<p>Anytime :D</p>
<p>Also, check this: [Five</a> Colleges, Incorporated: Home](<a href=“http://www.fivecolleges.edu/]Five”>http://www.fivecolleges.edu/)</p>
<p>It’s very useful, it’s the official Five College Consortium website, so there’s plenty of information about the consortium, a catalog with all the classes offered in all the schools, and much more information that you may need. =)</p>
<p>Next (Fall) Semester, my daughter intends to take 3 off-campus courses, two from Smith, one from Mt. Holyoke. It remains to be seen if she gets into them all, as they are all small 300-level courses, but that’s the plan. She indicated to me that taking 3 off-campus Five College courses was not a problem. I think that as long as you end up with at least 50% of your coursework at Hampshire, you are OK. Since most students take 4 courses per Semester, this averages out to 2 off-campus courses per Semester.</p>
<p>Also, as far as dance goes, the Five College Department ([Five</a> College Dance Department : Welcome](<a href=“http://www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/dance/]Five”>http://www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/dance/)) is housed at Hampshire, so sometimes non-Hampshire courses are taught on the Hampshire campus. Here is the tentative list of dance courses that will be offered by the Five College Dance Department:
[Five</a> College Dance Department Course Schedule](<a href=“http://www.fivecolleges.edu/dance/schedule2.html]Five”>http://www.fivecolleges.edu/dance/schedule2.html)</p>
<p>I have read that it can be hard to students to take classes at other colleges unless they have a car because it can take quite a while to get around on the buses. Alf- has your daughter taken classes at other schools before? What is her experience with getting around on the bus? Does she stay on Hampshire’s campus for social activities or is she able to go to the other campuses at night via the bus? Can first year students have cars on campus?</p>
<p>The buses actually work quite well. Amherst, UMass Smith and Mt. Holyoke are all pretty much equidistant from Hampshire ([PVTA</a> Five Colleges - UMass, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke](<a href=“Error 404 PVTA”>http://www.pvta.com/FiveColleges.php)). The only time the buses don’t work well is very early in the morning and very late at night. Our daughter doesn’t have a lot of experience at this - she goes back and forth between UMass a lot (class + boyfriend); but our son took several classes at Smith & Moho and he considered it quite easy to do. As a matter of fact, he and his friends commonly took the bus to MoHo to study in the library there.</p>
<p>Our daughter spends most of her social time on campus (except for visits to the aforementioned boyfriend). Our son ranged far more widely, spending a lot of social time in downtown Northampton, which has a lot more action than Amherst. Again, the kids go all over the place on the free buses. </p>
<p>Of course, a car would be much faster, because you don’t have to wait around for it! First-year students can have a car, but they will need to get a permit as soon as possible, because there is a limited amount of close-in parking. I don’t remember the permit cost, but it isn’t much. The best thing about a car is driving to the airport, to avoid the expensive >$50 shuttle services.</p>
<p>Hampshire now has ZipCars! Our daughter has an account and periodically rents a car for a couple of hours to run errands - mostly for her Resident Intern (“R.A.”) job.</p>
<p>Thanks for those links Dinouchie and ALF. I didn’t realize the dance department was housed at Hampshire. It definitely looks workable.</p>
<p>Update: Our daughter has two of her three requested Smith or Mt. Holyoke classes approved for Fall Semester. The last one remains up in the air, primarily because a professor is not yet assigned (i.e. there is no person to specifically approve of a student to enter into the course). It took several weeks for the 5-college course approval process to work, but it eventually occurs. </p>
<p>I’m told that most of the 5-college faculty in a particular discipline know each other, so if a Hampshire prof calls her peer at another college to request that a particular student get into a class, that seems to really grease the skids.</p>
<p>If you want to see the courses offered at Hampshire or the rest of the 5 Colleges, go to “The Hub”:
<a href=“HTTPS://thehub.hampshire.edu:443/TheHub/TheHub?TOKENIDX=5643789728&type=M&constituency=XHSTS&pid=ST-XHSTS[/url]”>HTTPS://thehub.hampshire.edu:443/TheHub/TheHub?TOKENIDX=5643789728&type=M&constituency=XHSTS&pid=ST-XHSTS</a></p>
<p>The search function is a little unwieldy, but you can find anything you might be seeking.</p>
<p>FYI, Hampshire’s Family Relations Blog (<a href=“http://blog.hampshire.edu/family/[/url]”>http://blog.hampshire.edu/family/</a>) is starting to heat up as the new academic year approaches. This is a good place to get answers to questions, particularly for incoming students and their families (disclaimer: I helped contribute some of the content).</p>