Senior Scholars Day

This Tuesday I participated in a Susquehanna tradition called Senior Scholars Day. During the day, students give oral presentations and poster presentations about their senior research. Music students have recitals, while students' graphic design work is also put on display. In some ways, this event is a sort of academic culmination for seniors. It’s a chance to show off all the work  you’ve been doing to members of your community, including friends and faculty. I was able to present as well as see some of the other presentations.

What I liked about seeing other students’ presentations was that I could get a better sense of their passions and what they spent their time working on this semester (or this whole year). Though I’m aware that many other seniors are also tackling extensive research projects, I still rarely think in detail about all the work other people are putting in at the library or at the lab. I stopped by two posters by friends of mine who did scientific projects. It was nice to be able to hear about their projects—even if I felt like I didn’t have a very sophisticated understanding of the scientific terms they were using! One of my housemates did a poster presentation about her project as well, though hers was in a humanities field. I felt like I learned more about her research when I stopped by to support her, which was cool since we'd already been talking about it frequently throughout the semester. 

I ended up going to quite a few interesting oral presentations as well. Oral presentations on Senior Scholars Day last about 10 minutes and then leave a few minutes for questions. I got to hear about similarities between early Islam and Christianity, the racial integration of a college football team, a comparison of Holocaust museums, and the ways Confucian thought can be beneficial to Roman Catholics’ participation in rituals. My friends really are doing compelling research!

At 2:20 p.m. was my presentation on my capstone for the Religious Studies major, called “Recovering a ‘Heart of Flesh’: Challenging the Devaluing of Emotion in Evangelical Christian Approaches to Dating and Rhetoric.” Preparing for this presentation was a challenge. The paper I’m working on about this subject is at 40 pages right now. Reducing that information to 10 minutes seemed almost impossible. After a very late night on Monday, however, I was able to narrow down my scope and figure out what I wanted to present. I shared with my audience some information on how evangelical Christian books on dating and purity talk about emotion, as well as some quotes from female medieval mystics that I think challenge that attitude towards emotion. I felt as if I sharing such a tiny sliver of my research, but perhaps that is really all that needed to be done. A ten minute presentation isn't really enough to allow someone else to dive into your subject, but it is enough to introduce it to them. Some of my friends came to support me, which I really appreciated.

All in all, though, I must admit that it felt a bit anti-climactic. I had this presentation at the back of my mind all year (to be honest, I had probably been assuming I’d participate in the day even longer than that), and then, well, it ended so quickly. Perhaps I was envisioning something more. Maybe I had been wanting people to leave the room as fired up about my topic as I was. Even if that wasn’t quite the case, I did receive some good feedback. Maybe it mostly felt strange because it was another major senior year milestone crossed off my list. Though I have exciting opportunities awaiting me after graduation, I’m still pretty uncomfortable with the fact that there are very few milestones left to go. 

Breakfast with the President

One of the great things about going to a small school like Susquehanna is the accessibility of our professors. We are lucky to have a very accessible president as well. President Lemons is notorious on campus for his friendliness towards students and stunning ability to remember students’ names, as well as his annual Twas the Night Before Christmas reading before winter break. 

Over the course of their senior year, all students are invited by President Lemons to a breakfast or a lunch. In a way, these meals serve as a focus group for students to share their experiences with Susquehanna—good and bad—with someone who has the power to make change. I went to this breakfast with a group of students last Friday. I thought it might be interesting to share some of the reflections that breakfast prompted.

The first question we were asked was how and why we chose Susquehanna. I was initially drawn to Susquehanna by its creative writing program. As a high school student, I attended two of the summer writing workshops held at SU, which helped contribute to my love of the place as well as my confidence that a Creative Writing major, not some English major with a creative writing concentration, was what I wanted. Of course, I could’ve studied Creative Writing somewhere else. Though I may want to say that the particulars of SU’s Creative Writing program is what sold me, that isn’t true. It was the Susquehanna atmosphere. The other school I was considering just didn’t compare in terms of the feeling it gave me. Thankfully, Susquehanna offered me an assistantship scholarship where I would get work experience in the University Communications office that helped make the school the sound choice as well.

Though the Creative Writing program is what drew me here, it’s amazing to think of all the great things I’ve experienced outside the department—things I didn’t even consider when I enrolled! In particular, I think about how enriching my Religious Studies major is and how I might not have ended up adding a second major in the field at another school, where I wouldn’t have encountered the same, wonderful faculty or may not have been encouraged to enroll in a religion class for Central Curriculum credits.

The second question we were asked was our favorite part of Susquehanna. Though it felt very cliché to say so, I had to be honest. My favorite part is the people. I was blessed to meet really great people my freshman year of college in Hassinger Hall. Every year since, I’ve lived with some combination of these people, and still, all my closest friends lived with me on the third floor. Our friendships, however, have blossomed since then, and we have lived so much of our college lives together. The faculty figure into that favorite people answer as well.

During our breakfast, I specifically mentioned how great I’ve found all the Religion faculty members. I’ve enjoyed every one of the professors I’ve had through the department and have gotten into great conversations with many of them. I’ve taken three courses with one of the professors who has really helped shape the way I approach Scripture, particularly in terms of feminist issues. She is currently advising me on my capstone, and I love getting to meet with her to discuss the ideas I’m exploring. She has also been happy to talk to me about careers and graduate school. Another one of the professors has talked with me various times about vocation and my future when he served as our interim chaplain. He also took a friend and I out to lunch to discuss how to give rebuttals to sexist ideas about female leadership in the church. When I had class with Rabbi Palley on Intro to Judaism, she gave a friend and I encouraging words about being progressive women within a faith community.

The third question asked what I would change about Susquehanna. Though Susquehanna isn’t perfect, and I did have an answer ready for that, it felt notable that I wasn’t able to choose from a long string of complaints. Susquehanna is and has been the right school for me; that's something I will be able to say with confidence as I graduate.

I know a lot of people don't have a college experience like this. Their college might be a school, but it never feels like a home. Some people I know don't like their colleges at all and are counting down until they can get out of there. I know other people who don't get the right school on the first try and eventually transfer to some place that makes them happier.

I am quite privileged to have had this warm, positive experience of college life ever since I walked on campus in August 2010.

Such a Senior

It’s been quite a while since I last posted on this blog! Sorry about that, senior year has been pretty busy. The second semester is now in full swing, and at the end of next week, I'll be heading home for Spring Break. How quickly this semester is going is a bit nauseating, to be honest.The last time I posted, I referenced that I hoped to be in graduate school next year. Things have changed a little since then. I decided that I wanted to take a step back and give graduate school more consideration before plunging right into it, especially because I wasn't sure if I wanted to get an M.A. in Religious Studies, a Master of Theological Studies, or a Master of Divinity degree. I had applied to some international graduate school opportunities, however, but I didn't end up receiving those fellowships.

Nevertheless, I’m still quite excited about what life after graduation has to bring! I will be serving in a program called the Episcopal Service Corps. The Episcopal Service Corps is a ten-month program, organized by the Episcopal Church, where volunteers are placed with internships in non-profit organizations and live together in intentional community. I will be in a program in Milwaukee called Creating for a Cause that brings together volunteers trained in writing, graphic design, photography, etc. to use their creative skills for worthwhile causes. That program will start in August and run until May, much like an academic year. I am very passionate about working with or for the church, and I am hoping the Episcopal Service Corps will help me discern how I want to be doing that in the future.

Besides figuring out some post-graduation plans, this semester has been filled with plenty of other activities that scream SENIOR! Just last week, I had my senior reading. All creative writing majors read about ten minutes of the work they've completed during their time at SU in a senior reading. These readings are spread across the whole year, with five to six majors reading at each event. I shared six poems. I was really satisfied with how the night went. It was especially fun that I was able to get some laughs from the crowd.

I’ve been up to some senior shenanigans for my other major as well. This semester, I am completing a 4-credit capstone project for my Religious Studies major. “Capstone” is what we call our final or culminating undergraduate projects in our fields. I’m endeavoring to write a 40-plus page paper that challenges some of the underlying notions about emotion in popular Christian advice books on dating and relationships. I love working on this project, even if the prospect of getting it all finished is overwhelming. The other day I was poring over feminist theology books in the library before meeting my friends for dinner. I was so passionate about what I was doing, I was practically bouncing in the cafeteria with capstone excitement.

Of course, there is much more to senior year than these academic components. As graduation draws nearer, I’m getting more sentimental about no longer being able to live with my great friends. A while ago, we had our Senior Convocation, which was a dinner event marking 100 days until graduation. That certainly made everything feel more real. Though I'm looking forward to meeting new people and diving into new opportunities, I'm also not at all ready for my Susquehanna experience to end.

Advanced Poetry

All Creative Writing majors must take at least one advanced course during their time at Susquehanna. I chose to take Advanced Poetry, which would surely surprise my freshman year self who was so set on taking Susquehanna's novel writing course. Advanced Poetry has about eight students, and it’s a night class that happens once a week. During class, we usually discuss at least one book of poems, do some sort of poetry exercise to generate more material, and workshop (which is discussing someone's work and critiquing it) some of our classmates’ poems. By the end of the semester, we will all have completed drafts of book-length poetry collections. This means writing a lot of poems—about fifty pages or so of material!

In our class, we are aiming to create coherent collections revolving around some central ideas, images, themes, or sources, rather than collections that are merely our best work slapped together. The thread holding my collection together keeps changing as I continue to work on it. At the beginning of the semester, I had decided I wanted to use pop culture, specifically pop culture aimed at a female teenage audience, as a source. I turned in 4 poems for workshop that were pop culture-inspired. After my workshop, I didn’t feel as if my subject was working. The poems weren’t conveying what I wanted them to say--mostly because I wasn't sure what I wanted them to say. I knew, though, what people were reading into it wasn't what I had intended. I decided to go back to the drawing board and was attracted to the idea of sacraments. Writing about pop culture had been my attempt to remove myself from my usual subjects—religion, theology, etc.—but I was drawn back anyway!

During my next workshop (for this one, I had to turn in fifteen pages of poems), my professor and some of the other students suggested that I could bring these subjects together. Their comments have allowed me to see a broader concept behind my collection. I intend to explore topics like performance, the truth or transformation that accompanies performance, ritual and worship in religious and pop culture settings.  I also felt encouraged by that workshop to dive into my subject matter on a more personal level. The poems I submitted to my class bounced around between different fictional speakers, but many were reading them as if they were one speaker and wanted to know more about that speaker. In my next set of poems due for class, I'm experimenting with drawing more directly from my own experiences. 

This Friday, I’ll be turning in that next set of poems--another fifteen pages. It’ll be interesting to hear what the class has to say! I’m not quite sure how I feel about many of these poems, so I think whatever their reactions are, it’ll be a lot of help.

Right now the prospect of finishing a book-length poetry collection is fairly daunting, but I’m sure I’ll be happy I was pushed to do so when I have so much to work with once the class is completed. I hope this will provide me with the motivation--and the material--to more seriously pursue poetry publication.

Senior Year!

Sorry for the silence! I’ve somehow managed to get to Week 5 of my senior year without updating this blog.

It’s been a busy few weeks since I’ve started back at school. I spent the summer in Selinsgrove, working full-time in the University Communications office and living in my on-campus townhouse with a friend also working over the summer. Summer in Selinsgrove is a much different animal than the school year. Though I worked forty hours a week, I had a lot of free time to spend on some not-so-productive activities, like watching the Pretty Little Liars series and wedding shows with my housemate. Campus was also much quieter and emptier. I found that pretty eerie the first few weeks, but I adjusted. Getting used to the bustle of campus again was actually pretty jarring after those summer months.

The harder adjustment, of course, was to the bustle of school year life!

As a senior, I’m trying to figure out post-graduate plans. That has been a priority since the school year has started. This summer I began working on applications for fellowships that would provide me with funds for graduate school internationally. Specifically, I am applying for a Rhodes scholarship, a Mitchell scholarship, and a Fulbright scholarship. These applications are due in October, and I will certainly be relieved once they are submitted—though the stress will continue if I am offered an interview for any of the scholarships. I’d be very grateful for that type of stress, however!

I am also hoping to apply to U.S. graduate school programs, though that’s been temporarily placed on the backburner as I scramble to complete fellowship applications. I know that I’m interested in studying theology or religion at the graduate level, but I am still struggling to determine what my exact plans are, particularly after earning a Master's degree. Some of my professors suggested I look at seminary programs, which offer a Master of Divinity degree. This type of degree might lead to more job opportunities than a Master of Arts in Religion or a Master's in Theological Studies. Throughout the semester and year, I think I will still be trying to figure out what the best pathway for me is.

I recently joined the Pre-Ministry club on campus which meets every two weeks to talk about issues like vocation and careers that involve our faith. I am hoping I will gain more clarity on the next steps I want to take through participation in the group. Our interim university chaplain (who is also one of the Religion department’s professors) is planning on being involved with the club. I am excited to gain some more insight from him on my plans this year.

Of course, I have also been juggling my classes as well. I am taking Intro to Judaism, a Religion course called Faiths and Values, Advanced Poetry, Intro to Statistics, and a senior creative writing capstone class. Intro to Judaism has probably been my most interesting class so far and I think, in the long-term, it will be very beneficial to me, especially since I have an interest in interfaith dialogue. I also love that it is being taught by our campus’s rabbi, Rabbi Palley.

In terms of social life, it’s been great to have friends back on campus that I missed all summer. Spending time with my friends has been a great calming factor in the midst of all the senior year chaos I’ve experienced so far. I’m excited for all the fun memories we’re going to accumulate together this year, and I’m not so thrilled when think about us leaving each other for whatever life has in store next.

Winding Down

Classes are winding down now. I had my last Travel Writing course yesterday. Today is the last meeting of Tuesday/Thursday courses, and on Monday and Tuesday of next week, there will be two more days of Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes. After that, there’s a reading day on Wednesday, which is a day between classes and finals for studying, then finals.

I’ve been fortunate to have some really great courses this semester. I’m really happy creatively with the work I’ve been doing in Intermediate Poetry. I’ve absolutely loved my Women in Biblical Tradition class, which has been consistently engaging and has challenged my own views. My Fiction of C.S. Lewis class has also been filled with interesting conversations, and I’m so glad I’ve finally read these books that I kept meaning to read. Music in Christian Rituals has been good as well, and, again, gave me a lot to mull over.  What’s neat for me about my religion classes is that they’re not simply subjects I pick up in the classroom and forget about later. They bleed into the rest of my life. Often our conversations in classes intersect with things I’m working through in my own head or the conversations I’m having with friends and people in my community.

Despite having a nice schedule this semester, I have to admit that I’m excited for it to end. I’ve been pretty stressed the past few weeks. While I’ve been doing well in my classes, I have felt overwhelmed a lot this semester. Thankfully, a blissful, homework-free state is visible in the horizon, though I have to tackle end-of-the-year assignments before I can get there.

Tomorrow my friend Karen and I are presenting a hymn that we wrote for our Music in Christian Rituals class. It was an overwhelming assignment to receive, but I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished. She composed it, and I wrote the lyrics. After the presentation is out of the way, we have to write a joint paper on the project.

I also have to write a final paper for Women in Biblical Tradition, revise my Travel Writing essay and do a self-critique on it, take a final for Fiction of C.S. Lewis, and turn in a chapbook of poetry for Intermediate Poetry.

Once these are done, I’ll be spending a relaxing week on campus before heading to a week of camp in New York with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapters from around Pennsylvania. Those weeks will be a great break between my schoolwork this semester and my 40-hour work week here in Selinsgrove this summer.

Before I close out what is probably final blog entry for the school year, I should probably reflect on the year as a whole, but right now, the task seems too difficult. This year has been strange, with ups and downs, split between two continents.  One semester was filled with exciting firsts and the challenges of adjusting to a new place, but also happened at a more relaxed pace.  This semester has been cozier and homier but also much more stressful.  Perhaps it will be easier to look back at this year after I’ve gotten a little more distance from it.

For now, I’m excited for this academic year to draw to a close—even if it brings me closer to the terrifying reality of being a college senior.

Approaching Senior Year

I recently completed registration for Fall 2013, the first semester of my last year at Susquehanna. Though facing senior year is terrifying and I am not at all ready for my college experience to end, I’m also excited for next year as well.

In the fall, I’ll be taking my Senior Writing Portfolio course, which is a course all Creative Writing majors must take. It’ll be interesting to have the opportunity to look at how I’ve changed as a writer and what I’ve accomplished writing-wise over my college career.  I’ll also be taking an advanced writing course. I was torn between Advanced Poetry in the fall and Advanced Fiction: Novel in the spring, but I’ve ultimately decided on Advanced Poetry. I feel like my poetry has grown much more while at Susquehanna than my fiction and that taking another poetry course will be more fruitful in developing my skills as a writer.

I will also be finishing up my requirements for the Religion major in the fall semester. It’s so strange to think about how this major is not something I had ever intended on pursuing when I entered college, considering how much I’ve enjoyed it and gained from it. My two classes left to take are actually 100-level courses. Because I didn’t plan on taking the major initially, I ended up taking a lot of upper-level classes that interested me before taking introductory courses. The two courses will be Intro to Judaism and Faiths and Values.

Beyond these courses for my majors, I still have some Central Curriculum requirements to complete. The Central Curriculum requires certain classes in different areas to ensure a well-rounded liberal arts education. One of the requirements is “Analytical Thought,” which typically means some sort of math course. I’ll admit that has been something I’ve been delaying purely because I don’t really enjoy math.  I couldn’t run away from it forever, though, so I’ll finally be taking Intro to Statistics.

During the Spring, I’ll be doing a Capstone project (a final project) for my Religion major. Because I’m a double major this isn’t technically required, but I’m really interested in undertaking a Religion project. I’ve already talked to my Religion major advisor who’s agreed to advise my independent project as well. Right now I’m considering doing something on attitudes towards and alternatives to dating in some subsets of Christian culture—specifically the idea of “courtship”—and analyzing how people apply the Bible, which was written in a culture so far off from any of our romantic norms, to present-day relationships. I’m really excited about this project. Over break I already started compiling a reading list for it, even though I have much more immediate work that needs to be done.

I’ll also be finishing off my final Central Curriculum requirement, an “Oral Intensive” course. I thought I was going to have to take Public Speaking, but I found out that Modern Philosophy also counts towards this requirement. I think that should be really interesting since I haven’t taken a philosophy course yet at SU, even though I’m really intrigued by the subject.  

I’ll also be completing some of the requirements for the Honors program, taking an English class called Forms of Writing to fulfill my final Creative Writing requirement, and taking the Religion department’s New Testament class for fun.

Next year is definitely bound to be busy, but I think there will be some interesting academic highlights within all that work!

Another thing I’ve had to arrange for senior year is housing. As I’m writing this, two friends and I are still awaiting word on our application for a a 3-person townhouse in 18^th Street Commons, Susquehanna’s newest housing development. It’s technically on-campus housing but is designed to have a more off-campus feel.  I really hope we get a space at one of these townhouses.

Both my freshman and sophomore years, it felt strange planning for the next year because time had gone so fast. It has definitely felt that way again this year, but now it’s even stranger since I’m entering my final year as a Susquehanna student.  It’s easy to jump ahead of myself and start wailing about how I don’t want to graduate, this is too soon, etc., that I sometimes forget I do have a whole year left here. Maybe it’ll be the best one yet.

The "Study" in Study Abroad

If you go back through my blog entries from my freshman and sophomore years, you’ll see that I wrote a lot about the different courses I had each semester. While I was abroad, I didn’t keep this blog up to date about my academics, so I thought I’d use this post to reflect on the courses I had while I was abroad. An easy enough feat since I only had three classes: History of Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Britain and Ireland, Love Poetry, and From the Vote to the Pill: Twentieth Century Women Writers.

In History of Magic, I learned that Ireland had really low rates of witchcraft trials compared to Scotland and England. These low prosecution rates didn’t necessarily correlate to lack of magical belief, though. Often, Celtic areas, such as Ireland, that did not have very fervent witch-hunts still had strong belief in magic. Some places that emphasized belief in malevolent fairies, for instance, saw less need to blame misfortunes on witches; this was particularly true for the Highlands of Scotland. Some areas also believed in more benign versions of witches, such as “butter witches,” which usually only did smaller evils like messing with crops, and in the evil eye, which was when someone’s glance (usually unintentionally) cursed someone.

As a Religion major, I was interested in the religious component of witchcraft belief. In particular, the demonic view of witchcraft focused on a witch’s pact with the devil. In witchcraft trials, those prosecuted were sometimes made to say the Lord’s Prayer as a test. Not being able to say the Lord’s Prayer was a sign of that pact with the devil. Some clergy seemed to believe it was necessary to uphold witchcraft belief in order to sustain a supernatural worldview that allowed for the existence of God. While some churches took on the main responsibility for prosecuting witches, it’s also interesting to note that some churches discouraged witch-hunts. For example, some churches would decrease the amount of witchcraft accusations by charging the accuser with slander, rather than going after the witch. Protestant-Catholic conflict could also be seen in witch-hunts, since suspected witches, particularly in England, were often “papists,” or Catholics, being accused by Protestant officials or neighbors. 

Love Poetry gave an overview of different periods and kinds of love poetry, including ancient, Victorian, marital, and Sapphic. The best part of this class was the exposure I received to all different sorts of poetry. One poet I was introduced to during the class was D.H. Lawrence. I went on to read his collection of love poetry on my own, which I really enjoyed. I hope to go back to some of the other poets I liked when I have more free time to read. For this course, we had seminars where we discussed in closer detail the poetry we read. One of my favorite aspects of this course was preparing for seminars with my friend Zoe. We would choose a poem to focus on and discuss it together, and I feel like we really learned a lot from each other.

From the Vote to the Pill: Twentieth Century Women Writers was probably my most interesting course. In that class, we looked at the work of female writers through the twentieth century, and even into the present-day, through a feminist interpretive lens. One of the books we read was Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, which I absolutely loved. I think, in this course, I did the academic work of the semester that makes me most proud. For my first essay, I wrote about Margaret Atwood’s novel Surfacing and its portrayal of a crisis of masculinity, and for my second essay, I wrote about Bella’s quest for family and Edward as a father-figure in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.

While the courses—or “modules,” in keeping with the terms used at the University of Ulster—fell a bit short of my expectations, probably because I’m used to Americans’ more active class participation, I got a chance to study a lot that I wouldn’t have learned about otherwise.