Harvard vs Amherst for humanities: which is better for an undergraduate humanities major?

The biggest practical tradeoff is scale: Harvard gives you a much larger humanities ecosystem with more departments, libraries, archives, events, and course options, while Amherst gives you a smaller, more consistently intimate undergraduate experience with seminar-style teaching and very direct faculty access. For discussion-based classes and close professor interaction, Amherst often has the edge because it is a liberal arts college built entirely around undergraduates. For breadth, intellectual traffic, and the sheer number of humanities resources, Harvard is hard to match.

Amherst is especially appealing if you want your humanities education to feel personal from the start. Classes tend to be smaller, professors are teaching undergraduates rather than dividing attention across a major graduate enterprise, and the open curriculum makes it easier to build an interdisciplinary path across literature, history, philosophy, languages, and related fields.

Harvard offers a different kind of strength. Its English, History, Classics, Philosophy, and language departments are exceptionally deep, and the surrounding resources matter in the humanities: rare collections, museums, lectures, visiting scholars, and cross-registration possibilities all expand what an undergraduate can do. Even though some intro courses can be larger, Harvard still has many discussion-based classes, and upper-level humanities work can be excellent. The main difference is that you may need to be a bit more proactive about carving out close relationships in a much bigger academic environment.

If your priority is the best day-to-day undergraduate teaching experience in the humanities, Amherst is very compelling and arguably the cleaner fit. If you want maximum range, institutional resources, and a humanities world that extends well beyond the classroom, Harvard offers more. For the specific things you named most clearly, discussion-heavy classes, close faculty contact, and undergraduate focus, Amherst has the stronger case.