Checking in on Living London | Senior Spotlight: Tadeo Ratzlaff and Jiao Jiao Nelson | Comps Illuminated: A Look Into the Comps Process
Checking in on Living London
A few weeks ago, the English department’s OCS program Living London began. We decided to check in on our Living Londoners–we asked: How has the program been for you so far? What’s the coolest thing you’ve done/seen on the program?
Jack Bartlett
It has been fantastic! There’s nothing quite like exploring a new city and experiencing so many incredible things with a group of amazing people like this one. Deepening friendships and making new ones while having a city as great as London to explore has been enormously rewarding. It’s a bit cliché as a theater major, but my favorite part of the program has been the sheer volume of great shows I’m seeing, and they are the best theater I’ve ever gotten to see.
Lizzie Coy-Bjork
London has been absolutely extraordinary so far! Being able to visit so many museums for free, seeing live theater almost every night, and living in a walkable city is quite a treat. With how things are looking so far you might not see me spring term… The coolest thing I’ve done so far is going to the National Portrait Gallery and seeing in person the paintings I’ve seen in google/in my textbooks hundreds of times. And most importantly I got to see Polodori my love. ❤️
Kian Quinn-Calabrese
I’ve tried to immerse myself in the city and everything it has to offer! I’ve seen eleven theatrical productions and visited a bunch of museums and galleries. It has been such an incredible experience to see so much amazing art and history in such a short period. Meeting Bryan Cranston was definitely a highlight! Seeing his powerful performance in All My Sons was a privilege. Going to the stage door, getting the whole cast to sign my program, and getting the chance to meet him was truly a moment I will never forget.
Claire Gannon
London has been an incredible whirlwind of theatre, museums, literature, adventure, culture, community, and the arts, with every day offering opportunities for learning, curiosity and fun! A highlight for me has been the exposure to London theatre. Some memorable performances include Arthur Miller’s All My Sons starring Bryan Cranston, The Rivals, and Into the Woods. I can’t wait for what else London has in store!
Senior Spotlight: Tadeo Ratzlaff and Jiao Jiao Nelson
This week we interviewed Tadeo and Jiao Jiao to find out about their comps, favorite books, and post-grad plans.
What are you doing for comps?
T: I’m doing colloquium, which is basically a student-led class that meets a couple times a week. We’ve had a prescribed list of readings from Pierre and Connie and we’ve been reading through them and discussing them under the theme of backtalk, which is modern texts which are responding to previous books.
J: We’re in the same comps group. We’ve been assigning texts to each person who leads discussion for that week.
What is your favorite book or recent favorite?
T: I really love The Hobbit. My mom read it to me when I was a kid and I’ve read it countless times since. I’ve done my own audiobook recording of it.
J: I think mine would probably be To The Lighthouse. There is something really tender and special about the way that [Woolf] wrote the characters.
What is your most English major trait?
T: I don’t know if I have any very striking ones, probably the audiobook thing. It’s kind of weird.
J: Last term I was wondering what the maximum number of books someone could check out from the library at any given time was. It’s 200 items. I check out many books and after borrowing them, I felt guilty for not reading them. So I grabbed a bunch of random books, and I’ve been reading and taking notes on everything that I’ve found.
What has been your favorite class in the English department?
T: Honestly, I thought this was gonna be controversial, but I think a lot of people have said the same thing, but I think Methods really sealed the deal for me. Before the class I felt pretty listless and unsure about the discipline. I loved the texts we read.
J: I really liked a lot of Nancy’s classes. Actually, my very first English class was Asian American Lit with her.
What advice would you give to future English majors?
T: Branch out. I have gotten a lot out of taking classes in different disciplines. I think that English really paves the way for success in other disciplines. Explore.
J: I really recommend taking something like a CS or stats class while doing a lot of English stuff, because I found myself getting really burnt out taking only humanities. Having finished pre-req’s and only doing English makes my heart a little bit sad.
What are your post-grad plans?
T: This winter, I had a really lovely internship with the literary agency in New York and that exposed me to the whole publishing agency/editor system, and I’d love to work somewhere in that line where I can work critically with creative texts.
J: It’s kind of freaky. Right now, my vague idea is to find a geographic location that I like and to settle in and find what’s available. It might not necessarily be job-related, but I spend most of my time doing personal projects which I’m excited to do after graduating.
Comps Illuminated: A Look Into the Comps Progress
We’re back with the second installment of our column to take the veil off of comps! This week we asked: “What are you currently working on?”
Linnea, in one of the colloquium groups, says that, “We’ve been meeting twice a week for two hour discussions. Every meeting we usually have a professor come to talk about specific texts or sets of texts that they teach or focus on in their own work. It’s been really fun, and we get a lot of really good background.” Jiao Jiao, in the other colloquium group, adds “When we get to the essay writing we’re going to branch off more, diving into texts that interest us, but that’s still a couple weeks from now.”
Ambar, our resident research compser, says, “For the past week-ish, I’ve been focusing on writing down all the elements I think are important for my comps. As a rough draft, I turned in a 14-page single-spaced document (I’m so sorry to my advisor) full of quotes and incomplete thoughts. The next step is to develop an outline to understand how these pieces fit together.”
Ryan, one of the several creative writers, says, “I am working on revising the first story for my collection. I’m also thinking of revising a story I wrote for Advanced Fiction and including it, so I have been looking back at that. I’ve been meeting with Gwen, my advisor, who has been super helpful. I’ve been meeting with the other creative writers. We’ve set up a workshop. We revise each other’s stories, hanging out, and bonding over our shared love of writing.”