<p>Okay so more specifically I am interested in majoring in zoology, molecular biology, or biochemistry. I have heard great things about Hampshire but nothing specific about these departments. Anything you know about them would be helpful. I am looking for something small but well developed. Since the school is small I doubt I will be competing against too many grad students but any comments on that would also be helpful. Thanks!</p>
<p>Well how Hampshire does it is through concentrations. You take some of your classes on Hampshire campus, and working with your adviser you devise a program and take classes at the other campuses too. (With the bus service it is pretty doable for classes that meet twice a week- harder for 5 day a week language classes.) You build the program/sequence yourself. So you could take Biochemistry, Introduction to Statistics and Experimental Design, on Hampshire campus, and Molecular Biology at Smith, and zoology at UMAss. It is up to you. But you work closely with your adviser and professors in your “school” at Hampshire so you are not isolated and can build those helpful professor relationships.</p>
<p>If you want to see what is on offer this semester go to the Hampshire College website. Click on Academics, and choose an area- for example Natural Science (NS) program. You can click on the NS course descriptions offered there.</p>
<p>This is pretty acurate, people often say that NS is the forgotten step-child of Hampshire, but as a NS student I haven’t noticed. You can PM me if you have anymore questions.</p>
<p>I can’t tell you much because I’m a first-semester student, but I’m taking Evolutionary Biology with Charles Ross right now and it’s absolutely amazing. He also teaches courses in biochemistry, species identification, etc., so I imagine those would be solid as well. In addition, we have a particularly strong cognitive science department from what I know. I think the sciences are generally solid here but of course we’re limited being such a small school. But there’s always the Five Colleges. :]</p>
<p>it’s also pretty easy to get into upper-level courses. The bigger problem is getting them to fulfill distribution requirements, but it’s Hampshire, so you can make it work for you.</p>