Academic Resources To Seek Out!
Hitting the ground running and jumping on opportunities immediately is something that can be incredibly difficult for transfers to do, especially if transferring in the spring or as a junior. A few transfer students worked together to compile this page for their peers and incoming students.
Don't forget to check out the resources under the other CARC student sub-groups to learn more! While there is some overlap, the intention of this page is to provide students with an introductory list (not a comprehensive one) of various opportunities & resources at Amherst College.
Department Prizes
Depending on your major department, there are available prizes you can achieve. You can talk with your advisor to learn more about these opportunities.
For example, here is a complete list of available prizes in the English Department.
Fellowships
Beckman Scholars Program
Do you aspire to a career conducting groundbreaking research in the chemical, biomedical or life sciences? If so, you could be a candidate for Amherst’s Beckman Scholars Program.
- Who is eligible? Juniors majoring in biology, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, or neuroscience, who plan to enroll in a Ph.D., MD, or combined Ph.D./M.D. program after graduation. To be eligible, you need to be planning to complete an honors thesis, be a U.S. citizen/resident, and have a GPA at or above 3.67.
Funding for Student Research
The Gregory S. Call Undergraduate Research Program provides grants of up to $1,000 for students to conduct research during the fall and spring semesters and during the January term, often to support research related to senior honors theses. The sponsorship of an Amherst faculty member is required.
Gregory S. Call Student Research Program supports summer research awards for rising seniors who are engaged in thesis work on campus and includes a stipend equivalent to $15.25 per hour for up to eight weeks of work (or up to $4,880), as well as on campus room and board. The application must briefly outline a clearly defined project and have the strong support of an Amherst College faculty member with whom the student will work directly.
Schupf Fellows engage in intensive research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences over the summer months. Through the generosity of H. Axel Schupf ’57, a cohort of twenty rising Amherst sophomores and juniors is funded each year through a competitive selection process to participate in eight weeks of summer research with a faculty member.
Support for senior projects is available in the form of grants from the Alpha Delta Phi Fund and the David P. Patchel Memorial Fund. The Alpha Delta Phi Fund is designed to support senior essay writing, special topics, and other comparable independent projects. All seniors in the humanities and social sciences may submit an application, but first priority is reserved for English majors and others working in literary studies, creative writing, theater and dance, or film.
The Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship provides an hourly wage of $15.25 for an eight-week period, up to a maximum of $4,880 to enable three students who have just graduated from Amherst to work on campus over the summer to turn their senior honors theses into publishable papers under the supervision of their thesis advisor; on-campus housing will not be available.
The Harold Varmus 1961 Fund supports Amherst College students pursuing independent scholarly work, approved by an Amherst college faculty sponsor, in any field outside of the United States for a period of 10 weeks. Preference is given to rising seniors whose scholarly work will be used to support a thesis. Varmus Fellows must remain abroad at their place(s) of study for the duration of the fellowship.
The Academic Internship Program enables faculty across the ranks and disciplines to hire current Amherst students to help with projects relating to their professors’ pedagogy or research. The purpose of this program is to give faculty assistance for academic tasks that are substantive but time-consuming, and to give students the opportunity to work closely with, and therefore help, their faculty.
The Folger Undergraduate Fellowship
The Amherst–Folger Undergraduate Fellowship program began in 1996 and provides an opportunity for Amherst students to engage the Folger's collection through in-depth archival research. The program takes an expansive view of research and has included projects not only in English and History, but also in Anthropology, Psychology, Art, Music, Black Studies, Digital Humanities, Asian Studies, Political Science, and Statistics.
Projects for Peace
It is a global program that partners with other educational institutions to identify and support peacebuilders and changemakers on our campuses.Every year, 100 or more student leaders are each awarded a grant in the amount of $10,000 to implement a “Project for Peace,” typically over summer break. Most grantees are undergraduates. The program encourages young adults to develop innovative, community-centered, and scalable responses to the world’s most pressing issues.
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
Amherst College established the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) Program in January 2018 through a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to promote diversity and academic excellence in colleges and universities across the United States. The main idea behind this initiative is to create a supportive academic environment in which five talented undergraduate students are recruited and provided academic training, financial support, and faculty mentoring designed to better prepare them for scholarship and teaching. All students are welcome to apply for MMUF, though applications are particularly encouraged from African-Americans, Latinos and Latinas, Native Americans, and other underrepresented minorities (URM).