At Bennington College, students organize their course of study through the Plan Process. Each student writes a Plan, an academic course of study that he will pursue during his time in college, and evaluates his progress with this Plan at several points in his career. Plans are not written alone; Plans must be read over by the faculty advisor and approved by a faculty Plan Committee. This is to ensure rigor in a very open assignment that can vary between really solid and clear to vague and unfocused.
The Plan process is taking what is done elsewhere and placing it in an academic setting--businesses, for example, have their board of directors that they report to. Elsewhere, I have received the suggestion of creating a "Mastermind Network" (pardon me, I can't remember the exact term). These are a group of people with whom you can work through your goals in a secure and constructive manner.
While this isn't the only feature of Bennington College's educational system, it's the one I'm working on as I look to the future. Without the structure of college and seemingly without the requirements to obtain my dream jobs, how can I progress forward? By building my own set of advisors who can provide feedback as I make choices in my life. Through my network of advisors, I gain access to information I would not otherwise have had. This includes both awareness of specific skills to acquire and opportunities to pursue.
In order for meetings with my advisors to be productive, I must first have my plan ready, of course. Thus, I have decided that for my post-college life, I will mirror the Bennington Plan Process as a structure that will guide me to obtain my goals. I am taking this first year to fully explore the options I find and be comfortable with make choices in the short-term. Then, I will put together a more long-term vision of where I am headed and seek the feedback from my advisors. Then, I will focus in toward my goal armed with the know-how to achieve it, occassionally checking in with advisors as I refine my work.
I am confident that working in this structure will organize my work in the future. As a reminder to myself, though, I have posted my Senior Reflection Essay from Bennington College below. I regard graduating from Bennington College as my first real accomplishment. Attending Bennington College was the first goal I've had where I really felt ownership over the entire process. However, upon graduation, I did not regard my Plan as entirely successful. My Senior Reflection Essay contains my assessment of the situation. This is my second time Planning. I know that I will not make the same mistakes twice.
View My Senior Reflection Essay
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Soul Line Dance
To expand my dance horizons, I decided to take a soul line dance class offered by It's All Swing in Watertown, MA. I have never danced to soul music (not even listen to it, actually), and I don't really do line dances, so this was a bit out there for me. It was nice, though, that this class culminated in a performance at the Blues Cafe.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for me was really embodying the dance. I could memorize the choreography fast enough, but making it enjoyable to watch (and dance) was a challenge. We did have a class after the performance where we worked on two valuable parts of the dance: what to work on when performing a dance and how to get creative with a dance to add a personal style to the dance. I really got into that last class and added many different styles to the dance. Anyway, the performance was done before that class, and here it is.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for me was really embodying the dance. I could memorize the choreography fast enough, but making it enjoyable to watch (and dance) was a challenge. We did have a class after the performance where we worked on two valuable parts of the dance: what to work on when performing a dance and how to get creative with a dance to add a personal style to the dance. I really got into that last class and added many different styles to the dance. Anyway, the performance was done before that class, and here it is.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Music Composition: Starshine Counterpoint
At the end of August, I entered a contest for the best variation of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". It was sponsored by Noteflight, the company who provides an online music notation software. I use this software for two reasons: 1) it's free; 2) having the software online means I can access it anywhere I have an internet connection.
For the contest, I decided to create a fugue. A fugue is traditionally one of the most difficult forms to compose in. A fugue basically has several independent melody lines (meaning they're not all singing/playing the same melody at the same time), yet the melodies all come from the same idea (in this case, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star").This is difficult because not only do the individual lines have to be clear, they also have to fit together harmonically.
I ended up writing a string quartet, in part because it was easy for me to keep track of the different lines (as opposed to writing for piano where I would be very concerned about playability) and in part because I had been listening to a lot of music with strings. Their sound was definitely in my ear, and I wanted to see how I could make those instruments work together.
Here is my (non-winning) entry:
For the contest, I decided to create a fugue. A fugue is traditionally one of the most difficult forms to compose in. A fugue basically has several independent melody lines (meaning they're not all singing/playing the same melody at the same time), yet the melodies all come from the same idea (in this case, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star").This is difficult because not only do the individual lines have to be clear, they also have to fit together harmonically.
I ended up writing a string quartet, in part because it was easy for me to keep track of the different lines (as opposed to writing for piano where I would be very concerned about playability) and in part because I had been listening to a lot of music with strings. Their sound was definitely in my ear, and I wanted to see how I could make those instruments work together.
Here is my (non-winning) entry:
Scientific Article: Systems Biology
Recently, I completed my first scientific paper, "Network motifs come in sets: correlations in the randomization process". This was a project that I started in the winter of 2008 at Columbia University in the City of New York. This was during my Field Work Term, the academic term (and requirement) of Bennington College where we find an internship for 7 weeks. For those 7 weeks, I lived the life as an academic--setting my own hours, working late into the night in the library, taking Fridays off to see a show, and working from the motivation to finish my discovery.
The biggest challenge was that this was my first research project, and I wasn't well acquainted with the subject matter when I started. I had to learn the graph and network theory, statistics, and biology behind the project, all the while producing new results. The project was suggested by my supervisor, and having no better suggestion, I took it.
Secondly, even though I was working on the project, I needed a lot of help to find the right direction and understand the significance (if any) of my results. Had I taken on this project alone, I would have asked the wrong questions and prioritized my time inefficiently. Thankfully, I worked with Andrew, a graduate student also working under the same supervisor. Although I did the rough work, including some coding, Andrew was the one to give the project life, direction, and to sustain it while it went on hold for a while.
My main contribution was to run all of the tests we could think of, and then to accidentally present the discovery to Andrew that formed the basis of our future investigation. He caught the discovery, devised ways to move forward, and eventually developed the tool we used to more rigorously analyze our discovery.
This was definitely a valuable experience. I have a long way to go before I too can lead a research project like Andrew did with me. I did have one question arise out of this work, and hope to pursue it in the future.
You can find the paper here: http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4680
The biggest challenge was that this was my first research project, and I wasn't well acquainted with the subject matter when I started. I had to learn the graph and network theory, statistics, and biology behind the project, all the while producing new results. The project was suggested by my supervisor, and having no better suggestion, I took it.
Secondly, even though I was working on the project, I needed a lot of help to find the right direction and understand the significance (if any) of my results. Had I taken on this project alone, I would have asked the wrong questions and prioritized my time inefficiently. Thankfully, I worked with Andrew, a graduate student also working under the same supervisor. Although I did the rough work, including some coding, Andrew was the one to give the project life, direction, and to sustain it while it went on hold for a while.
My main contribution was to run all of the tests we could think of, and then to accidentally present the discovery to Andrew that formed the basis of our future investigation. He caught the discovery, devised ways to move forward, and eventually developed the tool we used to more rigorously analyze our discovery.
This was definitely a valuable experience. I have a long way to go before I too can lead a research project like Andrew did with me. I did have one question arise out of this work, and hope to pursue it in the future.
You can find the paper here: http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4680
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