#upper elm

Hey! If you are looking for a single I’d recommend a house within the Quad there are the most amount of singles within this area of campus. You can also check out how many singles and doubles each house has here. I hope this helps!

-Madison 21’  

As someone who had a single in my first year, I have to say that Northrop and Gillett on Upper Elm have the same amount of singles as Quad houses!

This is the first part of a series about study spaces at Smith College. Because Neilson Library, Smith's main library, is currently under rennovation, I was really nervous about finding good places to study. However, it really hasn't been an issue! Smith College has so many available study spaces, and your house is one of them!

Every house has a large living room with comfy couches and tables. My house actually has multiple area like this throughout the house, including one in the basement. I use these spaces for group projects, studying with a friend, or just to do homework when I'm in a more social mood.

If I don't want to leave my house, but still need to study, I go into the dining hall. All the dining halls are open to students as study spaces, or even to hang out in, all the time! I think Northrop, my house, has a really pretty dining hall with lots of natural light, so I often do readings and write papers in there. The dining hall (at least in 'Throp) is generally a quiet study space.

Some people also like studying in their room. The rooms at Smith all have very spacious desks, which is super nice, but I try to never study in my room for a separation of work and life.

Additionally, I know many houses, especially big houses like the quad houses, have recieved funding to reinnovate and add more study areas!

Hi! Congratulations on your acceptance, we’re so excited to welcome you to campus! Both Upper Elm and the Quad are great places to live with many of these characteristics, so I don’t think you can really go wrong! If you are looking to get a single as one of your top priorities, I definitely recommend indicating that you want a single and putting the Quad as your top choice.  I live in King House, which is in the Quad and is all singles! I was happy to get a single, but at first I was a little worried about making friends in my house.  It’s on the larger side for Smith houses (about 80 students) and I thought that all singles would mean that people would be antisocial.  But I was so wrong! People are always hanging out and chatting in our hallways, study spaces, and living room, and we have plenty of traditions and fun events! All of the houses have strong social networks and lots of activities and traditions, so you’ll find that anywhere you live.  I know lots of people who live in Wilson, the largest house on campus, and even there there’s a strong house community! Someone who lives on Upper Elm can probably speak to that experience better, but I’d say that the Quad definitely checks all of your boxes!

The general stereotypes of Smith housing are that the houses closest to the academic buildings (Green St and Lower Elm) are the quieter houses, houses farthest from the academic buildings (the Quad) are louder houses, and houses in the middle (Center Campus, Upper Elm) are a mix depending on the house and the year! I would say that the Quad is not actually loud like people make it out to be. The Quad just has a higher concentration of students in one area, so of course they will be more general noise and you will hear people talking, laughing, and partying (on the weekends). The other houses tend to be really quiet, even during the weekends. However, don’t fret about the different areas of housing because you will find people of all different types no matter where you live. For example, I live in a pretty quiet house (Northrop), but my best friend (who also lives in Northrop) and I are not quiet people. I don’t think that there is that big of a difference between houses, and, if you end up in a house you don’t like, you can move really easily!

Northrop House // Upper Elm Street by Jessica Tin ‘17, Northrop House President 2016-17

Northrop sits on the corner of Elm and Prospect Streets, the intersection of the Upper Elm, Lower Elm, and Center Campus houses (Northrop is part of Upper Elm). Obviously, I’d say this is the best place to live on campus. A few things that Northrop (and only Northrop, in many cases!) can boast:

Right across the street from JMG/the PVTA bus stop. Large college events (e.g. Convocation, Rally Day) are held in JMG, and having the bus stop right there means you can wait for the bus from our living room (perfect for rainy days!)Short (~5-10 minute) walk to pretty much anywhere else you’d want to go: downtown, the gym/music building/health services, the quad, anywhere in betweenFull kitchen AND an operating dining hall. Although our dining hall isn’t open for meals very much (four days a week, food served for lunch and dining room available for dinner), the room is always open to residents. The tables make it a popular study space during non-dining hours, and having a dining hall also means we always have hot/cold water and an extra microwave available! There’s a full kitchen in the basement, too (there’s always some baking on Mountain Day :))Three other dining halls (Cutter/Ziskind, Chase/Duckett, and Lamont) right nearby. Northrop is literally surrounded by houses with dining halls, which often covers most if not all of the menu options for any given meal, if you don’t want the vegan/vegetarian option offered at Northrop/Gillett.Working elevator. The house is handicapped accessible! The elevator doesn’t go to the fifth floor, but it does go to the basement.Working fireplace. I LOVE coming home to the warm fire when it’s cold out. It’s the best. (Also it feels pretty cool to be able to turn on fire with the flick of a light switch, which is how Northrop’s gas fireplace works)Mostly singles. Quad houses love to brag about this, but in reality, they’re not the only ones who can claim four years of singles. You can expect to have your own room from your sophomore year onward, and some first-years will have a single from the start.Room cubbies! Most rooms in Northrop and Gillett are in little groups I like to call cubbies, where two or three rooms and closets open up to a shared space that opens up to the hallway. It makes more sense if you look at the floor plan or the partial picture of my sophomore year cubby above, but there are doorways off the hallways that open up to smaller areas containing the doors to the bedrooms and closets. So, your room and closet might share the same hallway entry as another person’s room/closet. Not only does this mean you can get to know some of your neighbors with the privacy of a single, but you can also leave your shoes in the cubby area (great for winter, you don’t have to worry about tracking muck into your room), and you have two doors to shut if you’re concerned about noise. (Not that Northrop is noisy – except when we’re having a dance party in the dining hall… but seriously, it’s usually pretty quiet.)Finished basement and two other furnished common areas. In addition to the awesome study space that is our dining hall, our living room (the Vortex), an enclosed study (the TV room), and the basement all provide table space and couches, making them great hangout spots. The Vortex is the one most often occupied; there’s always a group of us eating there during mealtimes, and it’s where we have our weekly Friday afternoon teas and Wednesday night study breaks, among other gatherings. Movie nights take place in the basement, which got a new TV last year. The study is also good for TV, as well as meetings where closed doors can be nice, and the house’s library and piano are there, too. Basically, there are plenty of places for residents to hang out around the house; you can always find people downstairs! Big Sib/Little Sib—okay, so all the houses have this. But the week of secret gifts and our culminating semi-costumed reveal tea and the sib potluck dinners we have later in the year still make it one of my favorite parts of the house community. <3

Gilllett House // Upper Elm Street by Emi Lee ‘16, Gillett House President 2015-16

Gillett House is conveniently located on Elm Street across from the PVTA bus stop. It is nice in the cold weather to be able to wait inside for a bus. We are a 5-10 minute walk away from almost everything: classes, downtown Northampton, the quad, you name it! If you didn’t already know, Gillett House was the first dining hall on campus to go completely vegan/vegetarian, but that doesn’t mean all residents are all meat-free. Lamont and Chase/Duckett’s dining halls are right next door to us and provide a variety of meal options for all dietary needs. On those nights that the dining hall food just doesn’t cut it, fear not, because we have a full kitchen in the basement of the house!

Regardless of where your food is coming from, many Gilletties eat together in the living room and beau parlor for all lunches and dinners. Outside of mealtimes, these spaces (including the dining hall) are used for studying, house activities, and hanging out. It is not uncommon for residents to eat lunch in the living room and stay there until dinner and beyond. The living room is definitely the hub of the house where you can almost always find someone to chat with whether that be a housemate, Darlene (our housekeeper), or one of our many beloved dining staff.  One thing I love about Gillett house community is that there is always a good time to be had!

Smith has a lot of fun traditions that each house has their own way of celebrating (see below for how we celebrate some of them). Aside from Smith traditions, I would like to quickly highlight some special Gillett House traditions! My favorite event of the year is our annual Cultural Cookout, where housemates volunteer to make a dish that is important to them to share with the house. Cultural Cookout brings housemates together through food and allows people to try things they may never had imagined eating. Another Gillett House tradition is to have the first campus party of the school year. This is always an exciting event, because everyone on campus is so ready to party!

Some of our traditions:

-Mountain Day - Every year housemates go apple-picking in the morning, picnic by Paradise Pond for lunch, and go for a hike in the afternoon. Some people will opt out of the hike in the afternoon and bake the apples from the morning into a delicious dessert for dinner.

-Big sib/Lil sib - During the first couple of weeks of the school year, first years will receive anonymous presents for one week and find out who their big sib in the house is during our “reveal-tea.” This event is a great way to build our house’s community.

-House tea - Every week on Fridays the dining staff prepares snacks for tea in the living room. We often have guest speakers come to our tea to tell us about resources on campus. When we do not have a speaker this is a fun time to have lovely conversation with our housemates.

-Winter weekend - In the first weekend of December, the house holds a formal event where we have a cappella entertainment and lots of yummy treats to eat while mingling.

-Spring weekend - This is our annual semi-formal event where we have more yummy treats and a talent-no-talent show.

-Senior Banquet - Always themed, Senior Banquet is when we honor our graduating seniors and present them with acrostic poems, prophecies, and meaningful gifts. This is also a sentimental time for seniors to present wills to underclass-people.

Capen House // Upper Elm Street by Dana Hsu ’16, Capen House President 2015-16

Located on Upper Elm, Capen House sits atop a (sometimes) grassy hill on Prospect Street and houses 73 residents. Not only is Capen a beautiful house to look at, but also its infamous tight-knit community, cozy common spaces, and garden paradise make it a fantastic place to be.

House leadership is always super involved, organizing craft nights, karaoke, movie nights, music jams, study breaks, letter writing to Capenites studying abroad, participating in interhouse sports games, and more throughout the semester. Beloved Capen house traditions include weekly Friday teas, Big Sib Little Sib week, Mountain Day apple-picking, and First Year Prom in the spring, where new students and first years invite upperclassmen to Capen Prom. At meal times, Capenites will always find a place at the Capen Table at Lamont’s Dining Hall, even if 30 chairs have to fit around a table meant for 20 (it has happened). We also take pride in our unstoppable house spirit and friendly rivalry against our neighbor Talbot House. Most recently for April Fool’s, we put up ‘For Sale’ signs on Talbot and submitted a feature article to The Sophian campus newspaper (see photo for evidence).  We like to have fun.

Though we don’t have an official mascot like our rival house, tales from 2013 alums indicate that our unofficial symbol is an imaginary mini-train, originating from a senior Engineering major who longed to visit the gym with her whole house without having to walk there.

Capen’s community is extremely active and supportive, and a lot of us call Capen a ‘home’ and Capenites ‘family’. When a Capenite is performing or hosting an event on campus, Capen residents make time to support them and quite literally take up half the audience. Not exaggerating. Almost all of my fondest Smith memories were spent in this house and with my housemates. I’m proud to be a part of it and gush about the house and my housemates all the time. Having lived in this house all four years, I’ve seen Capen’s community grow and improve with every year that goes by, so I’m hoping it can only get better! Reach out to a Capenite for anything and I’m positive they will lend a helping hand.