While studying abroad at the Swarthmore College Grenoble program during the fall of her junior year, Alicia Collen ’08 was lucky enough not only to enjoy France’s bread, wine and cheese, but also to find inspiration for her senior thesis.
As a varsity softball player and lifelong athlete, Collen was anxious to remain active while studying abroad. She therefore began practicing with a French rugby team that included several other Wesleyan students—an experience that helped prompt what would eventually become her 100-plus page senior thesis paper.
Collen’s thesis, entitled “Playing Sport, Playing Roles: The Socialization of Adolescents through Organized Youth Sport in France and America,” evolved as an extension of Collen’s own experiences growing up playing sports in America, and also her desire to explore wha influences sport selection in France and America.
“I started to think about my own sports career and how sports had affected my childhood,” Collen said. “I thought about how I played rugby in France and how that was viewed by my host family. I started asking questions about how sports affected who I am today and how children’s socialization through sports depends on so many factors related to how they’re raised; for example, their race, gender and socioeconomic class.”
While researching the popularity and history of several sports in French society, Collen found that she was most interested in the differences between French and American sports; why, for example, has soccer become so popular in France, whereas basketball is far more popular in America?
“I wanted to look at the comparison of organized youth sport and how it socializes children to abide by cultural norms in France and America,” she explained.
After finalizing her topic, Collen began her research using both French and English sources, translating a fair amount of the French literature into English to use as textual evidence throughout her paper.
“The translations were hard, because it’s difficult to convey the original meaning when you’re not a native speaker of both the languages you’re working with,” she said. “But I did my best since I knew one of my thesis readers would be able to understand. I learned a lot though.”
Over the past year, Collen’s carrel has become increasingly like a second home—in the past few months, in fact, she has spent at least several hours each day there working on and editing her thesis.
“It’s been a bitch,” she said. “It’s been really challenging, I’ve been writing since October, and at times it’s been long and arduous. But I’ve had a great advisor who’s gotten me through the process and I’m glad it’s almost over.”
As theses are due April 14, Collen is indeed nearing the finish line.
“I submitted a final version to my advisor on Monday so hopefully I’ll have finished printing by Thursday and have it ready to hand in by Saturday morning,” she said. “It’s been turned into a PDF and I’ve already sent the file to the printers. I’m so relieved that it’s out of my hands at this point. Even if I wanted to work on it, I couldn’t.”
After over a year of hard work, Collen believes that her thesis was a worthwhile endeavor, despite the sacrifices she has made.
“I’ve learned so much,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot about being able to see who I am today and how it’s a product of what I’ve done up to this point, how it’s a product of playing sports and my academic decisions and where I went to high school and my parents. But it’s also made me learn how to manage a long-term project and more mundane things than the actual topic itself. I just can’t wait to be finished!”
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