Skylar’s Journey

Why Grinnell?

I’m from Fairfax, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. I went to a secondary school with 5,000 kids, so I downsized coming here to Grinnell. My high school was also competitive in a way that really contrasts with Grinnell. It was kind of cutthroat, driven by grades, scores, and college admissions.

I focused a lot on school, but sports were also an important part of my experience. I played soccer and basketball and then settled on basketball in high school. I’ve always been a team-oriented person. I was a captain of my team for three of the four years, and that was a meaningful part of my experience. 

I was also interested in being involved in my community in high school. I volunteered to help overcome food insecurity and homelessness in the community, and also in support of projects focused on climate and sustainability. 

Exploring My Options

I knew I wanted a small liberal arts college experience. Both my parents are Grinnell alumni, which is how I first heard about it. But I was pretty adamant that I didn’t want to come here. I was looking for my own place and my own path. 

But I did think that a small liberal arts setup was what I was looking for — somewhere I might feel less caught up in everything and and a little bit less lost than I kind of felt in that big public high school setting. I also wanted a college where I could explore academically.

My mom’s a Montessori teacher. The Montessori idea is to follow the child and let their curiosity drive their education. That was my experience all through elementary school. I felt like a liberal arts education and particularly an open curriculum would be a natural extension of that.

Choosing Grinnell

I applied to Grinnell, even though I was sure it wouldn’t be where I ended up. The deciding factor was my visit to the Grinnell campus. I went to class, I went to the dining hall, I met some teammates, and I met some other students. I felt like it was a place that offered all the things I wanted, and it also was a place where I could really see myself — more so than the other places I visited. It was something intangible.   

I got the sense that the people at Grinnell were open and welcoming and understanding. That was what indicated to me that this might be a less competitive, more collaborative place. 

I am also on the women’s basketball team at Grinnell. Basketball was a factor in my college search, but it wasn’t the biggest one. 

My parents were very happy with my choice, of course, and they come out to visit all the time.

First-Year Experiences

The Grinnell community is significantly smaller than where I grew up. Also, elements of the Midwest are very different from where I grew up on the East Coast. I think there was a culture shock for me, but now I appreciate both here and home. 

I really wanted to meet new people at college, and I think that’s one of the cool things about Grinnell — the people are from everywhere. 

Meeting New People and Having New Experiences

New Student Orientation, or NSO as we call it, was a mad whirl for me. I met a lot of first-year students and attended a lot of NSO events. 

I’m fairly type A, so I thought, well, if they think I need to get acclimated with this and that and the other, I should probably go. You end up being busy from eight in the morning to eight at night, and that’s just a lot, in addition to trying to live away from your family for the first time and orient yourself socially and physically.

That was one of many times when the team structure was helpful. My teammates really helped me through the transition. We started basketball activities almost right away, which also helped a lot. I was still getting to do one of the things that I really enjoy, which is an outlet for me, along with everything new and different that was going on. That’s a huge theme throughout my college career, I think.

Academics

When I arrived at Grinnell, I had some idea of what I was interested in academically, but I also really wanted to explore. I wanted to find a way to balance those two things but I didn’t come in with a ton of goals or expectations. I kind of just showed up here, and then my first year started. I was like, cool, here we are. Let’s go with the flow and see what happens. 

I ended up loving the academic part of school. My First-Year Tutorial (a class all first-years take) was on War and Peace, which was awesome. I’m a political science and economics double major, so I haven’t taken too many other classes on literature, but I would keep my tutorial choice 100%. The reading was dense sometimes, but my professor did a great job of breaking things down in class. We would watch some of a film or TV adaptation when we got to a particularly tricky part. And I think taking on War and Peace felt awesome and rewarding. 

In my first year, I also took both political science and economics. I was undecided about economics, but I tried both of them. I also took Spanish, statistics, and math. 

I really enjoy Spanish and decided to add a concentration in Latin American studies. I’ve mostly taken Spanish history and culture, which I enjoy even though they’re outside of the structure of my majors.

My Introduction to Political Science class immediately clicked for me. I knew that was the department I wanted to be in. It was exciting. I wanted to do every project and every reading, and I wanted to discuss all of it. 

Second Chances

I got comfortable making mistakes during my first year. It didn’t feel awesome at the time, but having grown up a little bit and reflected on it, I can see that it was a good learning experience. 

First, I think Grinnell is a great place to make mistakes, just in general. It’s an open, forgiving environment with a lot of support.

The mistakes didn’t feel great when they were happening, but I’m glad that I made them. A good example is the statistics class I took in my second semester. I didn’t really connect with the professor. I didn’t really understand what was going on. I got discouraged and didn’t feel confident about it. 

The good thing is that you get a lot of second chances here. I found other places to build up my confidence and working knowledge of statistics. I had an economics professor in my second semester who could see that I was having similar confidence issues in her class. She was open to having conversations with me about why I’m afraid of making a mistake or failing. 

It was an opportunity to stretch and find out a lot more about myself, what I value, where I feel confident, and how to take on something I wasn't comfortable with.

Basketball

Being part of the women’s basketball team has been one of the most important parts of my experience here. I think it’s asked a lot of me personally, which has brought some ups and downs throughout my career. But I am happy I committed to it. I also built good friendships and relationships here on campus outside of the sport. But being in that team setting has allowed me to develop many close friendships.

It’s been an interesting senior year so far. It’s my second year as captain. The first-years seem a lot younger than me, and I feel a sense of care about how their first year goes and how their experience at Grinnell goes. That’s rewarding, I think, to reflect on. I think it’s fun, too, that it’s friendship and mentorship — it’s both.

I enjoy leading a team and being part of a team. That’s something I want to find in another space. Those leadership skills are super important in a good way. I’m not talking about dominating people or anything like that, but rather caring about them and wanting everyone to do the best they can. 

The basketball season is an intense time commitment. We practice over fall break. We sometimes have two days off over Thanksgiving, but a lot of years it’s just one. And then we’re here for about a month of winter break. 

I’m proud of our season last year. It was the most successful season our program has had in more than 20 years. We made the conference tournament and had a hugely successful year that was built on a lot of hard work from previous years. It was fun to be a part of it.

Study Abroad

I took four semesters of Spanish at Grinnell, and I’d had some high school Spanish as well. I really enjoyed the classroom experience, but I also wanted to see the language in a real-life context, so I decided to study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country. 

I’d been planning on studying abroad since I decided to come to Grinnell. I’m a bit of a planner-aheader, so I had that in mind. 

To Granada, Spain!

With guidance from the Institute for Global Engagement, I chose to go to Granada, Spain. I ended up connecting with a couple of Grinnellians who had already been there, which was helpful and classic Grinnell. 

I was in Granada over the summer between my second and third years. While I was there, I took a Spanish class, mostly about communication and culture. It was helpful because I could talk about books and literary analysis, but it was a lot harder to express myself day to day. I could ask for directions or ask where the bathroom was, but trying to connect with people and make friends was different. The class helped a lot with that. It also gave me a lens to think more specifically about the cultural differences I was encountering and how to think about Spanish culture more generally.

Learning Experiences in Spain

I also took a class on international relations and the relationship between Spain and Morocco. The class offered a lens through which to think about what a relationship between two countries is like when you’re trying to de-emphasize the colonial history and implications. 

We also visited Morocco on a study trip. It was cool to see places that we had discussed in the classroom and experience them in person. Morocco was different from anywhere else I’d been. It felt like the kind of place that would be cool to explore further. Oh, and they had awesome food — I’m always in it for the food.

While I was in Spain, I gave myself a lot of time and space to rest and reflect and be present. I went to my classes in the morning, and in the afternoon, I would take two or three hours to rest or to sit somewhere and write. I reflected on what was happening and I let myself be present and feel what was happening. I think that’s why my takeaways from this period have been so meaningful. I have a whole journal from Granada, which is awesome to look back on.

My study-abroad takeaways include feeling more confident in myself and understanding more about who I am. This applies even in busy, stressful periods here at Grinnell. I’ve gotten better about being balanced and accepting that at a certain point, I can trust what I’ve done.

Internships and Research

I’ve done lot of research in political science. I kept stumbling into interesting research opportunities. I’d talk to the professor about something and then end up doing a research project.

Research Experience in Grinnell

Research as a First-Year Student

In my second semester, I took an awesome class on human rights taught by Professor Wayne Moyer. I had a friend in the class who was doing a plus-2 (an optional two-credit independent study project attached to a regular course) for her gender, women’s and sexuality major. She said, hey, do you want to get in on this project? I did, and it was fun. 

As a Third-Year Student

In the fall semester of my third year, I conducted a seminar project on regime legitimacy and public opinion in Latin America. The goal of my project was to understand what kind of opinions make Latin American regimes more legitimate. I specifically examined opinions on trust, democracy, economic performance, and corruption. 

In the spring, I studied Indonesian political participation trends using data from the Asian Barometer as a Directed Research project.

Pew Research Center Work in D.C.

I’ve been working with my CLS adviser, Gracie, in the Government Law and Policy Career Community for a couple of years now. It’s helpful to get specific advice and learn about opportunities related to what I think I want to do. I also think the advising relationship with Gracie is really meaningful.

I spent last summer interning at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. I have a big interest in public opinion and in survey data, and my adviser at the Center for Careers, Life, and Service helped me find an internship that matched my interests and the research I’d done previously. I felt very prepared for this internship thanks to my research experiences at Grinnell. 

At Pew, I worked on the Global Attitudes Project, an annual survey that covers 25 countries. They ask a wide variety of questions about politics, economics, and society. They also conduct and publish a lot of interesting data analysis.

I got to work on data analysis, writing questionnaires, and survey design, but also how to present, write, visualize data for the public. I learned how to think about what to convey and how to convey it. They have a very particular voice and style and standards for how they convey information, which I think in a lot of ways makes sense. Having really high standards is part of how they maintain public trust. Everyone at Pew has this intense attention to detail — the details matter. I’m glad I picked up on this idea that it’s okay to take more time to adhere to a high standard.

I’m kind of a geography nerd. I love maps and news and that kind of thing, and that was totally what I found in my teammates at Pew. It was just a great connection — I just kind of found my people.

Advanced Research as a Senior

This fall, I conducted a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) on Legitimacy and Global Democratic Decline. The goal of this project was to understand whether individual attitudes and levels of political participation can be linked to the 25-year trend of autocratization that we are currently experiencing. My study featured 11 countries.

Jobs and Activities

I’ve been active in the community, mentoring middle school students for the past four years. I go every other week and eat lunch with a handful of middle school girls. It’s centered around building a relationship with the middle schoolers.

We go every other Monday. They keep asking us if we can come every Monday. I’ve had great groups in other semesters, but I sense a lot of enthusiasm from this group, which feels good for all of us. 

I’m learning a lot about what it’s like to grow up in Grinnell and how that’s similar and different to what it was like for me. But at the same time, I’m also just reminded every single day that there are a lot of things about being a middle school girl that are kind of universal. 

Some of the students have been interested in sports and sometimes we see them at our games. We also run a kids’ basketball camp, usually in the winter. Other students have other interests, but I don’t think that really hinders the group in any way. We find plenty of other things to get along with.

It feels pretty high impact for what the actual commitment is. It’s been meaningful and fun.

Friends and Fun

The best times with my friends are often the moments when we’re not doing anything in particular. We didn’t really organize anything but ended up hanging out in somebody’s room or sitting in the dining hall for two and a half hours, which is far too long in the middle of the semester. But it happens and it’s really fun.

Favorite Hangout Spots

I spent a lot of time with my friends at Saints Rest Coffee House. We also love the local Indian restaurant, I-80 Dhaba. I spend way too much of my money there. 

I like to spend time outside. For me, that’s been probably the most relaxing thing to do on campus — being outside when the weather in nice. I enjoy just being outside on Mac Field or the South Quad, relaxing in a hammock with a book. 

This is kind of a funny thing, but I love the Humanities and Social Studies Center (we call it the HSSC) atrium. That’s where I spend most of my day. When I was a first-year student, a couple of my teammates trained me well to go to the HSSC after class and after lunch, so I spend a lot of time there. I enjoy how it’s a place where I can be productive and focus on my academics. But it’s also just a place where I run into everyone. I see my teammates, other friends, people from my current classes, and people from classes four semesters ago. It's a space that I love. I usually wake up pretty early, and I like going to the HSSC in the morning when the sun is rising, before everyone’s there. Then it hits 10 a.m., and everyone is there. That’s just an awesome start to the day.

Living with My Best Friends

I’m living off campus this year with four soccer players who are some of my best friends. We have access to a full kitchen, so that’s been fun. We cook a lot. We have friends over, and we have movie nights. A lot of it is informal. We just all get home and we want to debrief or chat about the day. We make a lot of tea.

Celebrating Holidays and Traditions

I’ve been on campus for three of the four Thanksgivings. One year, my teammates and I did a whole undertaking to make a big pumpkin cheesecake, which was awesome. I found some other opportunities to do cooking projects and luckily have some teammates with a similar interest. 

This year, I had my team over on Thanksgiving — those of us who didn’t go home. It was great to have people in the house.

I also definitely love the Grinnell traditions. I especially like Titular Head (an annual film festival for student-produced films). I think that’s probably my favorite. I haven’t done a film but I’m planning one for this year. I just love imagining my parents in 1991 at Titular Head. I think that’s just an awesome connection.

Hopes and Plans for the Future

I don’t really have a bucket list for my senior year, which is surprising. This year I’ve been trying to embrace just spending time with the people I care about. I’ve been getting advice about savoring college life — living with your friends and seeing them every day and having less obligation and fewer responsibilities than you might have once you graduate. So I’m trying to take advantage of that, even if it’s informal.

From an academic perspective, I’m trying to tie things up and reflect a bit on where I’ve gotten. I’ve also been trying to mix or meld together my majors (political science and economics) with my concentration (Latin American studies) and think about possible applications, which has been interesting. 

As for the future, I am still figuring it out. I’m planning to work for a few years. I will likely move back to D.C. But in the meantime, Gracie, the director of the Government, Law, and Policy career community, is helping me plan out my next steps.

I like a lot about the area where I grew up, and I’m also interested in the work that’s happening there. So, that is a natural choice. Ideally, it would be in something related to research policy or international affairs. But I’m pretty open. I want to get a couple of years of experience, and then I’d like to go back to graduate school. 

I haven’t decided if I will pursue a public policy degree or a law degree. I’m not worried about that right now. I’d like to try being in the working world for a bit just to see what it’s like.

There’s also a good possibility that I try a job for the first two years and realize it’s not something I like. And I think that’d be a good experience too, to use that to pivot.

Looking Ahead

I am hoping to take a little bit of time off after graduation. I’ve also gotten a lot of advice that this is a significant breaking point and I might not have a ton of opportunities like this in other points in my life. So I’m hoping to travel a little bit, spend some more time with my friends and family, and allow myself a little bit of a break.

Gracie, my career adviser at Grinnell, has been encouraging me to connect with alumni. She has also helped me really think about what I value in a workplace and what kind of work I am looking for. She also suggested that I consider what I am looking for culturally and in terms of work-life balance. She’s also been encouraging me to take a deep breath and put the work in but not to stress too much about it. I’ve gotten a lot better about that in my four years here.