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.