Interview Days

Hello readers!

Hope you’re having great Friday mornings :). (And isn’t it funny to think we each have our own individual mornings!) This week, I decided to do another interview, since Mia, one of my commenters on the blog (hint hint nudge nudge :)) said she enjoyed them :). And so I present to you: Aly!

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I met Aly at the lunch table one day, and asked her if she would do a follow-up interview with me, which she agreed to! We met in her room last Wednesday at 8:30pm, when we were both free. I was introduced to her roommate, Laura, then sat down at her desk while she relocated to her very cozy-looking bed. A warning—Aly is a fast talker, and though I’ve been trying for years, my typing speed seems to have peaked. I did my best, but know that her responses were longer and more complete than what I am able to deliver to you :). (Also, Aly seems to have a natural sense for blog posting, and provided me with some great pictures in response to my questions! Hee, I could learn from her :)).

Date: 10/7/13

Name: Aly

Year: Sophomore

Dorm: Cazenove Hall. 

Major: Poli-Sci (Political Science) and Urban Planning at MIT. Also, Environmental Science as a possible minor… but that’s a big question mark!

Hometown: Clinton, MA (40 mins from here).

Her roommate Laura, also working at her desk, interjects at this point. She comments that Aly is lucky, as she herself from Hong Kong!

*Laughs*. So how did you meet your roommate?

Laura lived above my last year—we were floor above neighbors. And then she grew to be one of my best friends :). They grin at each other, then Laura heads out.

My next question was definitely going to be about Aly being a local; in my experience, having a good friend who’s a local is incredibly valuable to all involved :). Family meals and environment are treasured on a college campus…

Do you go home often?

Last year I went home a ton, but I haven’t been back at all this year! I’m liking Wellesley more now that I’m not going home, actually. When you go home a lot, you lose out on the Wellesley experience. You start trying to live your home life, and also balance your Wellesley life… and we all know how tricky it is to balance anything with Wellesley life :).

How’s sophomore year?

It’s going well! So much better than freshman year. First semester first year was the worst, then it got a little better second semester; now it’s a lot better. Your experience improves with time, as you make more friends and become more involved. Being involved on campus has definitely made a difference this year.

I agree, and always tell first-years this information. You notice a definite improvement from first semester to second semester first year, and then by sophomore year you finally feel settled.

What was the hardest? Getting used to the Wellesley environment, trying to make friends, not completely letting go of home.

Do you have any recommendations to first-years then?

Don’t go home if you live close to home, because you’ll have a lot more fun here! In general, just be open to trying lots of new things, thinks you normally wouldn’t think you were going to try. Like, I tried ice hockey… I knew nothing about it, had none of the gear, but luckily Wellesly provides a lot of things for you. I had a great time. You’ll slowly find your niche; not right away, but you’ll find it. There are so many more things to do and people to meet than in high school, but when you finally meet those people it’s pretty awesome.

I didn’t know we had an ice hockey team!

A lot of people don’t! It’s a club sport, and it’s great.

Will you go back to it?

I got my fifth concussion this summer, so no more contact sports for me :). I would have rejoined if I could, because I like sports, especially contact ones. But I have to look for calmer activities…. *grins ruefully*

So what are you doing right now?

I started rock climbing, going out to Everett, a city near here. I also recently joined Wellesley’s Outdoor club, and I know they do a lot of rock climbing, so it’ll be great to do things with them! Rock climbing takes two people, so you always need a buddy—right now I go with my boyfriend. I love the instant gratification it gives you—you start at the bottom, and you make it to the top, and you’re like “yeah, I did it, go me!” In school you don’t get that a lot of the time, so it’s a nice break :).

Ooh, boyfriend (that’s in my mind, not out loud ;)). Boyfriends are one of the topics I get asked about indirectly by many recruits and prospies. (Men aren’t a frequent topic amongst enrolled students, because being in a woman’s school isn’t a big deal once you’re in one. But I see how it does look strange from the outside.) Thus, in the interests of you, readers, you’ll notice I ask about parties and boyfriends and general social-life activities as much as possible, given that I don’t really participate myself, but know it’s a common question!

Is your boyfriend from around here? He goes to Northeastern; we met in high school. That’s a long story though!

How often do you see him?

Pretty often :). I take classes at MIT, so it’s much easier to be in the city. We see each other quite a bit.

I ask because I often get asked if it’s possible to get off campus. (Ha, my motivations revealed :)).

Oh, it’s super possible to be off campus. I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years. Lots of people are afraid that they’ll close themselves off when they come to a women’s college, but if you make an effort you’ll get off campus. I’m off campus 3-4 days a week, which is unusual. But the other day I met a girl on the bus who was coming into Boston to get a coffee and just to walk around for a bit, and it’s great that we have the opportunity to do that.

What do you think about Wellesley students?

I think when I first came here I didn’t realize how diverse and different everyone is. I kind of got it into my head that everyone here was the same—crazy, hardworking, the typical Wendy. (“Wendy Wellesley” is the name of the “stereotypical”, ideal Wellesley student. It’s a common term on campus—being called a “Wendy” means you go above and beyond what’s expected or necessary in coursework, are involved in a million organizations, are president of every activity you participate in… you get the idea :)). I quickly realized I was wrong—there’s a lovely array of people here, all with different interests and different cultural backgrounds. It’s lovely to be surrounded by a lot of passionate people, regardless of what they’re passionate about.

Well said. Switching gears a bit, what are you classes?

Urban Planning at MIT, my acting class at MIT, my Environmental Science crossed with Poli Sci course, and Spanish 241.

Aly and I met at lunch at Bates one day (I happened to ask if I could sit next to her), so I had already grilled her on coursework by this point. She has a very cool and unique course schedule organized, which was one of the reasons that I decided to ask her for a more formal interview. She’s actually planning to be both a Poli Sci major at Wellesley, and also an Urban Planning major at MIT. I’ve never heard of anyone else who’s taken such advantage of the MIT cross-registration program!

I hadn’t realized she was taking Spanish though, so my next immediate question was whether she was thinking of heading to Spain.

Are you going abroad?

I don’t think so. Given the big double major / possible minor setup I’ve given myself, I’m not thinking about going abroad right now. But I want to be involved in the 12-College Consortium—specifically, I’d like to spend a semester at Vassar, as they have a very solid environmental science program. Not to say I don’t love Spain though; I went there this summer, but I don’t think I could focus if I went back :).

How is taking classes at MIT?

Awesome. So awesome, I absolutely positively recommend it to every single Wellesley student. I feel like at Wellesley I’d get into this routine of waking up for class 10 minutes before it started, staying here all the time, getting burned out. MIT breaks up my week wonderfully. And I’ve met so many great MIT students and professors, and there are so many awesome research opportunities because it’s a bigger university. I’m thinking of doing research in Urban Planning in the future. Everyone should definitely take classes there.

How did you know you wanted to do an Urban Planning major so early? Do you know of others who are doing this?

I took my first class at MIT second semester first year (that’s when you’re first allowed to), when I was looking at the catalogue and decided Urban Planning looked interesting. Since then I haven’t looked back! As for whether I know of others, I haven’t met anyone else who’s doing a poli sci and urban planning double major. But I know three other Wellesley students who are in that class [her Urban Planning class]. Right now I need an advisor at Wellesley to help me plan my courses at MIT and Wellesley together—these are logistics, but I’m glad I figured out I was interested so early on in the process, so I have time to plan for it.

Should we all start taking MIT classes second semester 1^st year?

If you can balance it, absolutely. You have to be realistic about the transport time, but if you set aside time to do it, and it fits into your schedule, absolutely.

How are you balancing everything?

Well, you’re sitting at my desk and you can see my schedule. (It is in fact a giant calendar notepad taking up almost the entirety of the desk. She does her work on top of it.) I’m a very organized person—you can see I’ve got a calendar here, and a schedule, and a planner, and I have Google Calendars like crazy. (She points these out to me in various locations on the desk. For comparison, I’ve got a planner, and a one-page summary of when all of my coursework is due for the semester.) I got very lucky this semester because everything just kind of fit. What helped a lot was being realistic about what I could and could not do—I had to make sure it was reasonable.

Did you start out unreasonable?

Actually, when I came to Wellesley I tried to start out slow. I wasn’t like that in high school at all—then I did everything and all at once. But I have a saying—it’s highlighted on the desk—that I like a lot and try to live by. Here it is: you can do anything but not everything.

That is a marvelous quote and should be adopted for all Wellesley students, by the way. 

Are you in midterms season yet? How’s it going?

It’s going. (A surprisingly common response here :).) I have two formal midterms—sit-down exams. One’s on Wednesday, so fingers crossed that goes smoothly! For my acting midterms it’s a paper on a show we’re going to go see next week: Angels in America at MIT. I don’t know about the other class—it seems like we’re skipping the midterm part, which is cool. *grin* (Note that “midterm” here means “test”—we usually have two or three midterms per class per semester.)

What are you involved in on campus? I know we talked about WZLY (Wellesley’s radio station) at lunch the other day…

WZLY’s huge. I’m also a member of Promicity, a promotions and permissions committee. I’m also a dorm coordinator for WRITE, which is an organization where Wellesley students write letters to elementary school students across the whole country, but mostly in the region. I’m also a DJ—no, a DJ intern, I haven’t passed my test yet, but I will by the end of the month, I promise!—at WZLY. And as of yesterday, I got hired to work at El Table (a student-run cafe on campus)!

Congrats on El Table! Do you work now?

I do occasional babysitting, and my internship at the Clinton Initiative once a week. It’ll be nice to have guaranteed work 2-3 days a week.

So what is WZLY?

Wellesley College’s radio station. If you’re a student, you just have to intern for a semester, pass an exam, and then you get your own radio station, where you can put on whatever you want! Well, as long as there are no bad words, but that’s pretty cool. Also, WZLY hosts plenty of events during the year. We just brought Mary Lambert to campus on Friday, and that was one of the best events we’ve had so far. We also host parties—the Zombie party is next week, which I recommend everyone come to! We have some of the best or the best parties on campus, just as a plug.

How is the Clinton Initiative? (That’s the internship Aly referred to earlier.)

Awesome. I’m doing an internship with the Clinton Health Access Initiative; I go in one day a week to the headquarters in Boston. It began when Bill Clinton was in office, and gives health access and medical resources to developing countries at a lower cost. I go into the law office—I’m shadowing some really impressive people there. I’m learning a lot through filing—I know, it’s your typical intern job, but you actually learn a lot about who the organization is associated with and what they do… I’m excited to see where it goes from here.

And I remember your future plan is to go to graduate school at MIT?

Well, that’s the new dream since finding Urban Planning! *Laughs*. I’m also interested in going to law school. Long term, I want to be Mayor of Boston—even though it’s never been a woman. It’s been a white Irish man for the past hundred years, but I’m all about breaking stereotypes. I’m into public works programs, poli sci, urban planning… improving the city is something I’m really passionate about. And it may sound cheesy, but I’m super excited about the journey.

This is amazing. This is not something I learned about when I talked to Aly at lunch the other day. It’s such a rare thing for a student, especially a sophomore!, to have such a vision for where she wants her life to go, and have all of her interests lined up to serve that vision. Though I don’t know many humanities majors, so my experience is limited, it’s much more common to hear from people who are not sure what they’ll be doing for the rest of their lives. That Aly has such a cohesive conceptualization of her future is so inspiring.

Well, you have my vote! I hope to stay in the area.

I grew up in the area too, and it’s a great place. I hope to live here very soon too!

And now back to the rehearsed questions :).

What’d you do this weekend?

This weekend I went to Mary Lambert on Friday… then on Saturday I had the opportunity to go to Worchester, where my boyfriend lives. Saturday night I came back here, for my interview Sunday morning for El Table. And then homework, of course. It was a good weekend: a good balance of homework and little day trips.

What’s your typical Friday like?

I usually go into Boston. I either go with friends or meet up with friends in the city. Sometimes Friday ends up being rock climbing day too. This Friday I went to see Michael Buble—my boyfriend bought me a ticket for my birthday, and he was bored to tears, but it was a great concert!

At this point I express much jealously for not knowing Michael Buble was in town. I don’t know many artists, but I do know him!

What’s your favorite Wellesley tradition?

I love the big sister and little sister tradition on Flower Sunday. It’s wonderful to have an older person to look up to, and when you’re the older person, someone to show the ropes to. Tell them: this is something cool I do at Wellesley or in the city, and you might like it to!

Do you have an image that comes to mind when you think of Wellesley?

I think of the tower—Galen, is it? In the fall; that’s when it’s the prettiest. I definitely think of the scenery on campus. How gorgeous it is.

Favorite place on campus?

This semester, I think it might be my room. (Their room is the first thing I commented upon when entering—it’s is incredibly cute and well decorated. Very comfy environment.) The window’s on a hinge, so on nice days we even go on the roof. I love studying outside when it’s nice. (Cue more admiration from Monica.)

Advice to high school seniors? Prospies?

Hm, what would I say to someone who’s interested in Wellesley? … Be yourself throughout the process, and that helps you make sure that Wellesley’s the right place for you. When I was applying, I didn’t quite process that it’s a woman’s college, which isn’t bad, it’s just different. And I remember it wasn’t a fun process, but try to have fun with it. Meet some new people, go some new places—and I think it’s really in the people that you get to know a school.

Thank you so much, Aly! I know it’s a good amount of time, and I appreciate this a lot :).

It was good to see you again too! This is my first time being interviewed, but I’m glad to be able to impart something :). Hope you have a great night, and let me know if you need anything else!

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Hope you enjoyed it, readers– I do. Interviews take much longer than my usual posts, but it’s so fun to get to know some people I otherwise wouldn’t on campus. Before I finish, I have a backlog of pictures I wanted to put up last week– last week’s post was pretty much an essay, so it didn’t feel right to put photos up. But here are some photos this week, before I send you off! Comments always welcome, and thanks for reading!

Monica