How does Amherst College's open curriculum work for undergraduates?

Amherst’s open curriculum is very flexible for undergraduates. Unlike schools with a core curriculum, Amherst does not require distribution requirements across subjects like math, science, humanities, or social science.

The First-Year Seminar is a small discussion-based class taken in your first year, and it is designed to strengthen writing, speaking, and analytical skills. Beyond that, your main structure comes from your major, because each department sets its own requirements for completing that field of study. So you still have academic guidance and expectations, but they come mostly through the major rather than through a college-wide checklist.

Students also work with academic advisors, especially early on, which helps keep the freedom from feeling directionless. If you want to explore broadly, the open curriculum makes that easy. If you already know what you want to study, it also lets you go deeper sooner because you are not using many courses to satisfy unrelated general education rules.

At Amherst, this can lead to very different academic paths between students. One student might take courses across Black studies, economics, and environmental science before declaring a major, while another might focus heavily on math and physics right away.