Amrita Acharya ’23J
Meet the Majors
Other clubs, activities:
Smith Squash team, 413 Ethnography
Where has been your favorite spot on campus to relax? What spot will you miss the most?
I like to read and do homework in Helen Hills Hills Chapel. The quiet of the old building is not like any other quiet I’ve experienced on campus.
Another spot I love in the summertime is under the Camperdown Elm behind Chapin house. I’ll miss taking my lunch and spending time with friends there.
The quiet of the old building is not like any other quiet I’ve experienced on campus.
Describe one moment with a professor that particularly sticks with you.
There are two.
One, taking Intro Macro with Prof. Mahnaz Mahdavi. I had had a bad experience taking economics in the past, and she encouraged me to do well in the class and take more economics. I went to her office hours a lot and she always made me feel confident in my thinking and work.
Second, I had Prof. Dana Leibsohn for my Architecture major seminar and whenever we’d meet she’d always take a vested interest in my learning, even outside the class. She encourages students to not only see their own interests/strengths in the content of her course, but acknowledge that they are important contributors to the class. Even though I’m no longer in class with her, she continues to support my ventures, including helping me bring in a speaker to campus who I researched as part of her class.
What’s your all-time favorite Smith memory?
One is Community Day hosted by the squash team back in 2020. We invited Pioneer Valley squashers to join our practice and we split up into teams and played a bunch of matches. It was really fun because we got to get to know some incredible people in the area and bond over our shared love for the sport. It also happened right before the pandemic, so it’s one of the fonder memories before having to leave campus.
I learned a lot about how to engage art in nontraditional spaces.
Second, hosting the art show at the Masonic Street Laundromat back in October. I run a podcast called 413 Ethnography, and I got together with the laundromat’s owner to curate a student art show. It was such a fun, though challenging, process and I learned a lot about how to engage art in non-traditional spaces. We had a big opening night where my Smith friends and local friends all got to come together.
