comps weekend (a weekend of comps)
Lynn spent her Saturday listening to her smart, smart peers talk about their smart, smart senior thesis projects!!
Lynn spent her Saturday listening to her smart, smart peers talk about their smart, smart senior thesis projects!!
Hey folks!
Something that really makes sense to me now, but that I didn’t quite understand before I got to college and people started getting to work on real, meaningful projects — not that you have to be in college to do something meaningful by any means, but it was the first time I had experienced this — anyway, what I’m trying to say is: people build projects out of things that are integral to them! Maybe especially at this point in my and my peers’ lives, the 18-24 phase, we are given a lot of room to reflect and hopefully introspect — and that’s why our lives usually inspire our content, both creative and academic.
Okay, I know I’m not usually a gal who uses her blog post to theorize, but I hope you get the sappy and inquisitive mood of my writing. It’s because I’m a senior, and I’m finally getting to see my friends/peers present their comps (their senior theses) for their majors, and I’m just really proud of them. You may remember many moons ago I wrote about my comps, which was based entirely on my friendship with my childhood friend Emma. That’s not where it ends! Let me tell you about the cool things my friends/peers studied:
Maya Kassahun (SoAn) gave a talk called Transmissions of Belonging: Exploring Second-Generation Ethiopian Daughters Relationships with Belonging, Identity, and their Mothers. She interviewed nine second-generation Ethiopian daughters about, as you can guess, belonging, identity, and their mothers. Her findings were moving and interesting, and I wish I could just share her whole paper with you!
Melanie Kane (SoAn) gave a talk called “I Have the Utmost Respect for Women”: A Content Analysis of the Celebrity Sexual Misconduct Response Statement. It was more thorough and significant-feeling than any write-up I have read about the #metoo movement and beyond. She analyzed 92 response statements to sexual misconduct allegations, and drew similarities between them.
Honorable mentions to the other SoAn talks I saw that I don’t have the actual titles for — about disability at Carleton, South Korean students in the US, and mock trial.
Adam Berkebile (Geology) did what we call a ~creative~ comps. A lot of majors offer this — though less so in the sciences — and it’s really exciting to see what students make from their opportunities! Adam actually made a FIELD SAFETY VIDEO for Intro Geology classes at Carleton. His comps is going to be USED to HELP new students — maybe even you!
Also — these are only the talks I saw today! There’s still English and Philosophy and Math and probably other subjects to hear from. I’ll write about those then, and I promise more pics that time.
Lynn is a senior CAMS major and WGST minor from the desert. She’s super into podcasts, comedy, queerness, and food. You can catch her doing improv with Cujokra or stand up with the Queens of Comedy — or perhaps reading something by Roxane Gay, baking at Dacie Moses, looking at her résumé to remember what else she does, or in the Weitz trying to find her hard drive. Meet the other bloggers!