PHOTO COURTESY OF ARIEL MORALES Amherst College students Christina Wong (Punahou 2007), Stacy Brossy (Punahou 2005), Nicole Anderson, Eunice Ko (both Iolani '05), Laura Taylor and Kyla Kitamura (both La Pietra 2004) flash shakas on the Memorial Hill section of campus. In the background is the Frost Library, named for poet Robert Frost, who taught at Amherst from 1916 to 1938.

Hawaii student testimonials

These are remarks from some of the Hawaii students attending one of the Five Colleges in Massachusetts.

AMHERST COLLEGE

Scarlett Johnson, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, 2007:

Quite honestly, I'm loving it! ... I am actually not currently taking courses at any of the other Five Colleges. Since there are already so many interesting courses I'd like to take at Amherst, I could easily see myself going all four years without doing so. Still, it's really nice to know that the option is there. If I did take another course, it would probably be at UMass-Amherst because, as a larger school, they offer a wider variety of course subjects.

Amherst is amazing. The classes are more challenging than anything I've ever experienced, but they offer a lot of wonderful services for getting extra help (such as the Q-center) and academic support, so it's manageable. All of the students are committed to learning but (to my knowledge) there's no competitive feel whatsoever - students try to achieve their own personal bests and don't purposely compete with others, which is great. The teachers are really enthusiastic about their subjects and seem super-dedicated. The facilities are awesome - I'm actually staying at the new Charles Pratt dorm (freshman housing) that they just renovated and it is phenomenal! So much nicer than anything I expected.

If I had to suggest an Amherst course for any of the other Five College students to take, it would probably be Geo 11 (intro to geology) with professor Tekla Harms - it's really interesting and has consistently received rave reviews.

Eunice Ko, 'Iolani School, 2005:

Amherst has been my dream school since 10 minutes after I stepped foot on the campus. I first visited Amherst on the 'Iolani college tour as a junior. I was looking at very good schools that week, but at Amherst, I felt something special. It was a gut feeling of belonging - an instinctive comfort. The students smiled back, and the campus was beautiful. After I got back to Hawaii, my further research on Amherst only revealed more great things. I applied through early decision, was deferred, then was ultimately accepted. I literally cried for joy when I got my acceptance e-mail. I celebrated with ice cream in the living room while my mom called everyone we knew.

Now, at my third year at Amherst, I still love this school. I love the freedom of not having a core curriculum, and I relish the opportunity to try the hundreds of new activities that are offered here. The faculty are on the whole skilled, very personable and brilliant. What I love most are the students. They still smile back - even in the dead of winter (although you have to infer that from the way the eyes twinkle and curve when their faces are wrapped with scarves). My closest friends are wacky, intelligent, fun and imperfect, and continue to dazzle me with new talents that I never knew existed.

I have not taken courses at the other campuses yet, but I have taken advantage of the social life of the other schools. I have also performed in a Five Colleges choral concert last spring, which was really fun.

Even now, with so much work on my plate, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. I also work at the admissions office at Amherst, and can provide some of the latest statistics about admissions, diversity, etc., if you are interested. I went to 'Iolani School since sixth grade, and as far as I know, am one of nine students at Amherst who are from Hawaii.

Christina Wong, Punahou School, 2007:

This semester, I'm not taking any classes at the other four colleges in the Five Colleges system, but I absolutely love the academics at Amherst! I'm also running cross-country for Amherst along with Nicole Anderson, another Hawaii girl who graduated from 'Iolani in '05.

I've never lived in 50-degree weather before, so right now I'm pretty cold, especially when I'm running outside for extended periods of time. It was amazing to see the leaves change color. My friends here tell me that fall is the most pleasant season, so I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for winter!

As for classes, I'm taking Introduction to Economics; Second-Year Chinese Language; Novels, Plays, & Poems (an English course); and Science & Religion (a freshman seminar class, which means that it's reading- and writing-intensive). I know Amherst has the best Chinese program out of the Five Colleges, so I'm sure that if I continue with Chinese, I'll be in class with students from the other schools. My favorite class is Novels, Plays, & Poems - the professor is wonderful! I've met with Professor Chickering several times outside of class, and he's really helping me to improve my writing. He has a great sense of humor, and I know he mentioned that when he attended Dartmouth many years ago, he had a roommate from Hawaii.

Amherst has an open curriculum, which means that there are no classes that I am required to take (I never have to take another math class again!), unlike most colleges, which usually lay out a core curriculum for students. Thus, I hope to take advantage of the Five Colleges system sometime during my time at Amherst and sign up for a class in an interesting subject that another college might have resources for. For instance, there is a wide variety of languages offered between all the colleges: Amherst has Swahili courses, Hampshire has Hindi classes, Mount Holyoke has Arabic, etc.

Additionally, the social life among the Five Colleges is fairly connected - after all, there is a free bus system that runs through all five campuses. I haven't actually been to the other colleges, but I've met some Mount Holyoke and UMass students who come to Amherst for certain events.

COURTESY PHOTO UMass Amherst photography major Tani Nakamoto sports a Hawaii T-shirt in her dorm room on campus.

Lani Kristen Gedeon, Punahou School, 2005:

I chose Hampshire for many reasons. The freedom to design your own major (called your "concentration") and lack of tests or grades gives way to a completely different style of education, one that is not standardized or mundane in any way. Instead of grades we get written evaluations, which are much more useful, to me at least, and in place of tests we have papers, final projects and presentations. Classes are small and very discussion-based, leaving students with much more personal attention and allowing for continual active engagement.

I have started a student group for environmental sustainability, which has been amazingly successful here. The great thing about Hampshire is that there really is opportunity to make a difference, because you are free to be creative, explore many disciplines and interconnect them in as many different ways as you would like. This school definitely has a lot of character and is unique in both educational and social aspects.

I have not yet taken a Five Colleges course, but many students utilize the Five Colleges system and take classes at other schools. Most of my friends are taking at least one class at one of the other four schools.

Drew Goldsman, Island School, Kauai, 2003:

This is a very hectic time of the year for me. I am graduating in a few weeks and am in the final stages of my Division III, which at Hampshire is a project you spend your final year working on. For me, this has come in the form of a senior thesis.

Hampshire and the Pioneer Valley (the Connecticut River valley) are pretty amazing places. Hampshire is a very interesting school, with a lot of difficult issues to deal with. Every great thing about the school also has its downside. For example, it is a wonderfully small community, but it is also an extremely suffocating social environment. It does provide you with the opportunity to pursue your own interests and create your own course of studies, but it is also therefore is filled with pretentious students as well as frustrating red tape.

A saving grace is Hampshire's involvement in the Five College Consortium. Without the Five Colleges, Hampshire would have a difficult time meeting some students' demands. I took more than half of my classes off campus, which was great, although at times I feel that it has left me a bit of a stranger to many Hampshire faculty.

JIM BORG / JBORG@STARBULLETIN.COM The 10-mile Norwottuck Rail Trail, which traces a former railroad right-of-way through Northampton, Hadley and Amherst, Mass., is ideal for bicyclists, skaters, walkers, runners and cross-country skiers.

Cu Ri Lee, Pearl City High School, 2006:

I have not taken any classes off campus yet. However, I plan to take two classes at UMass next semester (in public health). The Five Colleges system isn't as close as MHC advertises. If you don't have a car, you have to take the PVTA bus to get to the other schools, which takes 25 minutes to 40 minutes. It's also difficult to make relationships with students from the other Five Colleges. Though many Mount Holyoke students travel to Amherst, Hampshire, Smith and UMass, students from the other schools rarely travel here, and few take classes here.

MHC offers many opportunities for internships, going abroad, and jobs that I feel I could not get at a larger school. I was able to volunteer in Panama this past summer through a program my Spanish teacher recommended. I just presented my project to the school during Family and Friends Weekend.

I also like that the classes are small and the teachers know you by name. (That could also be a bad thing if you don't go to classes.) The teachers are understanding and although there is a heavy workload, they know that their classes aren't the only ones you're taking.

Sometimes the small environment is restricting. Directly off campus, there's nowhere to go. The school itself has taken note of the empty campus during weekends and is considering changing class schedules so more classes are on Fridays. My major is undeclared, but I'm considering double-majoring in Spanish and maybe psychology. I was pursuing the premed path, but I decided I was more interested in international health (public health) and not that interested in science. I can also go abroad to Spain next year since I don't have the premed requisites to fulfill.

Amherst and Northampton are good places to go to during the weekends - just to get off campus. But I like the city and since my friends have cars, I'm able to go to Boston and NYC.

Valerie Galluzzi, Punahou School, 2005:

I chose Mount Holyoke because I wanted to go to a women's college and liked Mount Holyoke the most out of all the colleges I visited. I was interested in women's colleges at first because my mother is a Mount Holyoke College alumna, but I decided to predominantly apply to women's colleges after taking a trip to visit colleges during my sophomore year at Punahou. I applied to Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Smith, Scripps and Bryn Mawr, and was accepted to all of these schools. I visited each (except Bryn Mawr) and liked Mount Holyoke the best. I liked the campus, location, and (most of all) the attitude of the students and staff.

The best thing about college so far is the greater freedom and responsibility I have been given. I am now in control of my own finances and my own schedule. I feel more accountable to myself rather than accountable to my family. I also enjoy visiting my boyfriend, who attends Western New England College in Springfield.

I took introductory physics and multivariable calculus at UMass. It was interesting because the class sizes were larger and there were more men than women - obviously a change from my classes at Mount Holyoke!

I like to go out to dinner in Amherst and Northampton. I also go shopping in Amherst because the CVS there is the easiest to get to via bus (the fare is free). I bought my favorite winter boots in Northampton.

Kira Johnson, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, 2006:

I love MHC. It is a beautiful campus. I love all the people that I meet. The classes are really good. It's far from Hawaii, but it makes me appreciate the beach more when I go home.

SMITH COLLEGE

Selena Chang, Sacred Hearts Academy, 2004:

I like Smith. It was definitely hard to get used to at first because of the weather and being so far away from home. However, Smith provides an amazing experience here for students. Being able to take courses in all disciplines allows students to think from all different points of view. I'm an economics and government major. The government concentration is in international relations. However, I have taken advantage of the liberal arts education and taken courses in astronomy, literature, math, design, and golf and springboard diving.

I've taken a course at UMass through the Five Colleges system. I took Beginning Spanish because it was an evening course. The PVTA (bus system) made it really easy to travel between campus. It's only about a short, 20-minute ride. I was able to eat at the UMass dining halls before class and I enjoyed meeting other students in the Five Colleges area. There are boys in our classes at Smith. The Five Colleges exchange allows students from coed schools like UMass and Hampshire and Amherst to take courses also at Smith. However, my first class at a coed school was at UMass for Spanish.

Northampton is a great town. There are great restaurants and great shopping. It's a great way to get off campus and explore the city. Sometimes I go to town to study.

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS

Kelsey Okuda, Hilo High School, 2003: I am a third semester senior at UMass majoring in political science. I graduated from Hilo High in 2003 and spent two years at the University of Hawaii before going on exchange to UMass for a year. After the exchange ended, I came to realize that I could not pass on the opportunity to complete my schooling in the area and transferred here in the fall of 2006.

As you probably know, New England is renowned for its esteemed academic institutions and breathtaking fall foliage. But what attracted me to the area are the people. New Englanders are stereotyped as cold and snobbish, but my personal experience showed a different crowd that made me feel more cozy here than back home.

But I think the biggest driving factor for students to come out to New England and especially the Pioneer Valley is the reputation of the schools in the area. Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke have reputations that speak for themselves. UMass' Isenberg School of Management is one of the top public business schools in the country and the Hotel and Tourism Management Program is internationally renowned.

The region has something to offer for just about anyone. Mountain ranges allow the adventurous outdoorsman the chance to go for hikes and Minutemen fans can cheer for the sport of their choice at the school's athletic facilities. There are malls, theaters and many outstanding restaurants all within the area. For college students, their student ID card serves as their bus pass, providing access to almost anywhere within the valley via the PVTA.

The nice thing about being in Amherst is that the setting is very similar to being back home in Hilo. The town is small and life is casual, yet if I want to get into the city and do something, Boston is just two hours to the east and NYC is three hours to the southwest.

Ian Wang:

I didn't actually go to high school in Hawaii. My family only moved there a couple of years ago. I went to high school in Oregon and I graduated in 2001. I'm at UMass for grad school. It's my second year here and my major is creative writing.

At first, UMass-Amherst looks like an ordinary state school. Its campus is by no means pretty, but I have come to like it for several reasons: this is a very politically active campus; there are all types of students, with different interests and everybody is very receptive. It is easy to make good friends here; there are some GREAT professors here, even though UMass may not have as big of a reputation as some other Boston colleges, some departments here have some of the best faculties in the nation - in my English Department, there are a couple of Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and a number of Guggenheim fellows; the Linguistics Department is probably the best in the country, and the Agricultural Department is on the very forefront of sustainable agricultural development; and I only found out this past year that UMass is the only major state school in the Northeast that offers a Japanese major (both Rutgers and UConn do not offer it).

One thing I really feel is this sense of positive change on campus. The administration is putting money into new dorms, new recreation center and new faculty hirings and as a student I can feel this buzz that the university is trying really establish itself as a center for learning, research and technology.

For a public school, UMass probably has the best technological equipment for students, even better than the four private schools in the area. The library has a great collection, is open 24 hours a day and equipped with the latest iMacs and Dell workstations. Wireless coverage is also excellent, and printing is cheap (only 5 cents a page, compared to 7 at UH-Manoa). These are perks you only expect at an expensive private school, yet UMass offers it to students.

The town of Amherst itself is quite boring, unfortunately. There are some great bookstores here, but in terms of restaurants or nightlife, the options are limited. There is a brewery called Amherst Brewing Co. that produces great beer. ...

In terms of food, the staple items are pizza and wings. Wings, as in boneless chicken wings. Here you can order them coated in different sauces and served with large amounts of greasy potato or fried jalapenos. Not very healthy at all, but great for parties and culturally they are pretty much the complete opposite to the plate lunches you get in Hawaii.

Northampton is a much more intellectual and yuppie kind of town. A lot of professional writers live here. A lot of English major students choose to live there. However, they have to suffer a 10-mile commute on a narrow two-lane road that can make travel very frustrating. Northampton is littered with quaint little restaurants and wi-fi coffee shops. The overall feeling is very European, even if most of the action just takes place on one street. Coffee shops are very cheap and usually have great pastry, but restaurants cost a lot more and I would say (are) out of the price range of a college student. There are good bars in Northampton as well. One thing you can trust about a New England town is that you can always find good beer here.

And yeah, I hardly see ANYONE from Hawaii on the UMass campus. Most of the students are from areas in or around Boston and every guy here wears a Red Sox cap. It's not even uncommon to see someone decked out with a Red Sox cap, a Patriots T-shirt and a Celtics jacket. Especially this year, the students are becoming increasingly arrogant about Boston's dominance of professional American sports, and loud parties and riots after some sporting events are not uncommon.

Tani Nakamoto, Mid-Pacific Institute, 2007:

As soon as someone finds out where I come from, they immediately ask, "Why UMass?"

I already know what to say because I've said it so many times: "Hawaii is nice, but I don't want to live on an island for my whole life." I don't mind that UMass has such a huge campus. It makes up for the fact that it's not located in a big city. I really like where UMass is located. It gives me a chance to see all the beautiful fall colors that I don't get to see in Hawaii.

I'll be really sad when winter comes and there won't be any leaves on the trees. But once it starts snowing, I figure leaves will be the least of my problems. Many friends and family warned me about the cold weather and so far I'm doing okay. I'm scared about facing the infamous weather up here but at the same time I'm glad for this experience.

Once in a while I'll go exploring in Amherst or Northampton (really convenient by bus). Hampshire Mall is really close by and I'd really like to go to Holyoke Mall but I haven't had the chance to yet. There also is a really nice diner along Route 9 that I went to with my parents.