One of my service activities at the moment is serving on the committee that determines our nominees for the Watson Fellowship. Participating institutions are allowed to nominate up to four students, and we’ve just selected this year’s nominees, who are a really interesting bunch.
The Watson, for those who haven’t heard of it, is, as it says on their web site,
A one year grant for independent study and travel outside the United States awarded to graduating college seniors nominated by participating institutions.
It’s not a grant to study at any particular place– in fact, Watson winners are expected to move around. It’s also not intended to fund academic study or employment– it’s about independent, self-directed exploration of a topic having some personal interest. Watson nominees are supposed to be pursuing something they’re passionate about– they say that the best proposals are for projects that the applicant will find some way to make happen even if they don’t get the money.
It’s a fabulous idea for an academic award, and has funded some really unique work. It’s also got some pretty stringent requirements– awardees cannot return to the US or to their home country for a full calendar year, no matter what. Projects are also supposed to involve a real stretch, and some personal growth.
I’m not sure there is anything I’m passionate enough about to pursue as a Watson. Basketball, maybe, but my interest in the game is primarily based on US colleges. Which is not to say that it might not be cool to travel the world learning about basketball culture in other countries. (When I was in Japan in ’98, I walked past a gym a few times and heard the unmistakable sound of a game in progress. I never did go in, though, which was a missed opportunity…). I’m not sure I’d be willing to commit to the idea strongly enough to spend a whole year on the road, though– not even when I was a college senior.
It’s fun to think about though. So I’ll throw this out there, as a sort of travel-day open thread: If you were going to apply for a Watson Fellowship, what would your project be?
Rhythm.
Specifically, exploring the multi-rhythmic and polyrhythmic music of African and South American cultures, and doing my best to be able to learn how to do at least the simple ones.
My understanding is that trying to perform the advanced beats without having grown up with them is like trying to master English after having heard it for the first time at 30. Possible, maybe, but probably not within a year.
However, it wouldn’t just be learning how to perform complex rhythms, but learning what they’re used for and what effects they have on listeners, both native (i.e. those who’ve grown up with them) and foreign (those who are hearing them for the first time), how to use them compositionally, comparing the complex rhythms of different cultures – and the uses to which different cultures put different (and even similar) polybeats. Fascinating stuff.
Bridge.
I almost did this, in fact: at a couple of points, but most seriously after my spectacularly abysmal first postdoc, I thought about making a serious run at the upper levels of competitive bridge.
The downside: I’d need (at least back then) to move to a very large city – in the US, either NYC or a couple of places in FL or CA); and I wouldn’t get paid.
I have not lost the idea – but I am getting further and further from the time (undergrad and a bit of grad school) where I could play many times each week. We’ll see…
Probably social overlap between what might seem vary disparate activites. For example, somehow there’s big overlap between climbers and tango. Physicists and lindy hop. Teetoler wine tastings.
I had a friend who applied for one of these. She was going to study female pirates. I don’t know exactly what she proposed to do in what countries, but I will tell you she had a passion for a subject. Didn’t get the grant, though. I had another friend who actually did travel, though whether he was on the Watson or not, I don’t recall. He spent a while making his way through India, visiting ancient observatories. Apparently there are quite a few, and I got the impression some of them had been in more or less continuous use for a thousand years or more. That sounded like an interesting project.
For myself, I’d probably go in for some kind of comparative religion. I sort of know how American churches are run — mostly by the church ladies, who organize the fundraisers and donate the alter cloths and arrange the flowers, all on a volunteer basis. I wonder whether there are Buddhist or Shinto church ladies though, and if they’re the same. Do women play this same role in Islam, or if not, who does? I think these people almost have to exist in every culture, and if they do, I’m sure they’d like nothing better than to tell people about their work and their faith. I think it would be a pleasure to meet them. And I’d probably get to see some pretty cool architecture, too.
I’d visit every country in Africa and learn things from the inside out.
You can see the fellows and projects awarded from the past ten years at: http://watsonfellowship.org/site/fellows/08_09.html. Browsing these should be enough to get anyone’s creative juices flowing!