Hampshire College

E-mail: atgl05@hampshire.edu
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Entered Hampshire: Fall, 2005
Areas of academic interest: History, Social Movements, Queer Studies, Social and Political Theory

I chose Hampshire because I wanted to be at a school where I could combine my academic studies with resistance work and organizing for social change. I also loved the idea of being part of a small community (Hampshire) within a much larger community (the 5 colleges).

I am currently in the process of becoming an official Division II student. I have a committee of two professors who have decided to work with me and am in the process of writing an official contract.

My Division II is titled "The Potential for Change: History of Oppositional Social Movements," and is designed to be a study of social movements that uses history as a means to think about the construction of radical and inclusive resistance movements within the context of the current U.S. social and political landscape.

I do not know what I want to be when I grow up and I do not want to know! I plan to do many things with my life, mainly centered around working for a better world, but at this point I am really focused on the process of "growing up," rather than the end result of the process.

The experience of going to professors with a proposal for a completely individualized curriculum is really unique to Hampshire. I don't think I would have been able to solicit professors to work with me in the way that I've done here at any other school that I looked at.

When I first enrolled, I was honestly surprised at the range of social worlds that exist here. Hampshire has a reputation for being a very self-selected student body, which for me implied a fairly monolithic group of interests, styles, hobbies, etc. But I found when I got here that there were SO many different types of people here. I really do believe that there are people here for everyone, and it is just a matter of finding them.