Hampshire opened in 1970, created when presidents of four distinguished New England colleges sought a home for bold, influential—even radical—ideas in higher education.
At Hampshire, your education focuses on personalized, independent work, close collaboration with faculty, and hands-on experience through study abroad, short-term field studies, internships, volunteer work, advanced independent projects, and much more. Advancing through three levels, or Divisions, students explore freely and widely across Hampshire's five interdisciplinary Schools.
To graduate, every student, with faculty advice and guidance, devises an individual program in which they attempt to ask, and answer, a question perhaps never before posed. There is no other undergraduate college that approaches learning this way.
The mission of Hampshire College is to foster a lifelong passion for learning, inquiry, and ethical citizenship that inspires students to contribute to knowledge, justice, and positive change in the world and, by doing so, to transform higher education.
We believe that graduating learners with the ingenuity, purpose, capacity, and grit to mobilize collaborative innovation and cooperative action is the most valuable contribution a college can make to society. We envision Hampshire alumni continuing to change lives, communities, and the world for the better.
Hampshire students take charge of their own intellectual and artistic development and integrate an active, independent, critical, and reflective perspective into their lives as a whole. Hampshire aims to graduate lifelong learners with the courage to challenge boundaries, ask questions, and ignite knowledge with creativity.
We envision Hampshire thriving as an innovator, providing inquiry-based, learner-centered education, and empowering students to think, discover, innovate, and advocate. We aspire to respond to the twenty-first century's challenges by graduating adaptive entrepreneurs of change equipped to be creators of the ideas, art, and means of progress. We envision a community that draws resilience, strength, and meaning from every kind of diversity. Hampshire aspires to foster a welcoming community inclusive of individuals from an array of backgrounds and perspectives. We believe that diversity is central to the academic experience, campus culture, and transformative learning.
As a Hampshire student, you will join a diverse community who thirst for meaningful education, want authentic assessment beyond grades, seek to pose compelling questions, and want to collaborate with faculty and peers. Here you'll learn to connect ideas--and to put them into action. You'll build an education that reflects your passions and your goals.
Hampshire College is a member of Colleges that Change Lives, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and supporting a student-centered college search process. At Hampshire, you will take responsibility for your education, customize your curriculum, and move beyond the boundaries of disciplines and departments. We call this your academic concentration. It emphasizes learning, not on teaching. Guided by our accomplished faculty, you will forge your path, taking roads not already paved for you. In the process, you'll acquire the ability to teach yourself.
Hampshire's divisional academic system provides a framework to guide you in building your academic concentration and completing a yearlong advanced study project in your final year. You will develop competence in four key areas: analytical writing and research, quantitative analysis and reasoning, independent project-based work, and multiple cultural perspectives.
To further support authentic collaboration, Hampshire has replaced single-subject departments with five interdisciplinary schools. This flexible structure permits you a more extraordinary richness and variety of academic activity. A Hampshire education is not complete until you demonstrate the ability to use your knowledge in successively more sophisticated independent projects of your design. These projects follow a graduate thesis model, with students expected to complete original work of a high standard, with assistance from their faculty mentors.
In addition to the distribution requirements, you must include volunteer service to Hampshire or the surrounding community as part of your Hampshire education and, in Division III, are asked to look beyond the specific focus of your work by integrating your scholarship into the broader academic life of the college and to consider your work from a non-Western perspective.
The global education office (GEO) at Hampshire encourages students to integrate global experiences into their academic programs in ways that expand their understanding of other cultures, perspectives, and educational environments, promote ethical citizenship and community, and inspire positive change. In consultation with their academic advisors, students choose from a wide range of programs all over the world or design their programs.
Hampshire students are members of one of the most vibrant academic communities in the world. Central to the intellectual vibrancy that characterizes Hampshire is the learning and experiences that occur outside the classroom. Much of the variety of life outside the Hampshire classroom begins in the five residential "houses." The houses are more than residences. They are the locus of a great range of student activity.
Hampshire offers 100+ student groups and 200+ student activities and intercollegiate club sports, intramurals, and an outdoor recreation program. Whether planning the line-up of live bands for Spring Jam, initiating a community service project, or painting a 20-foot high mural in the RCC lounge, every student has the chance to have an impact on our community. And of course, if that's not enough for you, you can also join the clubs and organizations at the other Five College schools.
At Hampshire, you won't choose a major the way you might buy a product. Instead, you'll build a concentration out of your interests and intellectual curiosity, in close consultation with your faculty advisors. Hampshire supports several programs and centers that focus on new, emerging areas of study that aim to establish novel combinations of disciplines or integrate learning with community-based or socially conscious endeavors.
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