Senior Reflection Essay Final

Senior Reflection Essay

May 22, 2009

Reid Ginoza

Reclaiming My Plan A Hard Look at My Experience at Bennington College

1

Introduction

My biggest regret is that I did not start dancing sooner. There is nothing in the world like the thrill of dancing—feeling your body in control, graceful, strong, exact. Enjoying life in sync with your surroundings, your music, and your fellow dancers is an irreplicable experience. I thank all that is good in the world that I found dance. I did not come to dance by myself, of course. Attending Bennington College played an enormous role in setting up this life-changing experience. I joined an institution that allows for a great variety of possibilities and brings to light many important issues of an education. Although in its infancy, my love of dance is one of the great successes of my Bennington College experience. I will use this Senior Reflection Essay to contrast my work in dance with my work in mathematics, which has always been my sole area of concentration. Although I’ve spent much more time with math, reflecting on both together will lead to a deeper understanding of my movement through the Plan process.

2

The Newness and The Aesthetic

From the beginning, I wanted to find new learning experiences at Bennington. My first term included a dance technique course, South African History, Computer Science, music composition, and philosophy. In my First-Term Reflective Essay, I wrote that taking further courses in the same disciplines “would be depriving me of half the joys I experienced [that] first term.” I even explained a brief calculation explaining how I might balance this diversity 1

of experience with a focused concentration. To my surprise and delight, every new thing I tried was worthwhile, and I wanted to do every other new thing as well. In my third-term Plan Proposal Essay, I honed in on the specific aspect of these new experiences that spurred me on. For the first time, through my dance and Beginning Composing courses, “I had lived what I was working on.” Later in the essay, I contrasted this with math, where I didn’t see the results of my work immediately nor meaningfully. At the time, I had dismissed this point in my Plan Proposal Essay. After all, I had figured part of my excitement was at the sheer newness of the activities. Having never danced before (not even socially) and having never composed music before, there was bound to be an excitement from finding many moments for “the first time.” Math had been in my school curriculum for years, so I knew what that was like, without similar surprises. My advisor at the time, Allen Shawn, pointed out to me that I seemed to seek out this newness, almost for the sake of those first-time moments. This was enough to justify that I try new disciplines, but not strong enough for a proposal of a concentration. Now that I have the gift of hindsight, I can see that those comments deserve more attention. What does it mean to live what I am working on? Shouldn’t it matter that I see the results of my work in a meaningful way? And how would I keep going through the day-to-day work in a field if I didn’t appreciate the immediate results, however small? While I strove for the newness of dance and music, they highlight the idea behind this current line of questioning, what I think of as the aesthetic of the work. The aesthetic of a field describes the small choices involved in context of the practice of a particular field of work. It’s the part of the activity other than the long-term structured plan. When I ask how people experience the aesthetic, I want to know whether, in that moment, is the search for a proof thrilling? or dreadful? Do you execute that leap and then feel that rush to dance more? I had set aside dance my second year here to explore other disciplines and unfortunately, 2

did not start dancing again until my senior year. Looking back, I’m having a hard time believing that the aesthetic of dancing was not important to me, but it’s hard to sort this all out. I value my search for the newness but now hope to pay attention to the aesthetic as well. When one commits to a certain field, he is committing to a certain aesthetic of regular tasks. If I enjoyed the day-to-day work of dance, why didn’t I commit to it? What’s even more striking, though, is that in my Plan Proposal Essay, I did not once mention the positive aesthetic of doing math. Why not? Why would anyone do something they don’t enjoy? And more importantly, why didn’t anyone call me on it?

3

How Did I Actually Decide on Math?

To be fair, my advisor Allen Shawn and I talked at length on my potential areas of concentration. I had refused to commit myself to anything in advance of those conversations. “It’s still too early,” I thought. “Let me keep exploring.” Allen, the good advisor he was, knew that I needed a concentration for the Plan Proposal and pressed me for my thoughts. “Math, music, and dance” I threw out there. Allen explained that he saw dance as something I did in college, and that maybe I’d share stories about it with my friends and family when I got older. But not a serious concentration. Perhaps all that he observed (and perhaps all that was there) was my attraction to the newness. After all, at that time, I said the same things about dance as I did about music composition and later my sculpture and acting courses.1 I trusted Allen’s judgment; he’s amazingly perceptive. “Great,” I decided, “that narrows this down.” And there went dance. Math or music? Allen was my first music composition teacher and he said I could be successful in either discipline. I trusted him on the music part, even though it was new 1

Actually, I was aware of the aesthetics of activities even then, though not to the same extent. I distinctly remember enjoying my acting course but then deciding—swearing, really—that I’d never take another acting course ever again.

3

and unfamiliar to me. While he didn’t know mathematics, I believe he did see some joy of that aesthetic in me. He joked about that calculation I had made in my First-Term Reflective Essay (which I had forgotten about). He also pointed out that I would also take pleasure in providing him an Estimated Time of Arrival to his office for our meetings, and then confirming how good of an estimate that actually was.2 Lastly, during registration times, Allen would ask about the courses I’d be taking, and I tried to explain to him what I understood of the math courses I was interested in. Years later, he specifically cited one of these explanations as a time when I lit up with excitement. I wasn’t aware of any of the above though. When Allen asked the question, “So what are you going to study?”, I cringed and hoped I’d say something intelligent. In that rather long pause, I thought to the future. Which would be easier for me to finish? Which would be easier to get a job with? Which would be easier to justify turing down a full-tuition, room, and board scholarship and asking my parents to pay for this college? “Math,” I blurted out. “I’ll study math.”

4

My Plan for a System

Naturally, I couldn’t admit that I chose to study math because I wanted an easy graduation or was afraid of graduating without any job qualifications. I don’t think I even admitted it to myself. But if I hadn’t made that choice, I don’t know how else I would have moved forward. I once told Allen that it didn’t matter to me which decision I made, it was just good that I had made this decision. I don’t believe that now, but I did need to move forward. So why math anyway? In my Plan Proposal Essay, I had come up with a list of questions that had emerged from my experiences in the diverse set of courses I had taken: 2

On one of these instances, when I got it right to the minute, Allen said, “Hah! You did choose the right concentration.”

4

• How do I structure my creative process? • What systems [or designs of interaction] work? • Is there repeatable algorithm [for the designs behind successful endeavors]? • Is it random [the way creativity and success occur]? • * What are the principles through which I can best structure a system—in the widest sense of the word—to accomplish its goal?3 Here my desire for the newness led to questions that excited me with the possibility to unify my experiences. Whether correctly or not, I then said that mathematics would help me answer those questions. This was a logical leap, I’m sure, because I was just trying to intellectually justify my decision to concentrate in math, which was already made by the separate reasons stated above. While I hid the original reasons for the decision, I didn’t hide the disconnect. I openly admitted in this essay, “I don’t see the path I would take to rigorously study these questions. I was hesitant because in math, it’s not as easy for me to feel the same gratification as I do listening to my music compositions or acting in a scene.” I clearly ignored the aesthetic of math in my Plan. It was explicit, conscious, and not positive. Although those questions above are interesting and probably worthy of a Plan, this was not a successful Plan Proposal. I had ideas, sure, but where was the actual plan?

5

A Concrete Plan and the Understanding of Math

My Plan Committee also knew that my proposal needed work. I had a Plan Progress meeting in my fourth term. Here, I named specific mathematical fields that seemed to relate to my interest, stated my interest to attend a large research institution for a semester, and said 3

This last question marked by the ‘*’ is a question that I had just written now to clarify what I was asking. My additions above are in the brackets [ ]. They expand on what I was thinking about two years ago.

5

that I needed to learn more math to enter those fields.

4

In a concrete sense, this was much

more of a Plan. I had specific areas of interest, I knew where I could access them (at a large research institution), and I was moving in that direction. At the start of my third year, I went off to Columbia University in the City of New York. I didn’t have the pre-requisites to take the courses I wanted so I settled for some more traditional courses. This was stressful, and for more reasons than just the typical hassle of moving into a new institution. In response to Bennington’s Study Abroad (/Study Away) Student Evaluation question ”Was your academic preparation. . . sufficient?”, my answer was a big resounding ”No.” I continued, “I hadn’t been exposed to a central idea, if not the standard of intellectual work, in mathematics—the proof.” I was upset with Bennington College. I had gone around telling people that I studied math, when I actually never performed the very activity that defines mathematics. How could I have been so ignorant? As it turned out, I’ve never worked harder in my life than I did while at Columbia University. I woke at 7:30, marched over to campus, class, nap, lunch, study, class, study. I finally made it to bed at 1:30 in the morning. Six days a week. Saturdays started at 10 am. I proudly earned that C+ in my Intro. to Modern Analysis course, the proof-based course. But it wasn’t just the proofs that mattered. There were graduate students around and even undergraduate research projects galore. Everyone did research at Columbia. For my Field Work Term I capitalized on that environment by working with an applied mathematician on a research project. After all that, I gained much more than I thought to look for at Columbia: I finally understood what it meant to do math. 4

Given more time, I would explore this idea to study at another institution more closely. While the listed reasons were my “official” reasons, I remember having an emotional need to get off campus away from Bennington College. I have my suspicions of how and why this occurred, in part because of my performance as a student, and in part math faculty turnover. But I haven’t thought much more about this.

6

6

Math and Bennington

My FWT 2008 Reflective Essay written in that February, and later my Plan Confirmation Essay contained two totally new aspects of my Plan: I spoke openly and positively about the aesthetic of doing math, and that I was excited to consider post-Bennington opportunities, including both working in industry and obtaining a PhD in either mathematics or applied mathematics. In my courses, it was clear that I now enjoyed the aesthetic of math. I often did extra work for Jason Zimba’s Randomness and Reason course. In fact, I finished the course with a short proof to a question that I had first asked all on my own. This was the first time that I had actually asked my own math question, and I was thrilled to also arrive at a clean solution. It didn’t stop there, in the Symmetry course, I was also proud of myself for working out a description (complete with proofs and everything) of the harmonic symmetries in a musical round such as “Row Row Row Your Boat.” Not only did I do the math, though, I also composed rounds demonstrating the existence of certain symmetries and learned a bit more about music composition. While these were short-term experiences (each lasted perhaps a week or so), they were the first two times I felt like I could be a productive mathematician. Now, I could pose my own questions and move somewhere with them. I was on my way to a successful Plan.

7

Confirmation and Advanced Work

My Plan Confirmation went well by most standards. I had two interesting senior projects proposed, I had plans for my work after Bennington, and I finally felt comfortable with the aesthetic and trajectory of my chosen discipline. But, there was a troubling paragraph in my Plan Confirmation Essay: 7

While my experience at Columbia University helped me determine a future path, I look back and wonder how successful my Plan proposal was. In both of my Plan meetings, a Plan proposal and a Plan progress meeting, I explained that I had chosen to study mathematics because I wanted to learn how to study the abstract structures I had seen in my other in disciplines. However, I had never pursued that interest seriously, since I did not understand what steps to take and how much work that would involve on my own. I am still not sure how that might look. Perhaps, I have not taken full advantage of what Bennington has to offer. [emphasis added] Even in my 6th term, I could not find a specific way to complete the Plan Proposal I had set out a year-and-a-half before then. But at the time it seemed dismissible; I had plans for senior work and beyond. Maybe I was just too ambitious. Maybe my Plan couldn’t work. Maybe Plans weren’t supposed to be that far outside of the mainstream. Why bother with something that had already passed?

8

Finally Leaving

Even my confirmed senior year didn’t quite work out nicely. It was mostly a logistical issue, but it might be worth pointing out. For the Fall 2008 Term, Andrew McIntyre told me that he would not be available for tutorials. That meant no more complex analysis or differential geometry and no more senior project tutorial. “Whatever,” I decided. “Not worth the fight.”5 I had come to realize that my education extends beyond Bennington anyway, so I explored other options. The senior project tutorial I did end up with this spring is going okay, but I definitely haven’t worked as hard on it as I should have. It is too early to know what could have been better, but I cringe when I think of how little I have accomplished with a “serious,” more research-oriented mathematical topic. 5 I now hold to the idea that commitments should be confirmed in the Plan Confirmation Meeting. If a teacher commits to something in a Plan Meeting, then that should be respected. Likewise with students.

8

9

And Now, Shall We Dance?

9.1

My Return to Dance

With math tutorials unavailable, I decided to take the First-Year Dance Intensive in my 7th term. I hadn’t taken a 4-credit dance course yet, and if I was ever going to mention dance in college, I had to know that experience. From the beginning of that course, I enjoyed dancing. Again, the sheer thrill of enjoying the way my body moves is so powerful. My appreciation for the aesthetic of dance this time around was very clear to me, especially as Susan Sgorbati eased us into different activities including improvisation, composition, and technique. Because of the way the course was structured and because of the very specific philosophy of the dance faculty here, I created movements, phrases, and actual dance compositions as a dancer would. Susan made clear the need for technique and the joys of improvisation and composition. Every practice had its place and the reasons were well articulated. Thus it was very clear to me how I could proceed to work in dance. When I approached a new piece, I had a system. I knew that I needed to develop my movement vocabulary first. What are the fundamental movements that define the dancer’s role in that piece? Then, a phrase. How do these movements fit together to make good physical kinesthetic sense? Then, a piece. What form best communicates the overall intention of the piece. When I finished my work on my own, I would then bring it to class and receive feedback. I found out what worked or didn’t work, and I provided the same feedback for others. We gathered to better ourselves and each other at making dances. Unlike most of the activities I had done academically, a real community formed.

9.2

Continuing to Dance

Like my work in math, when I finally found the aesthetic I enjoyed, my work in dance is continuing to blossom. This term, I’ve worked on several dance projects outside of my 9

courses, but I’ve also noticed a change in the way I observe. When I see a performance or even hear a story, I catch myself wondering how I would dance that particular role. Can dance capture the questioning of religion? Or how would I put on stage George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River? I’m starting to feel like a genuine artist because I search for source material off of which to base future work. I have so many ideas in mind, and I always look forward to trying them out. Also, over FWT 2009, I finally realized the importance of community by starting my own dance community. I taught the first ever modern dance class at Quest University Canada, and held an informal showing. As I wrote in more detail in my FWT Reflective Essay, a community can strengthen and create possibilities of doing more work. I have a sense of the dance community so that I can take advantage of one where ever I go. Thus, when I leave Bennington College, I know what kind of support to look for in a dance community, and I am confident that I will find a way to keep dancing no matter where I end up.

10

Reflecting on the Plan Process

My experience with dance contrasts so highly my math experience. With math, I came in with some familiarity of the field, but struggled to find real meaning in it. For years, I didn’t even know what it meant to do math. I had no idea how to start my own projects and never figured out how to pursue any questions I came up with. Only after I took a break from Bennington to attend Columbia University did I even get a start on working with math. Dance, on the other hand, was easy to jump into. Even with my first dance course, I was asked to create my own movements and participate in improvisations—and I enjoyed it. On my own time, I would dance just for the pleasure of it and will continue to do so. I also look toward other disciplines for finding source material for dances in a similar way to what I once imagined looking toward math for understanding those elusive systems. This is strange

10

to me. Mathematics has been in my Plan since the beginning, whereas dance was mentioned as a curiosity. How is it that my dance developed much more quickly than my mathematics? The Plan process provides a framework within which a trajectory may be developed, but it has been disconnected from the particulars of my education. Even though I had come to math with a purpose to study structures and systems, I failed to implement any sort of plan toward that goal. On the other hand, were I given more time with dance, I am confident I would have developed a Plan, perhaps less ambitious but more grounded in the aesthetic of dance. I had stated that my biggest regret was not to start dancing sooner. In addition to missing all those years of potential dancing, I wonder how much more efficiently I could have used the Plan process. Perhaps with a successful dance trajectory, I would have been much more aware of how my mathematics education was stumbling and have a working example of what to expect I should expect from it. Although this is hypothetical, it points toward the fact that I could have used more guidance. I don’t regard my Plan as a success. I don’t mean to deny the work I have done at Bennington. Quite the opposite, I am proud of what I have accomplished and credit much of my work to being at Bennington College and, for a little while, at Columbia University. But I was not able to fulfill my commitment to my Plan. It was surprising how constantly I stated I had no idea how to proceed with it. Not surprisingly, then throughout my years here, I’ve not moved forward deliberately on any of those initial questions in my Plan Proposal. If my Plan was more than I could handle in an undergraduate education, I wish I had settled that with myself and my Plan Committee explicitly. If my Plan needed more specificity, I wish I had been demanded of that precision. If my Plan is something that I could devote years to, I wish I had explored more possibilities with my Plan Committee.

11

11

Reclaiming My Plan

I can’t imagine how else I ever would have come to the ideas in this essay except through attending Bennington College and, actually, writing this reflection. Without doubt, Bennington College has changed me for the better, and I am glad to have found math, dance, and big questions that don’t yet have answers. I didn’t find everything I was looking for here, which is a little disappointing. However, Bennington is not the only place I can pursue my Plan, and I am confident that I can move forward productively. This reflection was told chronologically because I wanted to unfold my struggle to find what matters to me. In the end, this struggle is the most valuable part of Bennington I can take with me. I’ve moved away from my initial questions, but that doesn’t mean my Plan is forever lost nor that I haven’t found some unexpected treasures along the way. The Plan Process has opened up what is most powerful in me—the ability to develop a vision. With a vision, it doesn’t matter what I’ve missed out on in the past, only what possibilities lie ahead. Even this reflection essay has a vision. By identifying my struggles, I have already started to do what this reflection is really an opportunity for: reclaiming my Plan.

12