Dartmouth College is just across the river and I have a couple friends enrolled, so I meet undergraduates from time to time when I’m in the area. When they hear I’m from the area (a “townie”), instead of being interested, they act uncomfortable – presumably from being in such close proximity to a member of the proletariat. At this point, when they ask what college I went to (or if I went to college), and I reply, “Amherst College – you know, down in Western Massachusetts?” one notices a marked change in their demeanor. Of course they know what Amherst College is. They are pleased to discover a fellow member of the “cultural elite” in their midst. It’s safe to break out the Blue Label.
People are in a constant state of trying to consider themselves more culturally pure than everyone else. When I arrived in college as a freshman, literally more than half the speeches at orientation revolved around creating humorous ways to deal with Amherst’s recent # 2 US News and World Report, as if it were an outbreak of Ebola. I dated a UMass student for a bit in my sophomore year. The simple quality of being a “UMass girl,” in some Amherst students’ minds, was enough to put her a notch down. Always a shame to feel you’d need a resume for anything but getting a job.
If I meet another one I’ll tell them I’m a UMass girl. That should weed out the good ones from the bad.
French Augmented Sixths 