Category Archives: Academics

Language Tables

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Sorry to bombard you guys with a second email about food at Middlebury (I am currently 2 for 2), but Middlebury College has  so many unique dining options that I could probably write 100 (or more )blog posts just about dining at Middlebury.  As I mentioned in my last post, we have two main dining halls, Ross and Proctor, but we also have a third dining hall, Atwater.  Atwater used to be a full service dining hall like Ross and Proctor, but now hosts language tables.  What are language tables you may ask?  I will attempt to explain…

                Imagine entering a room and hearing 9 languages being spoken at once.  The table in the far left corner is speaking Japanese, the table in the back right is speaking Italian, and right in front of you eight students are speaking Arabic.  No, you are not at the United Nations, you are at language tables at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.  As part of Middlebury’s extensive language program, students have the opportunity (and will sometimes be required) to attend language tables once or twice a week.  Let’s say that you take Italian.  You will come to language tables and have a sit down meal with seven or eight other Italian students of all different levels.  Chances are an Italian professor will join you as well and if not, a native Italian speaker will join you at the table.  Your waiter or waitress will also be either a native Italian speaker or an upper level Italian student.  You eat with this group for about and hour, speaking only in Italian.

                At first this experience is somewhat difficult.  During the first couple of weeks (especially if you are just beginning a language) it is hard to communicate with your peers.  There are only so many times you can smile at the person next to you and say “Hi.  I am Ben.  I like food.”  Don’t worry though, over time your speaking skills improve and it is really amazing to see and hear the difference at language tables after a month or two.  People who just a few weeks earlier were struggling with the simple task of introducing themselves are now speaking rapidly in complex sentences. 

After two years of studying a language at Middlebury and maybe a summer at our summer Language Schools, students are prepared to study abroad in an immersion environment.  Middlebury Students take classes in a foreign University with local students and they succeed!  Studying a language at Middlebury is hard work, but the hard work definitely pays off.

The Research Experience

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Middlebury College is an amazing place for undergraduate research. Because there are no graduate students at this institution, any student here with a passionate research interest will likely have the opportunity to explore that interest either through a research assistant-ship, an independent project, or with a thesis. Furthermore, professors at Middlebury are incredibly dedicated to their students’ independent work. In my experience, working one on one with professors throughout independent projects has been invaluable — I have learned writing, research, editing, and analytical skills that have translated to my other classes as well as to experiences outside of academics.

My sophomore year, I was in a cognitive psychology class and really loved it. So I asked the professor if he could use any more research assistants for his work on memory. After a meeting, I began working on his research team, along with several other students, and have since attended two psychology conferences with the team to present posters of our research. One of the best parts of attending these conferences, aside from learning how to present work to professors and graduate students, is that we get to hear amazing research talks and learn from other poster sessions.

These conferences have been a highlight of my academic experience in psychology. Getting exposed to so much research from all over the country and the world has been eye-opening and inspiring for the cognitive psychology research that I am doing now.

From Left: Adam Dede ’11, Cloe Shasha ’11, Middlebury College Professor of Psychology Jason Arndt

Research Poster at Psychonomics Conference in St. Louis, Missouri

November 2010

Je suis un “Feb”.

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While regular Seniors are all picking courses for their FINAL semester, I am comforted by the fact that as a Senior-Feb I still have one year left at Middlebury.

Being a Feb has truly shaped my Middlebury experience. Having a semester- off before starting college gave me the time to relax and explore opportunities that would have otherwise not have been available to me. After a challenging Senior year of high school I was very much in need of a break! However, when I first found out that I was admitted to Middlebury in February I was unsure and scared of not starting college at a “normal” time in September like the rest of my friends. When I finally sat down and realized that I had 8 months to do whatever I wanted… the list of possibilities was ENDLESS.

I always had an interest in French, but had never used it outside the classroom. Therefore, for my “Feb-mester” I wanted to find a way that I could travel (affordably) and use my French. In my search, I found the  organization, WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), which is a network of farms and organizations all over the world that looks for volunteers to work in exchange for food and housing. I ended up making a contact with a farm, “La Ferme d’Art”, in the south of France and took my chances and decided to spend 6 weeks there as a volunteer. “La Ferme d’Art” or “The Art Farm” in an independent sustainable works project started by Pan, the owner, who reconstructed an abandoned farm house to create a sustainable farm and community center. Before I arrived he had just finished installing solar panels and finished a water system in which all the water supplied at the house was purified rain water. My daily duties varied. Some days I was responsible for feeding chickens other days I was creating new hiking trails  in the surrounding land. Not only was I improving my oral French, but I learned so much about new sustainable agricultural and overall  lifestyle practices.

Once I arrived to Middlebury for “Feb”-Orientation I was immediately reassured in my decision to come to Middlebury when I met 100 other first-year “Feb” students that had also participated in amazing and eye-opening opportunities. It was this energy and support from orientation that truly provided a secure start to my college career at Middlebury.

Now while all of my Senior- “Reg” friends are frantically registering for their final four classes and looking ahead to secure jobs and/or fellowships after Graduation in May, I could not be more happy that I still have one more year to work these things out!

From “Feb-mesters” farming abroad to skiing down a mountain to receive your diploma, being a “Feb” at Middlebury is truly a unique college experience. (But maybe I’m just biased…)

Class Registration: The Final Countdown

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I’m admittedly a bit groggy this morning after waking up at 6:45 a.m. to register for spring term classes.  Class registration at Middlebury starts at 7 a.m., with each year assigned a specific day on which it can register.  Overall, the system works well, although it’s not without its quirks.  On your registration morning, your entire class will be awake, logging into Bannerweb (our class registration platform), and counting down the seconds until the clock strikes 7.  At 7:00:01, the mad rush begins, with everyone trying to enter course registration numbers before their top picks get filled up.  Sounds stressful?  Exciting?  Rushed?  It’s all of those things, but for my friends and I, it’s become something of a musical tradition.  During registration, one of my friends will blast Europe’s “The Final Countdown” throughout our suite.  By the end of the five or so minutes of musical excitement, all of us will have secured our classes and be headed back to bed.  This song has come to represent for me the energy surrounding registration and will always remind me of punching course registration numbers into Bannerweb.

For me, as a senior, today’s class registration gave “The Final Countdown” new meaning.  It’s strange to be choosing the last four courses I will take in college and the decision was by no means easy.  Although a lot of my spring semester will consist of independent research and a senior seminar on Chinese Foreign Policy, I wanted to take advantage of the rest of my time at Midd by choosing a couple of interesting courses outside of my major.  It’s really sunk in that next semester is the last hurrah, the Final Countdown.  Unlike you, who have four years of academic opportunity ahead of you, I only have a short time left in which to take classes like Russian Politics and Literature (my J-term choice).  To get a feel for typical Midd course offerings, check out the course catalog.

Signing off, I’d like to leave you with Sweden’s most notable contribution to 80s pop.  Meet Europe:

[youtube 9jK-NcRmVcw]

Kan”Ye” Term

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11/01/10 – 11/07/10. HUGE week.

Not only is candy the cheapest because Halloween was Sunday, but this week Middlebury college students choose our J-Term classes. J-Term? don’t you mean Kan”Ye” Term? HOW DID YOU GUESS? Here at Middlebury College we are on what we call a 4-1-4 system: 4 classes in the fall, one class during January and 4 classes in the spring. That means during J-Term you take one class for 4 weeks and you get one credit, completing a semester of class in 1/4 the time. “That sounds really terrible” you might think, well you would be so wrong.

During January I will have class from 10:30am-12:30am Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for a total of 8 hours a week, or almost exactly 4.8% of the 168 total hours I have to spend every 7 days. That means I will have an impossibly large amount of time to do whatever I want, which I’ll probably divide evenly between Wii tennis and ski racing. If you are a skier, want to learn how to ski or just like to brag, you’ll be so amped to know that Middlebury has its own mountain—the Middlebury College Snow Bowl—to which a free shuttle runs every 30 minutes, every day during January.  I only ask that you refrain from wearing your helmet and ski boots in the dining hall because it looks terrible and you get the floor all watery.

So when your friends at other college are pretending that they are really excited to have an extra month off during January to live with their parents and wish that they were back at college eating ice cream for breakfast, you’ll be hanging out here where its like summer camp, only it’s in the winter.

Oh, by the way don’t try to call J-Term, Kan”Ye” Term because no one will understand you.

Back to Middlebury

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After having just spent a year abroad, it’s wonderful to be back at Middlebury.  I had an amazing year in South America—one semester in Montevideo, Uruguay, and another in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I had the opportunity to travel, my Spanish improved significantly, and I really took to the lifestyle there.  While abroad, many of the other international students enjoyed a new routine: we ate dinner at 11pm, we were chronically late to everything, and we moved around the city like locals after a few months’ time.  But after a year of “different,” I was looking forward to coming back to the familiarity of my best friends, the push of Middlebury academics, and the beauty of New England.

While some parts of Middlebury I knew I had missed—my friends, a reliable internet connection, and vegetarian options—I’ve realized that there were so many other aspects of living here that also make it a place where I love to be.  I love walking to the Saturday Farmers’ Market and sampling cheeses, chatting with the orchard owners, and watching the little kids pet the farm animals.  I look forward to the Thursday environmental studies colloquium lunches and all the fascinating speakers and topics.  Class has never been more enjoyable than when my Natures’ Meanings course goes out to the organic garden to discuss that week’s readings under sunny skies.  These are the things that “make Middlebury” and the reasons I’m already starting to fight the creeping feels of nostalgia that this is our senior year!  I’m hoping the leaves take their time in falling off the trees and that the fall lasts as long as possible.