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An informative blog post for our incoming transfer students…

Transferring to Wesleyan: A Personal Perspective

Just like many eager high school seniors graduating this month (my younger sister included), I was beyond excited to travel far away from home to the small liberal arts college that I had applied to via Early Decision way back in December of the previous year. Like literally every piece of media ever produced about college, I was sure that I was heading to the place that was a perfect fit for me, where I would truly find myself (and other clichéd ideas). Shockingly, or maybe not given that one out of every three college students transfer at least once, I ended up deciding that my first institution wasn’t for me. This may seem like I was clear and levelheaded throughout the whole process, but I assure you that there were plenty of tears and panicked nights spent questioning whether I was really making the best decision picking up and starting anew someplace else. How could I know that I wouldn’t be just as unhappy at another school? The really scary part is, I couldn’t know, at least not for sure.

I spent a majority of weekends during my spring semester traipsing up and down the East Coast, taking tours filled with fresh-faced high school students, not so subtlety envying the time that they had left to find a school where they hopefully would be happy for a full four years. When the transfer decisions came in at the end of the semester (full disclosure: I ended up applying to eight schools, apparently with the understanding that I really wanted the “full” college admissions process that I had missed the first time around), Wesleyan was my favorite school to which I was accepted, making my decision easy but in no means certain. I anxiously spent the summer making sure that I was totally prepared to make the most of this second chance. I semi-obsessively examined all of the extracurricular activities that I could join, and agonized over picking the best dorm.

Maybe some of you incoming transfer students are doing the same thing, and perhaps there are some more calm and collected people out there (major props to you, my friends). However, as your friendly neighborhood rising senior, let me share some of the life lessons that I have gained in the past two years that will hopefully make your transition to Wesleyan as smooth as possible:

Use the transfer network – Wesleyan typically welcomes approximately sixty transfer students in the fall and fifteen students in the spring. This means that that there is a sizable population of transfers here, most of whom love to help connect incoming students with academic and extracurricular opportunities. And even if you manage to find something that none of us seems to be involved with, I’m sure that someone has a friend who is!

Though it’s hardly scientific, I would venture to say that transfer students are oftentimes in a disproportionate amount of leadership positions given the relatively small proportion that we make up in the general Wesleyan population. I have friends running the Wesleyan Jewish Community, singing their hearts out in acapella groups, starting on varsity sports teams, and serving in leadership roles on the WSA.
On that note, there’s nothing like a second chance to really push you to try new things! When I came to Wes in the fall of 2015, I went to the Students Activities Fair and signed up for a seriously ambitious number of clubs. Though I didn’t end up joining all of them, I tried a whole bunch of new things and met so many great people, many of whom I’m still friends with today!

A more logistical piece of advice – try to get your credits and major requirements sorted out as quickly as possible. I have friends who waited until the last minute to do so, please learn from their mistake; these things are much more stressful during your Senior Spring! Dean Phillips (Class of 2020) and Dean Wood (Class of 2019) are great resources and super approachable, so don’t hesitate to meet with them if you need any assistance getting everything completed.

Take a second to congratulate yourself on your bravery! Leaving a school, no matter the rationale for transferring, requires a tremendous leap of faith.

There are certainly times when having attended two colleges can be frustrating – needing to get two separate transcripts when applying for internships, answering the constant question of why you decided to transfer and the bonus question for those of us coming from women’s colleges, “did you come to Wesleyan for the boys?” (the answer being a hard no). However, I’m so grateful to be a transfer student – it has given me a great deal of perspective and I wouldn’t trade my first year of college at my previous institution for anything.

Not to speak for my fellow transfer students, but I’m sure that they’d all agree that we can’t wait to welcome you to campus in August! In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to me at seismont@wesleyan.edu if you have any questions or concerns!

MUSC287 — Performing the Posthuman: Music and Auditory Culture in the Age of Animanities
Crosslisting: AMST 278, ENVS 287
Course Cluster: Animal Studies

This seminar engages questions of musical difference by addressing representations, tropes, and examples of posthuman performance, animal musicalities, music mimetic of nonhuman aurality, and cross-species and multi-species performance. Throughout the course we will think across varied types and categories of sounds to explore and contextualize familiar questions about how we sing, play, perform, stage, and sound musical identity, examining the intersections among the humanities, science and technology studies, and the sonic arts. “Animanities” is the name attributed by scholars to the musical response to the dilemma facing the humanities to value, take into account, and take seriously the aural and performance worlds of the nonhuman. It is necessary to include all human, more-than-human, sentient and non-sentient, machine, and animal sounding and musicking into the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, and sound studies. By listening across different kinds of auditory culture and sounding, scholars can interrogate questions addressing how traditions of listening shape our habits of perceiving others: how we hear nonhuman animals, how we incorporate nonhuman sounding into music composed by humans, how technology has played a role in the study and development of nonhuman and human musicality, and what it means to listen to and value sonic difference more broadly. Through discussions of musical and cultural difference that enrich ongoing discussions of race, gender, and sexuality we will come to a stronger understanding of music’s role in imagined and experienced natural worlds. Topics and case studies will include the pedagogies of audio bird guides; new age nature recordings, multi-species “collaborative” performances; sampled and electronically rendered animal and nature performance in digital video games; wildlife field recording and documentary soundtracks/sound design; forms of animal and environmental mimesis used by composers; the jazz aviary of exotic songbirds and chirping canaries in the publications and reception history of the 1930s–1960s that document female jazz singers and virtuosic operatic sopranos; they way nonhuman animal behavior influenced experimental music communities; and how human musical language and terminology was used to describe the musicking of nonhuman animals in documents circulated by the National Audubon Society and other wildlife guides and field recording initiatives. This seminar draws on the classroom community’s interdisciplinary backgrounds and interests as well as readings and case studies that cross and challenge disciplinary boundaries. Students can achieve success in this course without previous musical knowledge.

Take the Winter Session/Summer Session Course Survey!

Student feedback is the most important tool we have to build the winter session and summer session curricula. Take the course survey before Friday (9/1) and you’ll be entered in a raffle to win a prize from RJ Julia! If you have any questions or would like to offer additional feedback about winter session or summer session courses, contact winter@wesleyan.edu or call 860-685-2005.

There’s a great opportunity in the upcoming semester (Fall 2017) for students interested in making musical theater.

Tony and Obie Award Winner, Greg Kotis (Urinetown) will be teaching the Music Theater Workshop, THEA 279.

The course is described here.

https://iasext.wesleyan.edu/regprod/!wesmaps_page.html?stuid=&facid=NONE&crse=014313&term=1179

There are prerequisites, but, as ever, there are also prerequisite over-rides for students who have the appropriate skill set.

Greg Kotis’s webpage lists this for info about him:

Greg Kotis is the author of many plays and musicals including Michael von Siebenburg Melts Through the Floorboards, Yeast Nation (Book/Lyrics), The Unhappiness Plays, The Boring-est Poem in the World, The Truth About Santa, Pig Farm, Eat the Taste, Urinetown (Book/Lyrics, for which he won an Obie Award and two Tony® Awards), and Jobey and Katherine. His work has been produced and developed in theaters across the country and around the world, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Conservatory Theater, American Theater Company, Henry Miller’s Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Stage and Film, Perseverance Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, Soho Rep, South Coast Rep, and The Old Globe, among others. Greg is a member of the Neo-Futurists, the Cardiff Giant Theater Company, ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, and is a 2010-11 Lark Play Development Center Playwrights Workshop Fellow. He grew up in Wellfleet, Massachusetts and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife Ayun Halliday, his daughter India, and his son Milo.

Anyone more interested in Greg Kotis could check him out here: http://gregkotis.com/

This new course will be hosted by Film and taught by Wes alumna Amanda Palmer’s long-time collaborator, Michael Pope. (If you are not familiar with Amanda Palmer’s work, you can check her out here: http://amandapalmer.net/)

It is a Permission of Instructor (POI) course with notification of admission on August 31.

Title: “The Art of Doing: Creative Project Production and Making It Happen”

Instructors: Michael Pope with Amanda Palmer

Description:

Students learn collaborative creative super filmmaking powers before being dropped off on a metaphoric desert island with nothing but a camera phone and a song. Beauty Ensues. This studio class will focus on non-traditional video production techniques towards a final project of a class-created music video featuring music and performance by Amanda Palmer. Students will co-create every aspect of this video, from conceptualization to editing to screening, with the final product being released to her Patreon community.

The course seeks to illuminate the creative process by way of mindful reflection, and physical training to promote creative cooperation between various artistic mediums. Students are expected to participate in team building physical exercises inspired by physical theater, Butoh and some physical meditations. Meaning: Students will be be expected to participate in physical activity that includes jumping, running, yelling, and the like.

The course will allow us to sketch answers to questions like these, among others: How do you forge creative collaborations that allow you to realize your projects and that create the best conditions for your creative work? How do you raise awareness about your creative projects?

Taught by director Michael Pope who has shot, cut and directed the music videos for The Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer’s first solo album (Who Killed Amanda Palmer), in collaboration with Amanda Palmer as visiting co-creator, the course will culminate in a screening of the class-created video that will be part of a Wesleyan-hosted Amanda Palmer concert on Dec 9.

No prior film or video-making experience required, though all students seeking admission to the course are required to submit an application.

Only serious, fully engaged and enthusiastic students should apply. Students must commit to shooting the weekend of Nov. 17-18-19 and must be available all day Sat. and Sun. Nov. 18 and 19.

Students are required to apply for this course by August 15. They will be notified of admission to the course by August 31.

Course enrollment limit: 15 (all class years allowed)

Grading mode: Cr/U for final grades. Students will be given an indication of whether they are passing the course by midterm.

Major Readings: Course Reader.

Other readings may include: “The Five Rings” Myamoto Musashi; “50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship”, Salvadore Dali;”Giovanni’s Room”, James Baldwin; “Just Kids”, Patti Smith; “The Power of Movies”, Colin McGinn.

Assignments: Weekly assignments from individual students, collaborative assignments, final reflective essay of 5 pp.

Class meetings: W and F 2:40-4:10 pm

Additional information: No prior film or video-making experience required, though all students seeking admission to the course are required to submit an application.

Application to the “The Art of Doing”

Students are invited to submit this creative challenge for consideration for admission to “The Art of Doing”.

Applications should be submitted to this email address: artofdoingapplication@gmail.com . Only applications sent from wesleyan.edu email addresses will be considered.

There are two required parts to the application. Please make sure each part the application clearly indicates your name.

Part I. Create a digital still-image Self Portrait (photograph, collage, rendering).

Choose and incorporate three items into your self-portrait

A. One item to represent who you have been.

B. One item to represent who you are now.

C. One item to represent who you imagine yourself to be in the future.

Applicants are invited to interpret this exercise as best suits their creative strengths.

Part II. Please submit only one document that contains all the required elements A-D (detailed below). Please make sure this document clearly identifies you as the author.

A. In 200 words or less, explain the significance of each item in Part A.

B. In 200 words or less, explain why you’re interested in taking the course “The Art of Doing: Creative Project Production and Making It Happen”.

C. In 100 words, or less, describe your experience with Cr/U courses and your attitude toward Cr/U courses.

D. Applications should include

List of current creative skills
List of additional interests
E. Optional

Applicants are invited to submit up to three samples of creative work jpeg and mov files. Note: mov files may be no longer than 180 seconds.

Please do not purchase any books until you have been notified about admission to the course.

Summer Sendoffs 2017!

All members of the Wesleyan community are invited to attend Summer Sendoff gatherings. These casual socials are hosted by alumni and parents and are the perfect opportunity to welcome our newest students and their families to Wesleyan. Sendoffs are currently scheduled for:

Atlanta, GA June 20th
Austin, TX, July 16th
Bay Area, CA, July 16th
Boston, MA, July 19th
Chicago, IL, August 15th
Fairfield County, CT, August 10th
Los Angeles, CA, July 15th
Mamaroneck, NY, July 20th
New York, NY, August 3rd
Philadelphia, PA, August 3rd
Ridgewood, NJ, July 26th
Worcester, MA, July 20th

Added locations, event details, and registration can be found on the Summer Sendoff website.
Questions?
Contact Jenna Starr in University Relations at jstarr@wesleyan.edu

We hope to see you there!

Summer Session Registration- Still Open!

Summer 2017 classes include Intro to Financial Accounting, Bio, Chem, International Politics, Writing with Anne Greene, and more.

More information is available in WesMaps and on the Summer Session website.

To register:

1) Print and complete the registration form (EP>Student>Summer Session>Registration Form).
2) Meet with your faculty advisor to have them sign your form.
3) Bring your completed form with a check for payment to the Summer Session office (74 Wyllys) during business hours (8:30 am – 5:00 pm). You can also put the payment on your student account before bringing your form to the office.

Session schedule and deadlines are online at http://wesleyan.edu/summer/Calendar.html.

If you need any additional assistance, please contact the Summer Session office at 860-685-2005 or summer@wesleyan.edu.

Here are some tips and strategies that students use to prepare for final exams and other academic assessments.

Overall Strategies

“It gets to the point where I know I have to act like I am in a tunnel.” (Joey ‘18)
“I’m trying to figure that out. My strategy is to pay attention in class and try to understand what’s happening when learning it and then remembering it is a lot easier.” (Avi ‘20)
“Whenever you get the chance, put any effort you can into studying. Don’t let it build up. Don’t wait for midterms. Be on the lookout at least a week ahead of time.” (Ryan ‘18)
“I look over all my notes and my syllabus to make sure I’m not missing any part of the class and to make sure that I at least know something about each portion of the syllabus. Then I just sort of spend time thinking about it and hope that I do well…and sleep.” (Nathaniel ‘19)

Study Places

“I like to be in a quiet place where I don’t feel distracted. I also like eating a good meal before studying so you’re not distracted by hunger the whole time.” (Sarafina ‘20)
“Vary your study locations. Just get up and move every couple hours so you don’t get tired.” (Campbell ‘19)

Time Management

“Plan your time wisely. Make a daily schedule and a weekly schedule of all the things that you should be doing so you are using your time most efficiently. Also like not forgetting to get a meal and enough sleep. And to take care of yourself.” (Steven ‘18)

Study Techniques

“Always carry a highlighter everywhere you go…put it in your back pocket.” (Mackenzie ‘19)
“I like to listen to really good music, like lots of rap…it has a steady beat, a set tempo for studying.” (Parichat ‘20)
“I use index cards, rewrite my notes, and review a lot ahead of time and as you go along.” (Valerie ‘20)
“I study in separate chunks with breaks rather than cramming. You should test yourself; don’t just look at the notes. Anticipate questions that will be on the exam; don’t just look at your study guide and say Ah! I know this, and then formulate it into a question.” (Kelly ‘17)
“Because I am a sociology major, I read a lot of social theory. I have different color codes for each color of highlighter that indicate special things in the text and make it easy to hold onto, like words like therefore, hence, thus, or for questions or definitions. I use colors that contrast two things.” (Grace ’17)

General Advice

“Don’t study with your friends.” (Willa ‘19)
“Laugh a lot with your friends, take breaks with Netflix, and workout.” (CiCi ‘18)

Remember

Last Day to Withdraw from Full Semester & 4th Quarter Classes – May 3, 2017
Classes End – May 10, 2017
Reading Period – May 11 – 15
Final Exams – May 16 – 19
University Housing Closes – May 20
These are terrific insights. To learn more about the ways that the Class Deans Office can help you, please stop in during drop-in hours or schedule an individual meeting to see us. http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/about/classdeans.html

To meet with an Academic Peer Advisor for studying or test-taking tips or time management strategies, go to http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/resources/peeradvisors/index.html.