Seniors Brian McKenna, Emily Gupta, Lauren Graber and Aaron Paige recently finalized their applications for the Watson Fellowship, a gift granting 25 graduating seniors from around the country $22, 000 to pursue a project personally designed by the award winner. The four candidates will join 96 other candidates from 50 schools across the country in the application process.
“[The Watson Fellowship] basically gives students the chance to do whatever they want to do, wherever they want to do it,” Graber said.
The written application, which was due on Monday, consisted of a personal statement that included reasons why the candidates are interested in their topics, as well as a lengthy project proposal, including the potential topic of study, possible locations for the project, and an explanation of the project’s greater purpose and implications.
“They are looking for independently minded thinkers,” Graber said.
Unlike other fellowships, Watson projects are not graded and no papers are required upon completion. Participants are, however, expected to write brief reports assessing the progress of their projects once they are underway.
Graber has chosen cross-cultural refugee healthcare as her potential project topic, and hopes to concentrate her study in Kenya, Thailand, Egypt, and Norway. McKenna has chosen music as his area of study.
“Through my Watson project I will assess the current state of technology in the music industry [and its] influence on how new music develops from past traditions,” McKenna said.
McKenna’s project will explore the cultural globalization of traditional music in Ghana, Ireland, India, and Jamaica.
Along other lines, Gupta hopes to study the empowerment of women through credit relationships.
“The purpose of my project is to play the role of a participant-observer in appraising the shortfalls and achievements of microcredit programs in empowering women in India, Ghana, Guyana, and Haiti,” Gupta said.
If granted the fellowship, Gupta plans to conduct interviews with female borrowers and meet with policy officials and grassroots activists who are implementing microcredit programs, which extend small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
“Through getting a sense of how the borrowers and lenders relate to each other, I hope to figure out where there are gaps of understanding and how relationships can be improved,” Gupta said.
Fellowship candidates pursuing such self-motivated projects are often inspired by courses they have taken or subjects they have studied while at Wesleyan.
“As I have learned through my listening experience and studies in recording technology here at Wesleyan, the natural respiration these [forms of] music enjoy in their live state is increasingly altered by innovations in recording technology,” McKenna said. “Recorded music is not a product. It is a process dependent on a multitude of constantly changing variables. The procedures of this process are what I want to understand through my Watson project.”
The proposals and applications will be read over the next two months, before the candidates undergo a rigorous series of interviews in January. The award winners will be announced in March.
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