AFRICAN REFUGEE DEVELOPMENT CENTRE l AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ( A.C.T.) l AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY l ANDREW BARTLE ARCHITECTS l ASHLAND AREA COUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT l BRAIN AND SPINE SURGEONS OF NEW YORK l BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC l CAMBODIA DAILY l CENTER FOR E - DESIGN l CENTER FOR POVERTY ANALYSIS l SECOND CITY THEATER l CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND l CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF WISCONSIN l COAL RIVER MOUNTAIN WATCH l COLORADO WOLF AND WILDLIFE CENTER l CYBER DISSIDENTS l DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA l EARTH INSTITUTE l EAST HAWAII CULTURAL CENTER l GLOBAL TV- VANCOUVER NEWS BUREAU l GOOD HUMOR TELEVISION l GRAYMATTER ARCHITECTURE l HARVARD STEM CELL INSTITUTE l HOUSING + SOLUTIONS, INC. l INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS l INSTITUTE FOR INFINITELY SMALL THINGS l JEREMIE FREMAUX PHOTOGRAPHY l KILL SCREEN l KNOPF DOUBLEDAY PUBLISHING GROUP l LEARNING COOPERATIVE AT PRINCETON l LISTEN VISION RECORDING STUDIOS l MASSACHUSETTS DISPUTE RESOLUTION SERVICES l MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY l MUSEUM OF JURASSIC TECHNOLOGY l NATIONAL CENTER FOR TRANSGENDER EQUALITY l NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO l THE NATURE CONSERVANCY l NEW YORK CARDIOLOGY ASSOCIATES l NORTHWEST EQUINE VETERINARY ASSOCIATES l OCEAN ALLIANCE l OFFICE OF NEW URBAN MECHANICS l OFFICE OF SENATOR LISA MURKOWSKI l OGILVY & MATHER l THE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE l OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS l PAPER MAGAZINE l PARIS REVIEW l PRESERVATION TRUST OF VERMONT l PROPELLER FILMS l RADICAL MEDIA l READING RAINBOW l ROLLING STONE l RUTGERS DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND MICROBIOLOGY l SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY l SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR FOLKLIFE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE l SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT l SRI LANKA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY l STREB LAB FOR ACTION MECHANICS l THEATRE WITHOUT BORDERS l THIS I BELIEVE l UNIVERSITY OF OREGON INSTITUTE OF NEUROSCIENCE l VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE l VIACOM INC. l WARNEKEN LAB AT THE HARVARD LABORATORY FOR DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES l THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY l THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW l YALE CHILD STUDY CENTER SCHOOL l YOKO INOUE
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According to a recent survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education and American Public Media’s Marketplace, the single most important credential for a college graduate entering the workforce is internship experience. The survey, which targeted 50,000 employers who recruit and hire recent graduates, found that demonstrated capacities to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems are more highly valued than where an applicant studied, what an applicant studied, or even what grades an applicant received.
ENTER BENNINGTON. By the time they graduate, Bennington students have acquired at least four jobs or internship experiences and a deep understanding of what they want to do. They have developed a capacity to grasp and enter complex situations; the ability to work and think independently as well as to collaborate; and the confidence to be mobilized—not paralyzed—by ambiguities, trade-offs, and uncertainties. When employers ask us how it is that undergraduates from a small liberal arts college are going head-to-head and toe-to-toe with seasoned professionals, we credit the Plan Process and Field Work Term—the foundation of every Bennington education from the beginning.
With the guidance of faculty mentors, Bennington students craft unique educational paths around driving questions and interests. Through a structure called the Plan Process, students explore their academic interests and progressively hone in on what binds their creative passions and connects their intellectual pursuits. The sequence of courses they take, the books they read, the research they conduct, and the kinds of field work they pursue are not predetermined by the College; instead, they are organized by the students themselves to relate directly to what they want to do—in their four years at Bennington and in the many beyond. By building, articulating, and advocating for the substance of their education, Bennington students become confident self-starters, practiced in the art of working well in a world without givens and of harnessing talent and resources for maximum effect.
The sequence of courses students take, the books they read, the research they conduct are not predetermined; they are organized by the students themselves.
Every winter, every student at Bennington spends
More than 100,000 jobs and internships later, employers consistently report that Bennington students have a confidence, capacity, and drive that sets them apart.
seven weeks at work in the world pursuing jobs, internships, and entrepreneurial endeavors related to their studies and professional ambitions. From the very beginning, Bennington College understood that the work students do in the world would have a profound impact on the work they do on campus, and vice versa. More than 100,000 jobs and internships later, employers consistently report that Bennington students have a confidence, capacity, and drive that sets them apart. They are able to navigate challenges, translate abstract ideas into tangibles; they have an uncanny facility for collaboration and communication; and they are comfortable negotiating the known and the unknown.
ACADEMY O F N AT U RA L S C I E N C E S l AFRICAN REFUGEE DEVELOPMENT CENTRE l AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ( A.C.T.) l AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ANDREW BARTLE ARCHITECTS l ASHLAND AREA COUNCI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT l BENNINGTON FARM TO PLATE C l BRAIN AND SPINE SURGEONS OF NEW YORK l BROOKLYN AC MUSIC l CENTER FOR E - DESIGN l CENTER FOR POVERTY ANALYSIS CITY LIMITS l CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND l CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL l COAL RIVER MOUNTAIN WATCH l COLORADO WOLF AND WILDLIFE C DISSIDENTS l DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA l DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF V INSTITUTE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY l EAST HAWAII CULTURAL CENT VANCOUVER NEWS BUREAU l HARVARD STEM CELL INSTITUTE l HOUSIN l INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS l INSTITUTE FOR INFINITELY SMALL THINGS l PHOTOGRAPHY l KNOPF DOUBLEDAY PUBLISHING GROUP l LEARNIN PRINCETON l LISTEN VISION RECORDING STUDIOS l MASSACHUSET TS DI SERVICES l MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY l NATIONAL PUBLIC R CONSERVANCY l NEW YORK CARDIOLOGY ASSOCIATES l NORTHWEST E ASSOCIATES l OCEAN ALLIANCE l OFFICE OF CALIFORNIA STATE ASS CHESBRO l OFFICE OF NEW URBAN MECHANICS l OFFICE OF SENATOR l OGILVY & MATHER l OLSON LABORATORY, MGL, THE SCRIPPS RES l OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS l PAPER MAGAZINE l PARIS REVIEW TRUST OF VERMONT l PROPELLER FILMS l ROLLING STONE l RUTGE OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND MICROBIOLOGY l SHAKESPEARE AND SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR FOLKLIFE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE l SO ENTERTAINMENT l SRI LANKA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIE LAB FOR ACTION MECHANICS l THEATRE WITHOUT BORDERS BELIEVE l UNIVERSITY OF OREGON INSTITUTE OF NEUROSCI VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE l VIACOM INC. l WARNEKEN LAB AT HARVARD LABORATORY FOR DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIE l THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW l YALE C H I L D S T U DY C E N T E R S C H O O L l YO KO I N O U E
immers
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WORKING WITH UNKNOWNS The co-founder of the Boston Mayor’s Office for New Urban Mechanics explains how one Bennington intern stunned his team and why they’re calling for more.
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Y l L FOR THE (GOOD) BUSINESS PLAN A Bennington junior pitches value chain efficiency ideas to one of the largest micro-financing COUNCIL organizations in the world—and lands a job he helped to shape. CADEMY OF ‘WE USUALLY DON’T TAKE ON INTERNS’ S l CHICAGO The vice president and editorial director of This I Believe, which airs on public radio stations nationwide, shares what convinced him to take on a Bennington junior as an intern, and why OF WISCONSIN he’d do it again. CENTER l CYBER EXCEEDING THE SUM OF YOUR PARTS VIRGINIA l EARTH Working with a filmmaker during Field Work Term, a Bennington sophomore creates a blog gallery of still footage from archived home movies that wins praise and promotion from The Atlantic and the world’s most popular culture blog. ER l GLOBAL TVG + SOLUTIONS, INC. FINDING FOCUS l JEREMIE FREMAUX How one student has used Field Work Term to amass more experience than most graduate students in the field of astronomy. NG COOPERATIVE AT ISPUTE RESOLUTION CHANGING COURSE A single Field Work Term internship changed everything. RADIO l THE NATURE EQUINE VETERINARY ‘WE ARE LOOKING FOR EXPERIENCE’ Harvard’s Warneken Lab for Developmental Studies offers 11 highly sought-after internships every semester. In one year, Bennington students secured two. SEMBLYMAN WESLEY R LISA MURKOWSKI TAKING CHARGE AND CHANGING MINDS One student’s work explores the process of changing minds and changing systems. SEARCH INSTITUTE l PRESERVATION A MERGER (OF SORTS ) Through an emerging partnership with a forward-thinking, international corporation, ERS DEPARTMENT Bennington students are influencing business—and vice-versa. D COMPANY l FACTS ARE NOT ENOUGH ONY PICTURES The importance of merging classroom philosophy and world reality. ETY l STREB GETTING TO YES S l THIS I Where do you turn when launching your own venture? To your network. IENCE l T THE STARTING SOMEWHERE There’s something to be said for starting small in big places. These Bennington students prove it. ES
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THIRTY UNDER THIRTY A selection of recent alumni making waves in the world of work early in their careers.
CLAIRE BARBER is not a public administration student, she is not studying information technology (exclusively), and she is not a mediator, yet she drew on all of these skills working with the Office of New Urban Mechanics during her sophomore Field Work Term. Claire sees the foundation of these skills coming from her work in the visual arts, which is the focus of her Plan. “I took a course, Foundations in Spatial Thinking and Forming, that reinforced the interconnectedness of my work. We had to complete four projects working with cardboard, metal, and clay. Some of our assignments included building a structure that would support you or creating an apparatus that would move you from one place to another. Each assignment required me to really think about how my body interacts with spaces and to carefully consider the movements I made every day. I had to pay attention to things you wouldn’t normally pay close attention to: What really holds me up in the course of a day? What qualities do these structures embody? What do the structures look like? What do they really need in order to work? I was forced to substantially heighten my sensitivity to what was happening around me, how I related to space, what structures were about. And that relates to my work with Code for America and the Boston Mayor’s Office for New Urban Mechanics. The skills I have gained through my work in the visual arts has informed my understanding of the way governments work. When you consider that government has so many agencies, many different partners, and many people coming from different backgrounds, experiences, approaching work differently and that all of these different elements need to come together in order for government to work, you might see how honing in on key questions, being observant, considering structures, needs, and reconsidering what you take in every day is valuable in the situation. My work in the visual arts was instrumental in allowing me to step back and look at what was successful and what was not, where the pain points were. I was comfortable thinking about how I could change something in one area to get a better result in another area and thinking about how I could help two people or different agencies work together.”
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working with unknowns “A couple of years ago the Boston Mayor’s Office got together with a nonprofit called Code for America (CFA). The organization was created to site smart, young technologists and entrepreneurs to tackle problems facing cities. We presented our team with a tough challenge—build tools that would address needs that community members had around connecting to educational learning opportunities in Boston. We didn’t know what that would look like, but we knew that there was a desire for these tools. “When you think about a project like this it became clear that what we needed was an ethnographer who could serve as an interpreter— someone who could interview families, capture what was working with the process and what was not, someone who could advise us how to improve, someone who had the capacity to think in general about how communities could solve problems. That is where Claire Barber came in. “Claire was way beyond what we expected. In truth, we expected that she would support the project manager, who was a master’s in public administration graduate, but it turned out that we saw an entirely different experience unfold. Claire would improvise, deal with things as they happened, produce and communicate on the fly, she would jump in and collaborate with many different teams and constituents—and she was totally comfortable in this arena. Whereas our project manager was so accustomed to having well-defined problems, she found working with unknowns to be a real challenge. “I have spent a long time working in industry and in government, and it’s a rare thing when you find someone who has this combination of abilities; it’s rare to find true collaborators, and especially so within young people, because, for the most part, they work on projects in isolation. It was clear that was not the case with Claire—she was accustomed to collaboration across all fields. “We were totally blown away. We wanted her to stay longer. And although personality has a lot to do with it, it’s clear that the Bennington model builds these skills. Graduates from some of the country’s most revered institutions surround me, but I would hire a Bennington student again in a heartbeat.” B
“Graduates from some of the country’s most revered institutions surround me, but I would hire a Bennington student again in a heartbeat.”
—Nigel Jacob, co-founder of the Boston Mayor’s Office for New Urban Mechanics. Following Jacob’s experience working with sophomore Claire Barber and talking with other Bennington students during campus visits, he developed three Field Work Term positions for Bennington students at the Mayor’s Office for New Urban Mechanics.
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the (good) business plan When your job requires you to wake up before the sun rises, to drive hundreds of miles a day to remote villages, to work seemingly endless hours, to make difficult financial decisions that will impact communities—you have to be passionate about your work. “The work we do is not easy,” credit manager at Root Capital Diaka Sall explains. “The only way that you can do it is if you have passion and dedication, because most of the pay off is the personal satisfaction you get knowing that you’ve just made a huge impact in a community.” OUSSEYNOU DIOME is unmistakably passionate about many things—science, the environment, economics, communities, education, and above all, making a difference in the world. For his junior Field Work Term, he contacted Root Capital—a leading nonprofit social investment fund that grows rural prosperity in poor, environmentally vulnerable places by lending capital, delivering financial training, and strengthening market connections for small and growing agricultural businesses. Root Capital is like many organizations responding to huge demands with smaller than huge teams—time is precious. For that reason, Diaka Sall wasn’t sure that taking on an intern would benefit the student or the organization. But then she interviewed Ousseynou. “He spoke about his interest in reducing waste in the value chain. He had a lot of ideas about how we could do that, and how we could approach it. All he needed was guidance on how to apply and implement his ideas,” she explains. “It was in our conversation that Ousseynou helped me to see how we could work together.” After almost seven weeks of working with the Bennington College junior, Diaka Sall is impressed. She sees big things happening for Ousseynou, and for the communities that he decides to bring his passion to. “He’s a leader,” she says. “He doesn’t just have ideas, he has the courage to make them happen.”
“He’s a leader. Ousseynou doesn’t just have ideas, he has the courage to make them happen.”
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AN EXCERPT OF OUSSEYNOU DIOME’S PLAN ESSAY: “Finding an efficient and sustainable solution to poverty is an issue of particular importance to me and the focus of my Plan. Concentrating my study in mathematics and political economy, I am interested in responding to questions such as what are the limitations of the demand-supply model? Can universally accepted economics and public policy theories be universally applied? What effect(s) does a change of environment have on them? Should a government always design economic policies aimed at maximizing a country’s total welfare or should it sometimes prioritize equity and fairness? How do entrepreneurs identify opportunities and devise models to efficiently organize factors of production to raise society’s overall well-being? “Some of the classes I have taken focused on the purely theoretical aspects of economics and have allowed me to develop a deep understanding of the merits but also the limitations of some of the most powerful economic models, including the demand-supply model. My other economics and political economy classes had been oriented more toward the macro aspect of economics. Those classes gave me the opportunity to study and evaluate various public policies that have been implemented in both developed and developing nations. Attempting to study and evaluate those public policies have made me aware of why it sometimes makes sense for a government to pursue policies toward equity even though it would result in less efficiency. “In addition to course work, my Plan is influenced by summer internships and Field Work Term experiences. Last summer, I was an intern at one of the largest NGOs in Africa. This internship gave me an opportunity to take an active role in designing and implementing capacity-building programs for women, the youth, and local business leaders in the most impoverished areas of Sub-Saharan African countries such as Senegal, Cote D’lvoire, Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, Zambia, and Uganda. More recently, during my latest Field Work Term, I was in Senegal working for an American investment fund that seeks to fight poverty in African and Latin American countries by financially supporting and training actors in the agriculture sector. These internships have not only allowed me to gain a better understanding of the work/business environment in my home country and expand my professional network in Africa, but they have also brought me closer to my goal of identifying how an entrepreneur defines an opportunity for investment. “For my advanced project I plan to investigate and model the relationship between the health of entrepreneurship and the health of the national output.” B
JASON MOON loves public radio. During his four years at Bennington he has built a resume that will stand out in the field. He is proficient in Pro Tools, Adobe Audition, and SoundSoap. He is an experienced editor and interviewer with the ability to package and distribute stories. And he knows people. Jason has spent his Field Work Terms working with John Gregory from This I Believe; Jay Allison, who produces and airs stories for All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and This American Life; and Viki Merrick, producer of The Moth Radio Hour.
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JASON’S EXPERIENCE: First Year: WBHM Public Radio, radio intern Sophomore Year: Dial A Stranger, creative and clerical intern Junior Year: This I Believe, production assistant Senior Year: Atlantic Public Media, project manager
we don’t usually take on interns “We don’t usually work with interns. In seven years we’ve had five interns altogether. We’re a small organization and we just don’t have the time to provide the guidance that interns usually need. But we hired JASON MOON because he stood out as a serious student. He was clearly dedicated and already making impressive audio at Bennington. Jason had developed some of the skills in his own work that would allow him to jump into our work—and he did. “When he arrived at This I Believe he picked right up. He was mature and impressively selfdirected. In seven weeks he packaged more than 400 audio essays for the web, and helped produce several weekly podcasts. Needless to say, that is a huge undertaking and adds so much value to the work we’re doing here.” B
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“I should tell you that he spoke highly of Bennington— and I see why. Whatever you’re doing, it is working.” –John Gregory, Peabody Award-winning vice president and editorial director for This I Believe
exceeding the sum of your parts
For her sophomore Field Work Term, EMMA HURST interned with filmmaker Rick Prelinger. During the seven weeks, Emma reviewed thousands of home movies from the 1920s through the 1970s for the filmmaker’s upcoming film, No More Road Trips? It was from that footage that she curated a collection of video stills on her blog, *Stills. The collection of stills went viral. Editors from The Atlantic and BoingBoing— the world’s most popular web and culture blog—were captivated. Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, wrote, “Scrolling through these stills is… suspenseful.” BoingBoing discovered the collection and featured it on their blog, quoting Rick Prelinger. “Megan [Prelinger] and I were very fortunate that Emma Hurst chose to spend her Field Work Term with Prelinger Library and Archives, helping with Megan’s forthcoming book and my forthcoming movie. As she viewed and logged some two hundred hours of home movies, she curated a striking collection of still images that, like all great collections, exceeds the sum of its parts.”
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finding
FOCUS field work term as exploration
REBECCA NAKABA has already amassed more work experience than most graduate students in astronomy. She has helped NASA scientists refine an experiment to fix repeatability problems. She has written a computer program to help astronomers studying dim galaxies separate giant stars from dwarf stars. She modeled the mechanics of a light collimator for scientists at Boston University, designed a website for an engineering competition, built an irrigation system for a farm in the south of France, researched and published articles for a travel website, presented at two scientific conferences, and now she’s looking for stars— to be more precise, she’s looking at star formation rates in nearby galaxies. For her first FWT, Rebecca wanted to stay close to home. At the time she also thought she wanted to be a travel writer, so she secured a job with Atlas Obscura. It was a good experience—one that taught her a lot about herself. “My first FWT was good for my personal growth. I realized that something can influence my identity without defining it. So for me that meant coming to the realization that even though I like reading travel writing, I’m not a travel writer.” During her sophomore year at Bennington, Rebecca wanted to travel to Europe. So she worked on an olive farm in exchange for room and board. She farmed, designed and built an irrigation system, installed a sink, and adjusted her “overly romanticized notion of manual labor.” When Rebecca came back to campus, between her FWT experiences and the Plan Process, she re-discovered her passion for science, specifically astronomy—something she didn’t expect. “I was getting really involved in astronomy and my professor recommended that I get more research experience in the field, so I started to look for opportunities supported by the National Science Foundation.” She found one. It was a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant, a program that funds internships for promising undergraduate scientists. That summer she went to work for an astronomer at Haverford College, where Rebecca and another undergraduate wrote a program that would help identify dwarf stars and giant stars in dim galaxies around the Milky Way. At the end of the ten-week internship she presented her work at a conference along with several other students. “After I presented a scientist approached me to ask if I had a mentor. I didn’t. And that’s when I realized that was what was so different
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about my experience compared to the other students presenting—I was shaping my experience. I researched the grant programs. I found internships and jobs. The other students had mentors who were shaping their work.” It sounds arduous, Rebecca says, but it was work that she wouldn’t trade. “Because I have done this work, I know how to do it. And I’m not influenced by someone else’s idea of what I should be doing. I am driving my focus—and that is important to me.” Her next experience was at Boston University working on a NASAfunded cube satellite project for the NANO Satellite competition. Rebecca spent seven weeks shadowing electrical and mechanical engineers. She built a website. She redesigned a light collimator using a CAD 3D modeling program, SolidWorks—something she learned to do literally on the job. “I loved that something with my fingerprints on it could be sent into space—but it wasn’t until working at BU that I realized what I’m interested in is more human than technical. I love going after something that you know exists but can’t always see.” Knowing this, Rebecca headed to NASA’s SETI institute winning another NSF grant. When she arrived, scientists were experimenting with rocks— putting them under stress as a way to test whether or not they experienced electrical activity, which could pave the way for scientists to forecast earthquakes earlier. She was also researching if the rocks oxidize the surrounding water, a process that could be a contributor to the mass amounts of oxygen we have today and might point to the origins of life as we know it. But there was a problem. The experiment wasn’t repeatable. “My job was to figure out what was wonky.” After studying the experiment and looking closely at all of the parts, she found that the materials were causing atoms to tunnel, creating background noise. By replacing the materials with higher density plastic and steel rather than aluminum, they were able to cleanly repeat the experiment. The scientists were impressed, really impressed. In fact if she goes to graduate school in California they would fund a position for her to continue to research with them. Dream job? She laughs. “Yeah, I guess it’s a dream job. I loved working there. But a real dream would be to repeat my Bennington experience out in the world.”
rebecca nakaba
employment history Jun 2012–Aug 2012 SETI INSTITUTE/NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER REU research intern l Worked closely with researchers at the SETI Institute and at NASA Ames Research Center on a planetary geology project. My task was to deduce why the team was getting strange electrical signals from rocks being put under high pressure loads, and to fix the problem. The research is being used for early earthquake warning systems, and has implications for early life formation on Earth. The results were presented at the 2012 AGU conference. l Gained experience operating a 60-ton hydraulic press, soldering and machining, designing tests, and analyzing and interpreting data taken on a picoammeter. l Wrote a paper on my involvement in the project, and on our findings. Presented at SETI Conference and Bennington College Science Workshop. Jan 2012–Feb 2012 BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, PHOTONICS CENTER Systems engineering intern l Worked with principal investigator Professor Ted Fritz on the development of BUSAT, a student-made satellite being built as part of the two-year University Nanosat-7 Program competition. l Synthesized and presented information regarding the intentions and design of BUSAT on the BUSAT website using website program Drupal (www.busat.org). l Used SolidWorks to design a collimator (based off of NASA’s OGO-6 collimators) for Professor Fritz that could be either 3D machined or EDM machined, the main purpose being to reduce the amount of electron contamination created by electron scatter off of surface within the collimator. Worked with BU’s Scientific Instrument Facility to make the design physically feasible. May 2011–Jul 2011 HAVERFORD COLLEGE, PROFESSOR BETH WILLMAN REU research intern l Assisted Professor Willman in her research regarding faint dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way; worked in IDL programming to test photometric methods of distinguishing these galaxies from foreground faint giant stars. l Researched other potential photometric methods of separation, as well as faint dwarf galaxies and faint giant stars themselves. l Synthesized findings into a paper written for both Professor Willman and the KNAC: KECK conference; presented findings at KNAC: KECK conference. Jan 2011–Feb 2011 BENNINGTON COLLEGE, PROFESSOR DOUG GOBEILLE Radio astronomy intern l Sorted NRAO archives to locate sources of x-rays from quasars in the 2.0>z>2.5 gap from Professor Gobeille’s original survey several years ago. l Compiled sources into comprehensive, clear, informative spreadsheet detailing sources in columns of RA and DEC positional coordinates in various formats (self-calculated and compared to NRAO values), and redshift. l Through this process learned the basics of data gathering and organization.
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skills
COMPUTER SKILLS AIPS, DIFMAP, DS9, IRAF, basic IDL programming, LaTeX, SolidWorks, Processing, Arduino, experience with Mac, Windows, Linux, terminal systems, CCD experience OTHER Research experience (lab and book/journal), editing and writing experience (scientific/technical, collegiate writing/editing and professional editing for national literary anthology plain china), ability to run college physics lab, creating and running physics experiments/projects, poster writing and design for presentation of research work, strong communication skills (worked for Bennington College Office of Communications 2010-present), strong ability to focus and express ideas, experience working in both group and single research environments.
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“ I loved that something with my fingerprints on it could be sent into space—but it wasn’t until working at the Photonics Center that I realized what I’m interested in is more human than technical. I love going after something that you know exists but can’t always see.”
related courses COMPACT STELLAR REMNANTS Built up a model of a star then focused on the physics of the post-main sequence stages: white dwarf, neutron star, and black hole. Problem sets involved modeling each outcome, and calculating the different physical factors associated with each.
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS Examined practical applications of differential equations in engineering, physics, and life sciences. The equations were solved both mathematically and qualitatively to ensure the physical system, and what is happening to it, makes sense.
ORBITAL DYNAMICS An introductory course on the physics of two-body and threebody systems. Coursework often involved both engineering and astronomy problems.
INTRODUCTION TO APPLIED MATHEMATICS Focused on specific mathematical tools required for “real world” mathematical problems. Focused on deeper understanding of the methods used (i.e. where logarithms come from, and why they work).
ADVANCED LINEAR ALGEBRA Course focused on more advanced applications and principles of linear algebra, as well as focusing on building and employing these principles from basic theorems and proofs. ELECTRODYNAMICS TUTORIAL Focused on the basic principles of electrodynamics, and their relationship to physics. Coursework involved problem sets both from the book and assigned by the professor. APPLIED PHYSICS: DEFORMATION OF SOLIDS An introductory class on the mechanics and deformation of solids. Projects included building a model bridge and calculating the stress and strain on each joint in order to predict the load it could bear, and a paper and poster on a structural failure detailing why the structure failed. PHYSICAL COMPUTING Programmed an Arduino micro-controller using the Arduino program interface and wrote code in the program Processing for creating visuals. Used a variety of sensors including a flex sensor, photoresistor, potentiometer, and pressure sensor. For the final project I used combined sensors with three objects to create an interactive experience in which handling of the objects resulted in corresponding visuals related to stellar properties. OBSERVATIONAL TECHNIQUES IN ASTROPHYSICS Covered techniques in analyzing and producing radio images of high energy sources such as quasars. The class was half lecture on the properties and functions of a quasar, and half image production. Work was done in AIPS, DIFMAP, and DS9. CALCULUS, ANALYSIS OF THE INFINITE Focused on a deep understanding of the underlying mechanics of calculus, with applied problems in a variety of scientific fields.
PHYSICS LAB TUTORIAL Focused on performing and testing labs used for Bennington physics classes; helped develop new labs to better inform and test students; worked on translating common physical systems, such as a catapult, into actual device (i.e. built catapult for pumpkin chucking). SCIENCE AND MATH FIFTH TERM SEMINAR Focused on developing clear, relevant research questions according to students’ academic interests. Exposure to a wide variety of the sciences was emphasized, and analyses of a variety of current scientific papers was assigned to illustrate what makes a good research question, and how methodology factors in as the next step. SEARCH FOR LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE Closely examined methods of exoplanet detection, conditions which are necessary for life, differences in planetary systems and formation, what defines a habitable zone for a planet and why. DESCRIPTIVE ASTRONOMY Descriptive and mathematical overview of the field of astronomy. Covered important topics such as Newton’s Three Laws, planetary formation, stellar formation/life/death, the early universe (Big Bang theory, and resulting universe), and other general astronomy topics. GROUP TUTORIAL, THE FEYNMAN LECTURES Learning and solving physics problems was done with the Feynman Lectures as the text/base of the class. Understanding the physical system qualitatively as well as quantitatively was emphasized.
changing course Ben Broderick Phillips’ central passion is informal education—education that takes place outside of a formal school setting. He has built a resume around his passion interning with the Exploratorium, a pioneering hands-on science museum; the Boston Museum of Science; and Genspace, the first community biotechnology laboratory.
Ben planned to pursue an internship that would have added another layer of informal education
experience to his resume for his final Field Work Term. That was until Andrew Cencini, computing faculty member at Bennington, invited his students to apply for two programming internships with Nebula—a tech startup founded by NASA’s former chief technology officer. Programming is one of Ben’s casual interests. He loves the problem solving involved, the challenge, and he really likes that he doesn’t bore of it easily. “So when the opportunity to put these skills to professional test came around I felt like it was something I shouldn’t pass up,” Ben explains. “It would let me engage in programming and give me a feel for startup culture. I decided to change course, follow my programming interest on a whim, and do something that is a little less relevant to my Plan. When else would I be able to do that?” Ben and fellow classmate Pratham Joshi were expected to make huge things happen for Nebula in the seven weeks they worked for the company. And they did. With Andrew they created patent-pending work for Nebula, work that will open huge doors for them at Nebula and industry-wide. In fact, they are pretty much guaranteed a job if they want one. It’s something Ben is seriously considering. “I have had a lot of great experiences working in informal education settings,” he explains. “And I do want to go into that field at some point, but this seems like a lucrative opportunity and something that isn’t one I could easily launch into later. Plus, I see ways I could bring this work into informal education.”
And while it is nice to have many job options waiting for you when you graduate, Ben says that
was not what he valued most about FWT. “It’s not exactly what I’ve done that has made FWT significant, or the opportunities it will lead to, but it’s what I got to see, what I got to be a part of that have made these experiences invaluable.”
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LEARNING FROM PROS:
“I can do a lot for students, but if you want a job in the tech industry you have to have serious experience working on strong and interesting projects—and that is exactly what Ben and Pratham
gained
during
Field Work Term. Frankly, they learned more in those seven weeks than I would have been able to teach them in an entire year. Those seven weeks were not about trying, they were only about doing. It was sink or swim. It was terrifying, it could keep you up at night, but they did it. They surprised and impressed me, and the executives at Nebula. Previously, the company only engaged interns from Stanford and Waterloo but now the executives are asking me, ‘Who can you get us from Bennington?’’’ —Andrew Cencini is a prime example of a Bennington teacher-practitioner. Before coming to Bennington, he amassed years of experience in the technology industry. He’s worked on Microsoft’s SQL Server, MSN Search (aka Bing), and his code runs servers and hardware worldwide. And he continues to work in the tech industry, most recently with Nebula. Cencini wants his students to experience the realities of what it is to program and work with
“Previously, the company only engaged interns from Stanford and Waterloo but now the executives are asking me, ‘Who can you get us from Bennington?’”
industry luminaries, which is why he arranged the internships. He knows well that it is in this context that students truly push on their knowledge and expertise, and shape it so that it is relevant in the field.
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we are looking for experience Positions at Harvard’s Warneken Lab for Developmental Studies are competitive. Scores of ambitious, smart students from the country’s top institutions—including Harvard—compete for one of the eleven internship positions they open each semester. So it says something when in a year’s time not one but two internships were given to Bennington students. As lab manager, Kerrie Pieloch oversees intern hiring. Pieloch says there is no exact recipe for success, but—first and foremost—she is looking for real experience, something she has found in Bennington students. “When I’m going through applications I’m looking for students who have research experience, students who have experience working with children, and although this isn’t an absolute determinate, I’m looking for students who know what they want to get out of their experience at the Lab.” KELLY PITMAN fit the bill. She was a junior at Bennington and had two Field Work Term internships under her belt, as well as a clear sense of why she wanted to work at the Lab. Her direction, ambition, and purpose made an impression. In addition to landing the internship she was invited to continue her work at the Lab that summer. More than that, Pieloch was so encouraged by her work with Kelly that she decided to advertise the internship on Bennington’s Field Work Term job board. She hired first-year student PHOEBE TORCHIA, confident in her capacity to do the job. B
Scores of ambitious, smart students from the country’s top institutions— including Harvard— compete for one of the eleven internship positions at the Warneken Lab. It says something when in a year not one but two internships are given to Bennington students.
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From research assistant to researcher. Kelly’s internship in the Warneken Lab influenced the original research she conducted as part of her Bennington academic plan. This research culminated in her senior thesis: “Childhood home place attachments and their impact on identity.�
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taking charge and changing minds MALIHA ALI won funding from the prestigious Davis Peace Project; formed and led an NGO; went head-to-head with New York City school administrators (and won); designed and implemented groundbreaking curriculum; and restored a defunct public library in Karachi, Pakistan—all by the time she was a sophomore. Maliha’s success has a lot to do with her tenacity, quick thinking, and intellectual ambition. It has to do with her interest in changing minds based on convincing evidence. It has to do with her passion to solve problems. And it has a lot to do with how she overcomes red tape and bureaucracy. At Bennington, Maliha was able to shape an academic plan around her interests and aspirations: changing minds and systems through effective arguments and leadership.
B MALIHA MAKES SENSE OF HER STUDIES THIS WAY IN THE OPENING OF HER PLAN ESSAY: “While I think it is necessary to include a study of historical, philosophical, and psychological approaches in addressing questions about individual and system change, I would like my ultimate focus to be on application. What does it mean to change the mind of an individual or a group of individuals? What is the process? What are leverage points? What makes an effective argument, an effective leader, an effective system? If it were to be mapped, what would it look like?”
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“My first FWT, I worked as a liaison between the Maria Torres Emerging Artists Foundation and Harlem Link, a middle school in Harlem. During FWT, I helped to set up a dance production for Black History Month. This wasn’t straightforward. I had to push for the program to be implemented because of logistical and philosophical challenges articulated by school administrators. By working through these challenges, I learned how to work with young students, school officials, and saw firsthand the difficulties and rewards of organizing a collective effort.”
FUNDAMENTALS OF ADVANCING PUBLIC ACTION “A frustrating but ultimately rewarding course as it emphasized the ambiguity and urgency of problems and my role in relation to them; eventually led me to design and implement a public action project.”
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APPLIED MATHEMATICS “Fascinating when combined with public action to represent problems numerically and make sense of large-scale problems.”
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“Collaboratively deconstructed the Occupy movement to lay out causes in a visual cause map and built a solutions framework in response to it.”
EAR
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LITERARY DIARIES AND JOURNALS
GLOBAL ETHICS, GLOBAL JUSTICE
ST YEAR
“Very useful analysis of primary sources to represent historical perspectives on various issues throughout time.”
“I learned how to track philosophical arguments, especially convincing conflicting arguments.”
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GOVERNING FIRMS AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
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“I learned to conduct equity research and manage an investment portfolio and debated the role and structure of corporate entities within the larger political economy. I realized I needed to educate myself on economic history and philosophy and also that I would love to apply myself to this area during an upcoming Field Work Term.”
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“During the summer, I designed and implemented a public action project in Karachi using a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant. The project was a collaborative, communitybased, problem-solving effort that was realized by empowering local citizens to become creative, active, and responsible members of their communities. I led workshops to teach students how to identify a problem around them, process a solution, and collectively organize to realize a plan.”
AR ECONOMIC LIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS “I enjoyed the heated arguments about economic choices and ideas on both philosophical and applicationoriented levels; it responded to the questions I’m interested in around how economic decisions and systems are organized on a country level and how to measure their impact.”
INTRACTABLE CONFLICTS: SOLVING THE IMPOSSIBLE “I took this class to temper my cynicism regarding the application of problemsolving and conflictresolution processes.”
A MERGER (of sorts) REFLECTING ON HER WORK AT ROYAL DSM BEFORE RETURNING TO BENNINGTON, HILARY WHITNEY WROTE: “I find myself involved in a loaded business. In the pharmaceutical industry, profitability goes head to head with accessibility. It costs a LOT of money for a big pharma company (think Pfizer) to innovate, approve, and send to market a new pharmaceutical drug. The big pharma companies need to sell their brand name drugs at high prices in order to fund the research and development that advances health care, but generic producers— who essentially take big pharma’s formulas once their patents expire—produce them at much lower costs, increasing accessibility for lower income populations. These things get complex because most people consider equitable health care a human right. “Based on the interest I expressed in those ethical issues, I was offered the opportunity to design an independent project. I’m going to produce a report analyzing the contentious dimensions of the generic drug industry; the various stakeholders and their interests; how a company like DSM could strategically position itself within this market; and why DSM should have a transparent ethical commitment as we advance our strategy. “I’m learning about the corporate sector, and the realities of big business. Corporations are not the enemy as they are so often cast in humanitarian campaigns. In fact, I see immense opportunity within this organization for advancing public action.” B
“I’m learning about the corporate sector, and the realities of big business. Corporations are not the enemy as they are so often cast in humanitarian campaigns.”
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In the spring of 2011, Claudy Jongstra, whose studio was commissioned to design tapestries for Bennington’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA), described the idea and principles behind the curricular initiative to Feike Sijbesma, CEO of the $13-billion multinational company, Royal DSM. Sijbesma was so struck by the similarity with his own philosophy—to use private resources for public good—that he sent Elizabeth Coleman, Bennington’s president at the time, an email inviting a conversation and collaboration. Headquartered in the Netherlands, DSM employs 23,000 people globally. A partner of the United Nations’ World Food Programme, DSM is committed to using private profits to respond to the world’s most pressing needs. On a World Economic Forum panel, Sijbesma, with notable directness and simplicity, stated that because private business holds much of the world’s money, it holds the key to solving many of the world’s problems. “It should be a primary goal of the company to make the world a better place. Profit is not a goal; it’s a means.” Bennington was applying similar principles by bringing the world’s most pressing problems directly into the classroom. Now there was a new dimension to consider—the potential for a dynamic interplay between the College and the private sector. “Most stories about college are about jobs. How colleges should prepare students for jobs, train them to have certain skills, to become more employable,” Coleman, now director of CAPA, explains. “But no one ever asks industry ‘what are you offering to our most talented graduates to make your world sufficiently attuned to their values?’ The point is, it is time the conversation went in both directions. DSM is a stellar example of a company that has the complex mix of values and a commitment to the long view that our graduates are seeking. They invite rather than avoid the conversation about values.” Bennington and DSM are building a partnership using Field Work Term as a bridge. In 2013 the first four students from Bennington spent their FWT at DSM. Hilary Whitney was one of them. She worked for the Strategic Business Intelligence unit within DSM’s pharmaceuticals branch. The branch currently makes ingredients for companies that manufacture drugs, and they asked Whitney to take on the independent project of researching the industry of authorized generics.
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facts are not enough CRYSTAL BARRICK, EMILY CLIMER, and LIZ MEIER all work for Student Achievement Partners (SAP), an organization that has played a leading role in development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). They landed their jobs straight out of college, jobs that emerged from their work in class and in the field. The three discovered the Common Core Standards in an education reform
“In class we would generate lofty ideas, but then we’d go into the field and discover tensions and challenges involved in the work that none of us had anticipated in class.”
class at Bennington. The course was designed to expose students to education reform efforts and have them propose their own viable, evidence-based solution that would transform education. “It was a challenge that pushed us to work on an entirely different level,” Emily says. And an ideal set up for Field Work Term. While Crystal, Emily, and Liz took the class together, each explored different FWT opportunities to tease out central questions and provide opportunities to transition their classroom insights into the real world. But something happened to all of them. Field Work Term became an unexpected reality check. “In class we would generate lofty ideas, but then we’d go into the field and discover tensions and challenges involved in the work that none of us had anticipated in class,” Emily says. “One of the most challenging aspects of FWT was discovering that although we had the facts and the evidence to support our ideas and positions, there were complex tensions and challenges in real work environments that were not at all evidence based. I really began to understand the way that the world works,” she explains. As challenging as their yearlong education reform class was, it was the combination of actual experience and class work that “forced us to test the full bounds of our intellectual capacities,” says Crystal. While in class they were learning how to construct solutions, in the field they were learning how and where to spend their time, how to hone natural skills to problem solve on the fly, and how to more effectively make a case for solutions. “It’s one thing to know something,” Crystal says, “but it is another thing to know how to actually get work worth doing done.” Field Work Term helped all three identify skills they needed to develop in order to progress their work. When Emily realized that she needed to know more about the effective communication of data to pursue evidence-based reform efforts, she integrated a “Visualizing Data” course into her plan. When Liz struggled with public speaking and projecting confidence during presentations, she returned to campus to take an acting course, as did Crystal after she found it difficult to communicate on the phone with authority. All of these courses were outside of their comfort zones and areas of interest. “But we really enjoyed them because we knew exactly how the material would apply to what we were passionate about and why it was important.” B
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getting to yes David Anthony is one of scores of Bennington alumni who can trace his big break to Field Work Term. Big breaks come in many forms. Some come, as Carol Channing’s did, through auditions during Field Work Term—where she landed her first major role. Some come as bands build audiences and buzz by touring and recording (Will Stratton, Mountain Man, Spinto Band, BOBBY). Some come as writers, like Brett Easton Ellis, craft their debut novel in college. Some
“ My Field Work Term experiences have been about pitching ideas, getting business, and learning how to get people to say, ‘yes.’”
are businesses, NGOs, or inventions that begin during those seven weeks. David’s big break, although he didn’t know it, was in motion during his first Field Work Term experience. He was working for JSM Music, a prominent advertising jingle house that wrote, produced, and recorded music for national advertising campaigns. While he was there he became friends with the owner and CFO. He kept in touch with both of them throughout his time at Bennington. When David finished college, he was ready to launch his first company—a DVD design and production studio—with another alumnus. “DVD was just emerging as a new video format,” he explains. “The production work dove-tailed nicely with all that I had studied, which was a lot: computer technology, video and audio production, and interface design.” The business required a lot of startup capital. David felt confident about his skills, but he needed guidance about how to attract investors. He reached out
to the owner and CFO at JSM, looking for advice. “It had not occurred to me that they would invest the money,” he says. “But they did, to my surprise. They liked the idea and decided to provide the startup capital we needed to start the business.” It was that investment that got them off the ground and launched David’s entrepreneurial career.
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Junior Mike Goldin isn’t waiting for a big break, he is crafting one. Mike knows himself well, well enough to know that he doesn’t want a boss, he doesn’t want a “9-5” desk job—what he wants is to make work on his own terms, and his own schedule. He is figuring out how to do this using Field Work Term to generate business and buzz. “My Field Work Term experiences have been about pitching ideas, getting business, and learning how to get people to say, ‘yes’,” he explains. So far he’s succeeding. He has managed a state legislator’s website and social media redesign; he has produced videos and articles for a life sciences company; he’s the editor of the College’s student-run student newspaper; and now he is gaining experience with one of the largest independent public relations firms in the world. He wants this to lead to work with more clients who are passionate about what they’re doing and, as he puts it, “know why their work matters.”
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starting somewhere A student’s first Field Work Term is often a starting place. It is an opportunity to get exposure to the rhythms of work, to immerse yourself in the professional culture, or simply to live and work in a dream location. Because Bennington requires students to complete four Field Work Terms before they graduate, students can use each FWT opportunity for different purposes, building one experience on another.
B NATHAN PAUL interned with Sony Studios for his first Field Work Term. “I had an opportunity to learn about postproduction sound editing, what it is to work in these departments, and the politics of the industry. Beyond building contacts, which I will plan to do by pursuing other film industry internship opportunities for my future Field Work Terms, I learned a lot about how dedicated and devoted people have to be in order to find success in this field. It was obvious that if I wanted to continue to go after work in the film industry, I should be prepared to spend a lot of time at work in the trenches—a lot of time. You don’t learn that kind of thing in class; you figure that out in the field.” “For my Field Work Term, I worked on a competitive research project at the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather,” SYD GONZALES says. “I didn’t expect to be given so much responsibility for my first FWT, but it taught me a lot and helped me practice my communications skills. It’s one thing to research, it’s another thing to translate what I found to a team of people and make sure they understand it.” SARAH GOLDSMITH got a lot of entry-level library experience during her first Field Work Term at Viacom. She learned how to catalogue, archive, shelve—and she was enthusiastic about the opportunity. Her supervisor was delighted because Sarah found the internship that was made for her by being exact and specific about where she saw herself fitting in at Viacom—and as her supervisor said—that made all the difference. B
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LAW l POLITICS l PUBLIC ACTION
Jess Kutch ’03: Co-founder of Coworker.org. Winner of the inaugural J.M.K. Innovation Prize, which aims to support people addressing the country’s most pressing needs through social sector innovation Junior FWT: Americans for Democratic Action, Washington, DC Shira Sternberg ’05: Advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Regional Administrator, Boston, MA; Co-founder goatpluslion.com Junior FWT: Voter registration co-chair, North Bennington, VT Jessica Alatorre ’08: Judicial Law Clerk, Executive Office for Immigration Review U.S. Department of Justice. Washington College of Law, American University Junior FWT: Human Rights Watch, New York, NY Brian Morrice ’10: Former personnel intern, The White House; digital organizer, Obama for America Sophomore FWT: Democracy for America, Burlington, VT
BUSINESS l MARKETING Minden Koopmans ’05: Senior Management Advisor, Mayor’s Center for Economic Opportunity, New York. MBA, Stern School of Business, New York University Sophomore FWT: Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR Ayn Slavis ’06: COO, LED Waves, company that designs, manufactures, and distributes LED lighting in Brooklyn, NY; alumna, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program First-year FWT: Kroyt Brandt Productions, Inc., New York, NY Maj Anya DeBear ’07: Founder/president, Ursidae NYC, a fashion company featured in Elle, Design Bureau, NBC New York, and Marie Claire Sophomore FWT: Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY Jacob Wolf ’07: Owner, Holy Smokes Booking, a Brooklyn-based independent booking agency Junior FWT: Punk Rock Payroll/The Extraordinaires, tour manager/publicist, Philadelphia, PA Nicholas Haas ’10: Analyst, Goldman Sachs Sophomore FWT: East Carolina University, assistant to the Japanese professor, Greenville, NC Lea Hershkowitz ’11: Producer, Juicy Couture Senior FWT: Design Lab, Boston, MA
VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS Savannah Dooley ’07: Writer/producer, Huge, ABC Family First-year FWT: Maverick Productions, Beverly Hills, CA
SMALL COLLEGE, BIG IMPACT
The New York Times included Bennington as one of the five colleges in the country where “work counts.” They wrote, “Bennington sets aside the months of January and February as Field Work Term, which dates back to the college’s founding, in 1932. Most students leave campus for the duration—to work at places like television networks, publishing houses, museums and nonprofit groups…. While interships are often related to a student’s academic work, this is not a requirement, because the college sees the experience as ‘not just doing a specific job’ but as a way of ‘studying what it is to work.’” Unigo ranks Bennington as the sixth “brainiest college” in the country. The Huffington Post identified Bennington as one of the 12 best colleges in the country to offer an education that is “a rigorous and inventive process.” The Princeton Review ranks Bennington as one of the top colleges where “classroom discussions are encouraged,” “students study the most,” and receive the “best classroom experience.”
Lindsay Howard ’08: Curatorial Director at NewHive. Her digital art auctions at Phillips Auction House in New York and London were called an “art breakthrough” by WIRED Magazine Senior FWT: Christie’s Auction House, New York, NY Molly Tarlov ’08: Television actress, best known for her role as Sadie on MTV’s Awkward First-year FWT: Bernard Telsey Casting, New York, NY Will Stratton ’09: Singer/songwriter; four full-length albums released to wide acclaim Sophomore FWT: The Buddy Project Studio, Astoria, NY Mountain Man: Vocal trio; appearances at SXSW, the Newport Folk Festival, and the Mercury Lounge earned rave reviews from The New York Times, Spinner, and NPR Alexandra Sauser-Monnig ’09 Sophomore FWT: Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR Amelia Randall Meath ’10 Junior FWT: Rude Mechanicals, Austin, TX Molly Erin Sarle ’12 Junior FWT: Brecht Forum, New York, NY Sylvan Esso: Featuring Amelia Meath ‘10 as lead singer. Released their debut album, and NPR’s First Listen noted it as among the best songs of the year. Junior FWT: Rude Mechanicals, Austin, TX
SCIENCE l TECHNOLOGY Mike Rugnetta ’05: Creator, host, and Webby Award winner of the PBS Idea Channel Senior FWT: Greenhouse Studios, Reykjavik, Iceland Max Cantor ’07: Programmer at Neo Innovation, Inc., best known for his “Beautiful Vim Cheat Sheet” programmer’s reference poster Senior FWT: Aventis-Pasteur, web development intern, Stroudsburg, PA Kathryn Furby ’08: Ph.D. candidate, Scripps Institution of Oceanography First-year FWT: Shedd Aquarium, Wild Reef Aquarium Collections, Chicago, IL Wyatt Kirby ’10: Founding Partner, Apsis Labs Junior FWT: Genius.com, Inc., marketing intern, San Mateo, CA Max Nanis ’12: Conceptual artist/Programmer/ Computational biologist was at the center of a New Yorker article about a cast of “digital rock stars” who are in such high demand that a talent agency was formed to represent them Junior FWT: Mekentosj, Developer/Intern in Palo Alto, California Matthew Nunes ’11: Cocoa developer, Pix System Senior FWT: Konnessi LLC, Providence, RI
Ben Underwood ’13: Fulbright scholar working in China to develop a large-scale biogas plant in Kunming City. Named a “25 Under 25: Rising Stars in US-China Relations” Senior FWT: DSM Pharmaceutical Products, Talent and Development Group, Parsippany, New Jersey
MEDICINE l HEALTH Michelle Acciavatti ’05: Neuroscience consultant, Boston Children’s Hospital Sophomore FWT: Department of Pathology, Columbia University, New York, NY Suzanne Brundage ’08: Senior Health Policy Analyst, United Hospital Fund of New York; MPH Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Senior FWT: Catholic Aids Action, educational assistant, Windhoek, Namibia Ryan Smith ’08: Disease intervention specialist, HIV/STD Program, Seattle-King County Public Health Department; medical student, University of Washington School of Medicine Senior FWT: Instituto Guatemalteco de la Seguridad Social, medical intern, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala Tambu Kudze ’10: Medical student, Yale School of Medicine; former research technician, Massachusetts General Hospital Sophomore FWT: Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
WRITING l LITERATURE Luke Mogelson ’05: Contributing writer for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker, The Nation, and others Senior FWT: Independent study in fiction Julieanne Smolinski ’05: Humor writer and columnist, named by Rolling Stone as one of the 25 funniest Twitter personalities Sophomore FWT: Pelican Publications Co., Inc., Gretna, LA David Archer ’08: Publicist, Vintage & Anchor Books, representing Camille Paglia, Tom McCarthy, David Rakoff, Heidi Julavits, Alan Hollinghurst, Susanna Moore, Michio Kaku Senior FWT: Knopf Publishing Group, Division of Random House, Inc., New York, NY Michael Nordine ’10: Film critic at LA Weekly and The Village Voice Senior FWT: Seattle University, creative writing internship, Seattle, WA Safiya Sinclair ’10: Winner of the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, given by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for her manuscript,Cannibal. Author and poet First-year FWT: English Language Council Daniel Goldberg ’11: TV critic for Slant Junior FWT: Random House, Inc., New York, NY
in the news U.S. News & World Report
TOP 10 COLLEGES WITH THE HIGHEST RATE OF INTERNSHIPS BENNINGTON COLLEGE
100% THE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS:
“Bennington sets aside the months of January and February as Field Work Term, which dates back to the College’s founding, in 1932. Most students leave campus for the duration—some go abroad—to work at places like television networks, publishing houses, museums and nonprofit groups…. While internships are often related to a student’s academic work, this is not a requirement, because the College sees the experience as ‘not just doing a specific job’ but as a way of ‘studying what it is to work.’”
AN OUTSTANDING ABILITY TO: • • • •
Learn quickly, with independence and initiative Focus and solve problems confidently Deliver quality, organized work Employ impressive interpersonal and professional skills • Take direction well and demonstrate engagement with their work
what employers report 99%
of employers reported being satisfied or extremely satisfied with their Bennington intern
91%
of employers surveyed think Bennington interns are ready for entry-level work (freshman through seniors)
95%
would hire a Bennington intern again
93%
of employers surveyed said that Bennington students have a good or outstanding ability in key work-related skills Results of 550 employer evaluations submitted to Bennington College in 2014.
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