First-Year (Main) Quadrangle

There’s music for every taste, from classical to funk, from orchestras to chamber music. The Pioneer Valley is a major stop on the concert trail. Major concert halls in Amherst and Northampton—venues such as the Iron Horse Music Hall, Calvin Theater and Pearl Street—mean that you can watch live music pretty much every night (recent examples at Amherst College alone: Macklemore, The Decemberists and The Roots, as well as the Music at Amherst concert series, which features chamber music and leading vocalists).

Located downtown, Amherst Cinema Arts Center not only shows the latest art-house features, classic films and documentaries, but also offers live discussions with film artists, education programs, and broadcasts of productions from around the world, including Britain’s National Theatre. South Hadley’s Tower Theaters, close to the Mount Holyoke College campus, offers a mix of mainstream and independent features, and if you’re looking for the latest Hollywood blockbusters, Cinemark is located in nearby Hadley at the Hampshire Mall.

Sure, every college town has pizza places. But Antonio’s in Amherst is one of the best in the country, and there’s so much more, from French to Mexican to Italian to delicious deli.

Our town is full of some of the friendliest, warmest and most intellectually engaged people you’ll ever meet. Many such folks can be found at Share Coffee, or Amherst Coffee (of course, Frost Library’s café is not too shabby either). As one student put it, Share Coffee "attracts the kind of people you see in romantic comedy movies but secretly hope to meet in real life.”

Small batch beer flows at two brew pubs in Amherst: High Horse Brewing downtown and Amherst Brewing Company on the edge of UMass. Locals love The Moan and Dove just a mile outside town, for its serious selection of casks and bottles. The Northampton Brewery beckons to the west, and though it doesn’t have a brew pub, Berkshire Brewing Company offers some of the tastiest beer in the region.

Amherst College’s own Wildlife Sanctuary includes 500 acres of open fields, wetlands, flood plain woods, river, upland woods, plantation pines, and ponds.

If bicycling (or jogging or cross-country skiing) is your thing, on our east edge lies the 11-mile Norwottuck Rail Trail. This paved trail cuts through the college’s Wildlife Sanctuary and connects Amherst, Hadley, and Northampton.

Buses operated by the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) take you wherever you want to go, well into the early morning hours and on weekends when school is in session. College students simply show their ID to ride as often as they like. And through our Zipcar program, you can get 24/7 access to Zipcars parked right on campus.

Whether by air, rail or bus, traveling to and from Amherst is a breeze. Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., is about an hour from campus, and Boston’s Logan Airport is about two and a half hours away. Shuttle transportation from either airport to campus is available. Megabus offers daily bus service to New York City, and Amtrak has limited service to nearby Northampton and extensive service to Springfield, Mass., just 30 minutes from campus.

We’re proud of our own Inn on Boltwood, recently restored to its former glory. Right on the Amherst Common and on the doorstep of campus, this inn has housed students, alumni, families and the occasional famous poet (Robert Frost) since 1926. It’s known for impeccable service, luxurious style, exceptional food and commitment to environmental sustainability. There are plenty of other lodging options, though.

The Early Opportunity for Native Students (EONS) offers participants all the activities and opportunities of our Access to Amherst (A2A) program, but with the added benefit of additional activities focused on the experience of culture and community for American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Native Alaskan peoples. Students participating in the EONS will spend time with members of the Amherst College Native and Indigenous Student Association (NISA), learn about our extensive Kim-Wait/Eisenberg Collection of Native American Literature, and meet others involved in the Amherst College and local native community. Participants will join the events of our A2A program, including information sessions with our admission deans, a faculty panel, and time with current Amherst College students, faculty and staff.

In August 2013, Amherst College acquired one of the most comprehensive collections of books by Native American authors ever assembled by a private collector. A generous gift from Younghee Kim-Wait (AC 1982) made it possible for the library to purchase the Pablo Eisenberg Native American Literature Collection. Pablo Eisenberg devoted years of his life to collecting nearly 1,400 books written by Native American authors ranging in date from 1772 (Samson Occom) to living writers still publishing today (Louise Erdrich).

Students in the Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) certificate program draw on the resources of not one campus but five, benefiting from a wide variety of courses exploring Native American and Indigenous histories, literatures, cultures and contemporary issues that are taught within the consortium each year.

The certificate furnishes an excellent foundation on which to build a professional career, graduate work or research. Its requirements provide a strong grounding while each student works closely with a faculty advisor to design an individualized course of study.

Amherst has 34 residence halls. Seven of these buildings are for first-year students. Sophomores, juniors and seniors choose where they live, and housing for them is available in various configurations. Twenty-seven halls and houses, existing in various room configurations, are dedicated to returning students. The occupancy of our buildings ranges from 10 to approximately 125.

Some sophomores, juniors and seniors choose to live in theme houses, which allow students who share an interest to be together on the same floor or residence hall.

The communities are:
Asian Cultural House
Charles Drew
French House
German House
Humphries House
Latinx Culture House
Marsh Arts House
Russian House
Spanish Language House
Sylvia Rivera Community