What do the students do on a weekend if they are not into drinking and partying? Also… how are the courses graded because they are small. Is there a curve or just straight grades?
I’m a parent. On the weekends there are school-sponsored parties (like this next weekend’s first year formal at the Powerhouse) as well as things like Outing Club trips, speakers and so on. You can look at some events here: https://www.amherst.edu/news/calendar and, just for an idea of the OC: https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/our-community/studentgroups/outing_club/events/past - students also go into town, study, hang out in the dorms, play outside if it’s nice, whatever.
Some of my kid’s classes have exams that curve (up only and it’s pretty minor like 2 points more). There aren’t “weed out” curves where only a certain # of kids get As and so on as there can be at other schools.
From personal experience… There’s always stuff to do if you’re not into drinking and partying. My schedule is always jam-packed with activities both school sponsored and just random students getting together to have fun. It’s actually hard to pick between all the events since there’s usually multiple happening at the same time.
On the weekends I have:
- watched movies with friends
- attended classical music concerts
- Outing Club hike
- hung out in town
- read books for fun
- made jigsaw puzzles
- chillax with friends
- club meetings, etc.
About the curves… It depend on the class. Professors want their students to succeed so there’s a lot of support. I feel like the curve is usually fair to make sure people understand how they’re doing in the class, and so that they aren’t punished for being “average.” It’s slightly mysterious how it all works, tbh.
thank you for your reply! How much homework do you do on average each night? most weekends?
It depends on the classes you take, but I personally average about 2-3 hours of homework each night. On the weekends, I usually have about 6-7 hours of homework. That’s not including studying/practice time or youtube/procrastination.