Hampshire College MA .com

A Highly Qualified Candidate

When I applied to Hampshire College in 1983, I felt I was a highly qualified candidate. Most of my education prior to Hampshire was in ungraded open education. I was accustomed to evaluation based courses, and I was extremely self motivated. By the time that I entered Hampshire, in addition to my classroom education, I had spent summers apprenticing a sculptor, I had taught myself assembly language computer programming, and I had trained for and ridden my bicycle from New Jersey to California.

My Hampshire College Application

The application for Hampshire College required a personal essay, accompanied by either an artistic portfolio, a piece of creative writing, or an example of scientific work that a person had done. I submitted all three.

My Artistic Portfolio

For my artistic portfolio, I provided slides of my artwork, including images of a stained glass window commission that I had completed, selections from my wheel thrown and sculptural ceramics, and two pieces of my bronze sculpture that I thought were particularly successful.

My Published Fiction

For my creative writing sample, I included one of my published pieces of short fiction, as well as references to others.

Technical Stock Analysis written in Assembly Language

Finally, for my scientific work, I included a well documented computer program for technical stock analysis, although later it occurred to me that there was probably no one on staff at the admissions office qualified to evaluate my code.

Leaving for Hampshire College

When I had visited the Hampshire campus, I had learned about the school newspaper, and before I left my parents home, I had written outlines and drafts of articles that I wanted to publish there. I packed my training bicycle, my computer, some art supplies, and some books and clothing into my car and I entered Hampshire in the fall of 1983.

A Very Focused Student

I lost almost no time at Hampshire in what was called, “Creative Floundering” and signed up for a full course load from the beginning. I had chosen Hampshire as the place I wanted to graduate from. I knew why I was there and I knew what I needed to do.

The Hampshire College Disregard for Students

Despite my drive, commitment, and focus, Hampshire College would see to it that I would never graduate from their program.

Taking Courses at Hampshire College

During my time at Hampshire, I was a highly focused student. I took as many courses as I could on campus, and then took classes off campus as soon as I was allowed to in my second year. For better or worse, I focused more on coursework than on proceeding through Hampshire’s Divisional Exams. By my fourth semester, I had only completed one Divisional Exam in Social Studies, although I had found topics and committees for my exams in Natural Science and Humanities and Arts.

Started My Own Small Business At Hampshire

By that time, I had also started my own small business providing van service to New York City. I felt disappointed that I was not able to keep up with the level of physical conditioning that I was accustomed to, and chose to take off what would have been my fifth semester to train on my bicycle and recharge.

Making Good Progress Toward Graduation

My fifth semester was the best in my Hampshire College career. In addition to completing four courses, two of them off campus, I also completed the major body of work for the two Division One Exams I had started.

My Natural Science Distribution Requirement

My Natural Science Exam was to be on the use of fibrous algae as it could be processed and used in paper-making. This combined my interest in finding an alternative to tree farming for woodlot management with my interest in creating PH neutral paper for fine art.

My Humanity’s and Arts Distribution Requirement

I also did an independent study in play-writing with a concentration on a playwright named Christopher Fry. The play that I wrote over spring break that semester placed second in the Dennis Johnson play-writing competition, beating out seniors and other students for whom play-writing was their primary focus.

Progress on My Concentration

I was also doing well for my Division Two Exam, compiling all of the courses that I had taken into a concentration. All that was left to complete my Division Two was to find additional committee members. I had completed the major body of the work I had been focusing on – the study of problem solving methodologies that exist independent of disciplines.

Too Much Ambition, Not Enough Friends

If there was one mistake that I feel that I made at Hampshire College, it was that I didn’t spend enough time making friends and networking with the people there. I maintained my relationship with my girlfriend in New York City and I didn’t spend many weekends with the people in my dormitory.

Not Enough Networking with Professors

I also didn’t make very close relationships with the professors at Hampshire, even those who worked with me as my advisers. Retrospectively, I realize it was unusual of the college to allow me to write for their school newspaper when I had chosen my academic studies over most connections with the other students.

A Summer of Work Toward Graduation

I had spent the summer preparing to return for my sixth semester at Hampshire. Traveling back to school, I brought with me the two finished write-ups for the Division One Exams I had started, as well as the rough draft of my Division Two. I had also written a proposal written for my final Division One Exam in Computer Learning, and a rough draft of a proposal for my Division Three in Cognitive Modeling.

Working to Graduate in Four Years

I did everything I could to be on track for a four year graduation. Retrospectively, I should have filed the proposals for the exams that I had started before I had finished my fifth semester, but I didn’t see any problem with filing and completing my exams in the same day as I had done with first Division One Exam.

Administratively Withdrawn Because of Payment Due

When I tried to get my room assignment for my sixth semester, I was shocked to learn that I had been administratively withdrawn from Hampshire College. Apparently, the bill for my fifth semester had never been paid, and that bill needed to be cleared before I could start classes.

Problems in My Family

What I didn’t understand at the time was the depth to which my mother had descended into cocaine addiction. Being the irresponsible, malicious wife of a rich, sociopathic doctor, she had chosen to spend all of the money that she and my father had set aside for my education to pay for her drugs.

Nowhere to Go

I was stuck. I had nowhere to go and I was told that the soonest I could talk with someone about my bill was the next day. Since I didn’t even have enough money to pay for a hotel, I slept in my car that night in the parking lot of the administration building.

My Tuition Based on My Parent’s Income

The next day I met with anyone who would talk with me to figure out how I could start classes and finish my Hampshire degree. I was told that since I had entered Hampshire as a dependent student, my tuition was based on my parents’ income and that full tuition needed to be paid before I could return to school.

No Combination of Financial Aid Possible

What I learned was that there were no combinations of student loans that I could take out to allow me pay for that semester or the remainder of the degree myself. I also learned that I would need to live completely separately from my parents for the next three years to be classified as independent, and for the available financial aid to be based on my income and not my parents’.

No Negotiation Possible

During the course of that day that I sat in waiting rooms and tried to negotiate with anyone who would talk with me to find any way that I could remain in school, there were the words of one financial aid woman that particularly burned in my mind.  She said, “You should have thought about the cost of Hampshire College before you applied.”

No Control of the Decisions Being Made for My Life

At the age of nineteen years old, how could I have anticipated the tragedy that was happening in my family?  And even if I could have anticipated it, what could I have done to change its course?  I was being thrown out of Hampshire College that day because of financial decisions I had no control over.  Further, according to Hampshire College’s admissions policy, acceptance was financially need blind, so my admission to Hampshire should have had nothing to do with my ability to afford it.

Threatened with Legal Action

My education was stopped on that day, and I understood that whatever Hampshire had said about valuing the individual was a lie. Further, I was also told that since I was not given a room assignment, if I remained on campus I would be arrested for trespassing.

No One Ever Saw the Work I Did

I drove back to New Jersey with my car still fully packed.  Despite the fact that I had spent the entire summer writing my exams, unless the bill was paid, no one would ever review the papers I had written that past summer.

Drug Death in my Family

Within a year of my return to New Jersey, my mother was dead of her drug addiction, and our family has never recovered from the damage she did during those years of cocaine abuse.

Sent to Collection by Hampshire College

What happened next is something that I still do not understand even decades later. Despite the fact that the bill for Hampshire College had been in my parents’ name, I was sent to collection for the outstanding $10,000 tuition due.

Pursued by the Alumni Fund

It was ironic that the first letter I received from Hampshire’s collection agency arrived on the same day as the first letter I received from Hampshire’s Alumni Fund office. I placed the collection notice in the postage paid Annual Fund envelope and returned it to Hampshire with the first of many letters stating that their shortsighted administrative policies would forever cost the college any alumni contribution that they might have received from me.

My Transcripts Held Hostage

My anger at Hampshire would have kept me from ever paying my fifth semester bill, except that the College was withholding my transcripts and would not allow me to transfer any of my credits out of the school until they received payment in full.

Working to Pay Hampshire College

Despite the training I had received at Hampshire in architecture, computer science, and writing, my highest paid skill was still as an artist. For nearly the next two years, I returned to New Jersey and worked painting murals and installing raised roofs on custom vans to earn the money to get my transcripts released.

Permanent Health Costs

I earned the money, but unfortunately the paint I used was extremely toxic, and I had to quit the job when I went into liver shutdown. It is likely that I will have heath issues from that exposure for the rest of my life.

Credit Ruined, Education Delayed

The amount of time it took me to earn the $10,000 not only delayed my education by two years, it also resulted in Hampshire ruining my credit. When I was finally able to transfer to the University of Massachusetts, my bad credit prevented me from taking student loans, and I had to earn the money for each course I needed working part time. This meant that I could only take one or two classes per semester and it took me ten years to graduate.

My Career Destroyed

I completed my degree at the age of thirty-four years old instead of twenty-four years old, making my baccalaureate practically worthless for someone my age.

Fifty-Five Credits Transfered out of Hampshire College

When I transferred to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1989, I was able to keep only fifty-five of the credits I earned from the five semesters I was at Hampshire. The problem with Hampshire credits is that although another school will accept them, there are no Hampshire courses that can be used as electives at another school.

Hampshire College Credits are Worthless

This meant that although UMass recognized me as having completed two years of college, I had taken none of the required courses necessary for my major, and I was now under pressure to finish my degree in a timely manner.

Working My Way Through School

Added to this stress was the fact that I needed to earn the money to pay for each course as I went along. There were some semesters that I couldn’t take a single course because I needed to catch up financially and personally.

Living in Poverty

What was most important to me at this point was getting a degree in a well recognized major so that when I graduated I would be able to get a stable job and not continue to live in such utter poverty.

Choosing A Hard Major

The degree that I chose was in Mechanical Engineering. This was a very difficult major for me because I had little math and no science background before I started. Hampshire’s architecture program did little to prepare me for this related field, even though at other schools, much of the coursework is the same.

Taking Remedial Courses

Slowing my degree even further, it took me two and a half years of remedial courses before I could complete the first semester entry requirements for the major. What I could not anticipate was that during the time I was working to complete the mechanical engineering program, the manufacturing industry would withdraw from the United States, rendering my degree practically worthless.

Hampshire College Credits Preventing Graduation

Ultimately, my struggle to transfer my Hampshire credits to UMass almost prevented me from getting a college degree at all. Because UMass counted my fifty-five Hampshire credits as part of the total I could earn towards my degree, and because I was financially unable to take more than three to six additional credits per semester, I ran into the ten year graduation limit at the University.

Threatened with Declassification

I received a very threatening letter from UMass warning me that they would declassify me if I did not complete a degree that year. Declassification would have meant that although I could continue to take courses at the University indefinitely, I would not be eligible to receive a Bachelors Degree, despite all of the work that I had done at two separate schools.

Changing To A Worthless Major

There was only one solution that would allow me to graduate in the time I had available, which was to change my major from Mechanical Engineering to a Bachelors Degree with Individual Concentration (BDIC), and use the courses that I had already completed to create a custom contract major.

Receiving an Unmarketable Degree

What this compromise meant was that after being in college for fourteen years, and having earned nearly two hundred college credits, the degree that I was going to receive was going to be unmarketable and useless.

Trying to Avoid an Unmarketable Degree

Instead of getting an unmarketable BDIC from UMass, I decided to try to transfer back to Hampshire College and complete the Division Three Exam that I had drafted nearly a decade before.

Trying to Transfer Back to Hampshire

My idea was that I would transfer back the hundred and forty credits that I had earned at the University, which I would use to fulfill all of my Division One and Division Two requirements, and I would then take a year and write my Division Three Exam.

Still Trying to Graduate From Hampshire

I felt that a special concentration from Hampshire College was more valuable than a contract BDIC from UMass. Plus I still wanted to finish what I had moved to Massachusetts to complete thirteen years before in 1983 – to graduate from Hampshire College.

Providing an Opportunity for Amends

I also felt that this would be a good solution for Hampshire College as well. This would be an opportunity for Hampshire to make amends for having so unceremoniously thrown out one of their students for only a few thousand dollars so many years before.

Hampshire Valued None of My Work at UMass

I delayed my graduation from UMass so that I could talk with an adviser at Hampshire to discuss transferring back. After a lengthy discussion, what I learned was that I would still have to complete my Division Two Exam at Hampshire in addition to my Division Three Exam, meaning that it would take at least three semesters at Hampshire College to complete my degree there.

Nine Years at UMass Meant Nothing to Hampshire

Since I had already completed five semesters at Hampshire, this meant that the nine years I had spent at UMass meant nothing towards my degree at Hampshire. Despite Hampshire and UMass being part of the Five College Consortium, neither values the work being done at the other institution. The arrogance of Hampshire College is almost unimaginable.

Being Forced Out of UMass

I finally did the best that I could. I graduated from UMass in 1997 instead of 1987 when I would have graduated from Hampshire College. I had to leave the University two semesters short of completing the degree requirements for Mechanical Engineering. I was really looking forward to taking those senior level engineering courses.

No Professional Certification Possible

The degree that I completed was a BDIC in Computer Modeling, or simply put, how to describe and test mechanical systems using a computer. Although I took many years of engineering courses, the degree that I received did not allow me to be certified as a Mechanical Engineer, so that when I have worked in engineering, my salary has been half of what it would be with a Mechanical Engineering degree.

Graduating With a Valueless Degree

Despite having spent so much of my life trying to get my college degree, and finally graduating at the age of thirty-four with only a Bachelors, what I effectively received was only an Associates Degree.

My Skills as a Mechanical Designer

There was one last opportunity for Hampshire College to redeem itself. In the years that I had studied and worked after being thrown out of Hampshire, I had become a skilled machinist, a certified welder, and a mechanical designer. I never could get paid much living in the economically depressed Western Massachusetts, but I had worked for several companies and eventually received several US patents for my designs.

Applying to Work at Hampshire

With my skills as a mechanical designer, I applied to a position as an instructor at the Lemelson Center, Hampshire College’s mechanical design program. I had been to fairs showcasing the Lemelson students’ work, and to this day I continue to help one of Hampshire’s Lemelson graduates refine and market his designs.

Learning the Skills for the Lemelson Program

I asked at the Lemelson program what skills they needed me to have to work there, and they told me that the design tool they needed help to train students in was called Velum. I purchased a several thousand dollar license for my own personal copy of the program and I spent several months learning how to use it thoroughly. But, by the time that I got back to Hampshire College with my skills, they had moved from using Velum to using Solidworks, for which they didn’t need my help.

Lemelson is an Expensive Waste of Student Time

When I went back later to talk with the teachers at the Lemelson program, I asked them how they helped students progress to patenting their designs and bringing them to manufacture. In the words of the head technical trainer there, “What we do is just chase the students around. We don’t teach them how to patent or market their designs.” I was shocked that he was so clear that all that he was doing was wasting some very expensive student time.

Lacking Star Power

At that point I asked about possibly teaching in that program so that I could train students in the patenting and marketing process. I was told that my application would not be seriously considered because I lacked a portfolio of successfully marketed products that I had designed.

Perverse Rational

It occurred to me that I would have had this portfolio of successfully marketed designs had Hampshire not delayed my graduation from 1987 to 1997, allowing me to work in industry instead of just working to get my degree.

Progress in my Industry

In the years since I applied at the Lemelson Center, two of my designs have been successfully marketed, and one of my designs has become an industry standard solution, now being licensed to and copied by many manufacturers.

Professional Time Wasters Needed

It also seems that there is a contradiction in requiring instructors at the Lemelson Program to have a portfolio of marketed inventions when neither invention nor marketing is taught there.

A Second Division I in Social Science

Although I have already passed my Division I exam in Social Science I would now like to take the unusual step of submitting this site as a second Division I exam in the same school.

The Basis Of Any Division One Is A Question

I have asked the question, “Does the educational experiment named Hampshire College work?”   Then using every metric that I can use to measure it, the quality of the education, the value of the education to its students, the value of the education as measured by other institutions, and even the value of the education as measured by College itself, and in all cases Hampshire has failed.

Warning People About Hampshire

I have been asked why I have spent the time and money to build this site and the shortest answer is, knowing what I know it would have been irresponsible for me not to have.  Hampshire College is a pit and I needed to place some warning sign to prevent other young people from falling into it.

Continuing To Be The Person I Am

It occurs to me that the Hampshire College admissions process did everything it could to screen me as a Type A personality, and then did whatever they could to get in my way.  Ironically, as Hampshire identified before they accepted me, it is my specialty to eliminate problems as they get in my way.   It then seems particularly bad judgment from the perspective of Hampshire College to have clearly and repeatedly identified itself as a problem.

Hampshire Destroying Itself

It is now my long term goal to close Hampshire college.  With this goal in mind I would try to alienate past and current students from the administration of the school, although from their practices it is clear that they are doing a pretty good job of destroying the place themselves.

It Is Time To Close this Failed Educational Experiment

There is no reason why any educational institution should go on forever.  In the more than twenty years that I have had dealings with Hampshire College they have demonstrated that their educational model is flawed, and that the only interest they have is for themselves.  It is time that Hampshire College now close as it has proven itself to be a failed educational experiment.