Being able to take a class in one of the other four colleges in the area is something that I’m really glad I took advantage of during my time at UMass. During my years of undergrad I’ve taken a total of four classes outside of UMass: three at Smith College and one at Amherst College. Three out of the four classes ended up being centered around dance, which is actually not something I really planned for, but the options available in the colleges allowed me to pursue and explore my interest in dance. In my junior year I took a hip-hop class and a contemporary dance class at Amherst College and Smith College, respectively. These might have been offered at UMass but it was really the different course times that allowed me to fit them into my schedule. That is something great out about the five-colleges as well. If a class you want to take conflicts with another class time, you can always look for the same class at a different college and sign up to take it.
Currently I’m in a 400-level Spanish course at Smith College, fulfilling my final requirements as a Spanish major before I graduate. The class has been great so far, offering an interesting curriculum and peers that are interested and engaged in what we’re discussing. For this blog, however, I really want to talk about a class I enrolled in that combined both my interests in Spanish and dance. I think it was a class that could only have been taught by the specific professor who taught it, and therefore only offered at Smith. It was on the advanced study of the aesthetics and history of salsa music and dance. My professor was a man from Cuba who had not only studied the subject academically, but also grew up within the cultures and communities where salsa is a living, breathing thing. There were two days of classes a week that alternated between discussions on academic readings and sessions of actual salsa dancing, taught by the professor.
The readings were very interesting, covering themes that we don’t usually associate with dance, such as the intersections between race, culture, and immigration. I learned how salsa music and dance travelled from the Caribbean to New York City, immigrating with Cuban and Puerto Rican populations. I learned how much of salsa’s roots come from the descendants of slaves in Cuba and Puerto Rico, something which is apparent in its rhythms that are similar to traditional West-African rhythms. I had been dancing salsa off and on since I was fourteen and had never thought about these things, but suddenly was aware of the political and social aspects of the dance.
The other half of the course- the dance lessons -were a really interesting way to approach the material. In a way, we could experience the music and culture of salsa in a physically interactive way. Not to mention they were a fun way to complete a four-credit academic course. I never thought that salsa dancing could have a place in an academic setting, but I actually think everything we learned was really relevant, both historically and presently. Towards the end of the semester we went as a class to a salsa night hosted every week in downtown Northampton. Even though I had been there before, I looked at the dancers from a new perspective, noting what kind of people were dancing, what kind of salsa it was (on one or on two), etc. I also tried taking on the role of leader (a traditionally male role). Since Smith is a women's’ college my professor had decided to teach us the both of the positions in salsa so we could dance in pairs, something I had never learned in any of my classes before.
Overall I was really surprised to find a class that was so specific to my interests and that was a legitimate academic course, and I never would have found it if I hadn’t looked at the five-college course catalog. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to study at a college outside of UMass. I think the reason some students don’t do it is because they think it’s too complicated to enroll or don’t want to bother taking busses. It’s completely worth it, however, because you can come across some really interesting classes and experience a new learning environment (small colleges usually mean smaller class sizes). Five-college classes can definitely fulfill many different requirements as well, so there’s really no reason not to enroll in one.
The process to enroll in a five-college class is easy:
Go to your Spire and click on Five College Enrollment Requests (under Enrollment tab)
Fill out the form with the class information and print it out
Go to the class and have the teacher sign off on your enrollment
Hand in the form to the Five College Interchange office and they will process it
Note: Sometimes it’s good to email the professor beforehand to see if there is still room left in the class (if you are applying in the first two weeks of the semester).
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