p>