Hark Upon the Summer

For any student, summer break is like an oasis in the desert. Three months to get a tan by the pool, go to the beach with friends, sleep in late, eat delicious picnic food, make a few bucks at a summer job, and enjoy the warm weather before winter rears its ugly head. The best part, of course, is that there is not a single book, homework assignment, or exam in sight.

Almost. At William and Mary, summer is not just a time for relaxation and rejuvenation, but also a chance to engage in some very unique and exciting opportunities that students might not have time for during the school year. Each summer, hundreds of students flood back to campus in June to work as research assistants for professors, do archeological digs in Colonial Jamestown, develop curricula for the James City County school district, and even serve in our beloved Admissions Office. Others go to Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston to work as interns for Congressmen, law firms, or businesses, and still others experience life as a teacher in an urban school, a volunteer on the Appalachian Trail, or a documentary filmmaker. Some expand their borders in the literal sense, traveling abroad to do intensive study of a language, work at NATO in Brussels, or do medical relief in Africa. The number of options available to our students during the summers are truly limitless, and each break, they find more and more ways to use the time to enhance not only themselves, but the entire world.

I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a couple of these one-of-a-kind experiences this summer. You may be familiar with our Monroe Scholars program, which is offered to a select number of incoming students each year. As part of this program, each freshman received $1000 to do summer research on a topic of our choice, so long as it related to something we had studied in our classwork. So, for a week in May, my friend Leksa and I spent a week in Spain, doing research for our projects as well as enjoying the sights and sounds of that wonderful country. My project focuses on the memorials to the 11-M Madrid train bombings and how they relate to Spanish cultural and societal identity. As part of the project, I did interviews with local college professors, traveled to the memorials, and talked to ordinary Spaniards about their feelings on the memorials. When I wasn’t doing that, I was going to the museums, restaurants, and famous locales, taking part in the vibrant nightlife, and meeting other college students from around the world. In October, I will present my project at our annual Summer Research Symposium. These kinds of projects are an option to any student, even non-Monroe Scholars – our Charles Center has tons of money that students can apply for to do projects like this one (and even cooler ones as well)!

The second one was not quite as exotic, but just as fun. Back in fall semester, I had taken a class with Prof. Larry Evans called “American Political Institutions,” which examined the latest scholarship in the study of American politics. As part of the final project for the class, Prof. Evans gave us actual data from the project he is working on (a comprehensive study of Congressional whip counts) and taught us how to do the statistical and analytical work he was doing for his book. I was really interested in the project, so at the end of the semester, I went to Prof. Evans and asked him if he needed a research assistant for the summer. A couple of weeks into second semester, I got an email from Prof. Evans asking me to come to his office, where he offered me a position for the summer! So, from June to August, I was in Williamsburg, helping Prof. Evans with data entry and analysis, background research, and writing. Eventually, our work will culminate in a co-authored paper that we will present at a conference in San Francisco in April! This story is very typical at William and Mary – if you’re ever interested in participating in research, just ask a professor and they will help you find a research position!

One of the best parts about these experiences was that they gave me an opportunity to interact with my professors on a very unique level. It’s a well-known fact that William and Mary professors are some of the best teachers in the country, and they are dedicated to their students and helping them succeed. This dedication extends beyond the classroom, however. For my project in Spain, my advisor was Prof. Tracy Arwari, who is in the Hispanic Studies Department. Not only did Prof. Arwari help me prepare for my trip to Spain by helping me figure out exactly who to contact, where to go, and what things to look for, but upon my return to Williamsburg, she met with me for over two hours to talk about my project (and whatever else came to mind). Later that week, she had me and my friends over to her apartment for dinner so she could meet them and learn about the neat things they were doing with their summers as well. Prof. Evans was equally as fantastic. He worked hard to make sure that my job as a research assistant had an active role in the project. I wasn’t just doing grunt work – Prof. Evans involved me in the analysis of the data, had discussions with me about ideas for papers and books, and even allowed me to be a co-author on a paper for a college textbook. And of course, I will be presenting with him at the conference in San Francisco in April. All of this, I believe, speaks very well to the quality of the professors at the College, both as teachers and as mentors.

This isn’t to say that we didn’t have fun this summer, too! My friends and I went up to Washington, D.C. for the 4th of July weekend and watched the fireworks from the Jefferson Memorial. Another weekend, we spent Saturday afternoon at Jamestown Beach. We saw movies, went bowling, and wandered through the haunted areas of Colonial Williamsburg at night. We were all excited to be at the College for the summer, doing what we loved and enjoying all that our experiences had to offer. It was definitely something I would do again, but next summer, I’m hoping to take advantage of some other opportunities –  maybe I’ll be in D.C. doing a Congressional internship, or at a U.S. embassy somewhere working for the State Department.

Next time you’re on campus, just stop someone on their way to class and ask them what they did during the summer. I’m sure they will be excited to tell you about their experiences, and it might even spark an idea about what you want to do during your summers here at the College!

Nicky Bell ’12