FEATURES
Page 6
December 8, 2011
Winternships program ends due to lack of staff, funding Divya Pathak
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Reporter
lthough most students will be looking forward to spending Winter Break relaxing, others will dream of the internships and job opportunities that await them in the future. The long weeks provide students with time to both relax and write applications, and in previous years some students even participated in mini-internships during the early weeks of January. The “Winternship” program previously sponsored by the Career Development Office (CDO), however, will not be an option for students this year. The Winternships—winter internships— typically lasted for two weeks. A student was paired up with an alumnae/i who had a career similar to the one the student was interested in pursuing. The student then shadowed him or her for the two weeks. The CDO is short on staff members this year, as former Director of the Career Development Office Mary Raymond now works at Pomona College. Limited staff members would have made arranging the Winternship program more difficult, and there was a lack of funding this year as well, contributing to the elimination of the program for the time being. Acting Director of the CDO Stacy Bingham said, “The Winternship program was an expendable gift of the class of 2009. There is a small amount of funding still available, but we had to be realistic,” referring to the difficulty in matching students with alumnae/i for the Winternship, which requires a larger staff. The CDO hopes to re-launch the program next year when they are fully staffed. “We hoped to grow the program this year, but it requires a fair bit of effort and manpower to make the student-host matches to run the program,” said Bingham. Despite the fact that Winternships are not available this year, Bingham said, “The
Winter Break is a great time for internship opportunities, informational interviews and extended shadowing. These experiences are great ways to connect with alumnae/i.” Saumya Bhutani ’14 wrote in an emailed statement, “I think [the Winternships are] an excellent program as it helps students with networking, allows them to get a taste of a field and a professional work environment. I was really disappointed to see it go this year. The CDO is always telling students to contact alumnae/i using the AAVC [Alumnae & Alumni of Vassar College] page, but through the Winternship program, such a process is expedited as students are matched to alumnae/i whose fields they are interested in. These alumnae/i are eager and have already agreed to take on students.” The success of past Winternships have depended on the students and the alumnae/i. Students who have spent previous January’s shadowing alumnae/i had much to say of their experiences. Last break, Pam Vogel ’12 interned with an eighth grade social studies teacher at M.S. 131 (Dr. Sun Yat Sen Middle School) in the Chinatown area of New York. Her host for the program was Una Fuller ’03. Vogel worked every day shadowing her at school for two weeks of Winter Break in January 2011. Vogel wrote in an emailed statement, “I decided to apply for the Winternship program after checking out an email from the CDO and then looking at all of the placement opportunities. There were quite a few placements in education and non-profit work, which is what I am interested in doing after graduation.” “To me, it seemed like the perfect chance to explore an area in my potential field that I wasn’t initially excited about and to expand my horizons beyond what I had read about in class,” Vogel stated. “The Winternship program seemed like a uniquely genuine
learning opportunity because it was a lower pressure setting as well—the experience itself is relatively brief, and the hosts are Vassar grads who are excited to have you and interested in what you have to say.” Because the Winternship program only lasted for two weeks, it gave students the opportunity to shadow a possible future career without the commitment of a summeror semester-long internship. In 2010 Matthew Bock ’12 interned with Jennifer Serravallo ’99, a literary consultant at the Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project. The Project is an organization that develops and implements techniques for improving literacy in public schools around the country and the world. Wrote Bock in an emailed statement, “I sat in on intra-organizational meetings and lectures and visited NYC public schools to see, first hand, how techniques were being implemented there. I think I learned a lot from my experience, not just in terms of understanding what kind of difficulties teachers and young students often face in the learning of reading and writing, but also in terms of attaining exposure to a field I previously knew very little about.” “That’s why the Winternship program is neat—or at least was for me—because it allows you to see and do something different,” Bockstated. For Julia McGill ’13, the Winternship she had in January of 2011 was an opportunity for her to experience small, local theater in the world outside of Vassar. She said, “I interned in New York City with the Debate Society, a theater company founded by two Vassar graduates of the Class of 2000. They write, perform, direct and build their own theater pieces. I helped with the second run of a show. I sat in on script readings and rehearsals, helped them build big sets for the show, helped with
props and helped with errands such as going out and buying things they needed. I helped with whatever was needed in the moment, it was really hands-on.” As a drama and urban studies major, McGill had the chance to understand how her major was applicable and appreciated the strong network of alumniae/i. “It felt like I knew them, even though I didn’t. We had the shared background of Vassar and it was nice to have that connection,” she said. “I know that if I ever wanted to work with them again, I could,” McGill continued, “With most internships, it feels like you have to try to prove yourself. In interning with Vassar grads, it was really a big learning experience. It was a great opportunity to get to know what people do after Vassar and for me, to see how small theater companies work in the real world and how they overcome their obstacles.” While Bock appreciated his Winternship opportunity, he did add, “I wish [my Winternship] had been more participatory. I was rarely asked to help out or contribute myself but mostly just to observe. My suggestion would be, if you are considering applying for an internship, to make sure that you have an active role in the interning experience.” For students seeking internships with a connected Vassar alumnae/i, Bingham said, “Students are encouraged to search for alumnae/i on the Vassar Career Advisory Network, also known as V-Net. Students can search based on criteria and find shadowing experiences and winter internships. We also welcome the opportunity to work individually with students to help make connections to alumnae/i in their interest areas.” Students looking to spend their long Winter Break making plans for the future still have opportunities while the Winternship program is on hiatus. The less ambitious, of course, can always catch up on sleep.
Security offers new loaner bike program for students Jessica Tarantine
Assistant Features Editor
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Juliana Halpert/The Miscellany News
s the weather grows frostier and snow prepares to cover icy paths, Vassar’s bikeriding season draws to a close, ending the first semester of Vassar’s new bike program. The revamped program offered by the Office of Safety and Security hopes to correct many of the problems with the old Shared Bike Program, commonly known as the Pink Bike program, while still offering a zero-cost option for bike riding on campus. The Shared Bike Program was decertified by the Vassar Student Association last year. The program maintained a fleet of pink bikes that any student could unlock by purchasing a key at the beginning of each semester. The key would allow the student to ride any pink bike on campus. “[The] primary reason for the change was lack of student interest to oversee the program. The Dean of the College [Chris Roellke] asked me to look into it and see what I could do to continue the program,” said Director of Transportation Dennis Cody. In addition to the lack of the student interest, another reason for stopping the program was students’ poor upkeep of the bikes. “Too many students who signed up for the program by renting a key did not take care of the bikes when they left them at various locations on campus,” said Cody. This meant that even when students found a pink bike it could be damaged. At the end of last year roughly half of the bikes were functional. This was confirmed by Director of the Bike Shop Alexander Herman ’12, who said, “I maintained the pink bikes last year, and many of them were completely destroyed because of students’ disrespect of the whole system.” Added Cody, “The initial idea of riding a bike from point A to point B, sounded good, but many students were frustrated as the bikes were not there after they rode them, resulting in their having to walk back to their original location.” The new system, which loans a bike to each student, means that although it is no longer a communal program, students can be guaranteed to have a bike upon their return.
Above, sudents socialize in the Bike Shop, which is maintained by the Vassar Bikes Club. Located in the Strong basement, the Bike Shop offers an array of low-cost bike services to the Vassar community. Said Mariesa Samba ’13, “[The pink bikes] weren’t too convenient, and never really around when you needed one. Also the pink bike idea, which I believe was meant to set the bikes apart from other students’ bikes, didn’t really work as well as one would hope,” she said, referring to the distinctive color on the College’s bikes. Lauryn Tong ’12 explained that as the number of bikes dwindled, people became more possessive of their bikes, which was indicative of a larger problem. “I used the bikes right up until they terminated the program. If there was anything I didn’t like about the system, it was that it relied too much on people being completely altruistic, so basically what happened was a tragedy of the commons. Everyone wanted the perks of being able to get somewhere faster, but
no one wanted to take the time to bring in broken bikes to the shop,” she said. In the end, it appeared that the $10 fee and student employment position dedicated to fixing the bikes was not enough to sustain the upkeep for all of the bikes. “It’s interesting to note that [other students] did have the time to hide them in very interesting places so other people wouldn’t steal ‘their’ ride while they were in a building. So, towards the end, it became more a matter of being lucky enough to find one that still functioned, which was a pretty slim chance, than it was about the original intention of sharing a set of bikes,” Tong said.. The new system works to correct the issues inherent in the old system by increasing individual responsibility: each student is responsi-
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
ble for his or her own loaner bike, and students can no longer unlock all of the College’s bikes on campus. “It was my opinion that the students needed a more vested interest in taking care of the bike they were riding, so I evolved the Pink Bike program into a loaner bike program,” said Cody. Students may now sign up to receive a loaner bike and free lock to secure the bike. If the student loses the bike due to his or her own neglect the student will be billed $50 from the student’s account. In the new system students must return their bike before the beginning of Thanksgiving Break and can take the bike out again after Spring Break, which keeps the bikes off the paths during the snowy months. Although the previous Pink Bike system was a student-run organization, many of the remaining pink bikes are being used in the new bike program. “What I found was that out of the original 40 bikes, we were left with about 20 bikes that were semi-operational,” said Cody. The Office of Safety and Security’s bike patrol officers then fixed up the usable bikes for the beginning of the year and purchased the additional bikes needed from The Pleasant Valley Bike Shop. Overall, students seem to be pleased with the changes made to the bike program. “We have 25 bikes now loaned out to our students who seemed very happy with the program for this academic year,” said Cody. “I like the new system better, because all bikes are individually assigned which means I’ll have my bike whenever I need it. No one can use it without my knowledge,” said Estra Aral ’12. This sentiment was shared by many students who used a bike provided by the Office of Safety and Security. “So far, I’m liking the current system much more than the former one. I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’ll have the extra five minutes to ask my professor a question in case someone took the bike I was going to use,” said Tong. “Also, I know that I’m held accountable for the bike I’m using, so there’s a strong incentive See BIKE on page 6