What lights your heart on fire? What would you do if you could travel abroad for an entire year?

June 15, 2013: JFK International Airport

It’s hard to believe that the day has finally come.  I am leaving to begin my Watson Fellowship today and am currently waiting at JFK to board my flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where I will have a brief layover before flying to Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania. It’s a strange mix of emotions – a combination of excitement, anticipation, fear, and homesickness.  These last couple of weeks at home were a whirlwind, as I frantically tried to garner all of the things I would need for my trip and simultaneously attempted to see all my family and friends.  So my summer thus far has consisted of way too many trips to the bank, running errands with my sister, and even several big trips to Boston and New York City to sort out passport and visa issues.  However, I finally think I am ready to go.  Packing was a bit stressful to say the least, as fitting a year’s worth of belongings into one suitcase isn’t the easiest.  With the help of my mom, sister, and boyfriend, however, I successfully jammed everything in.  They were great at helping me purge and consolidate, and as a result, my suitcase weighed only 45 lbs. at the airport.  This was a miracle, especially because my suitcase for a semester in Australia last year weighed almost 60 lbs.  - I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learned a thing or two about packing since then!

So what many of you may be asking: what is the Watson?  Instead of getting a job or going to graduate school, how could I possibly be taking the next twelve months of my life to travel abroad?  Good question!  According to their website, "The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship offers college graduates of 'unusual promise' a year of independent, purposeful exploration and travel -- in international settings new to them -- to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community." Since 1968, the Watson Foundation has been providing travel grants to recent graduates, a philanthropic endeavor conceived by the family of Watson, who founded the software giant IBM.  Each year, four seniors from roughly forty small liberal arts colleges across the country interview at the national level and compete to receive the fellowship (after a grueling preliminary interview process at school).  The Watson is largely based on the principle of independence.  We are responsible for creating a project, digging deep into our imaginations and synthesizing our wildest dreams and passions with logistical feasibility in the context of global travel.  We choose the countries, plan where we are going to live, how we are going to eat, and are responsible for making some contacts in each place ahead of time.  You can read more about this year's fellows here: http://www.watsonfellowship.org/site/fellows/13_14.html    

The Watson Fellowship is something I have been considering for a long time.  As a freshman at Hamilton, I attended one of the informational sessions that explained unique post-grad opportunities such as the Fulbright and Watson.  At first, I considered the Fulbright, but then realized that I neither wanted to teach English for a year, nor did I want to pursue a formal, academic research project.  The Watson, however, was neither of these pursuits, but rather an opportunity to seek out and learn more about issues we are deeply passionate about without having the obligations of publishing a report or conducting formal research.  Rather burnt out from undergrad, I knew then that this was something I was interested in applying to and can’t believe it’s a reality.  I started working on my application a year ago (June of 2012) when I returned home from my semester abroad in Australia.  I was bitten by the travel bug and knew there was so much in the world I wanted to see and do.  If I didn’t at least try to go for the Watson, I felt as though I’d regret it forever, because honestly, what better time to travel than fresh out of college?  However, I also cannot disregard the critical and enormous environmental impact of global travel with CO2 emissions from flying (especially because we’ve only just hit 400 PPM of atmospheric carbon, where 350 is the preferred, “safe” level).  I then refer to an article written by Bill McKibben on purposeful travel and how we may be able to justify our global pursuits if it is for more than vacation but instead to garner important, relevant information to then bring home to better our communities and the world.

Keeping the notion of purposeful travel in mind, my project underwent a lot of changes during the planning and application process.  My earliest ideas included wanting to explore the Transition Town movement or Ecovillages around the world.  I then I yearned to examine food sovereignty and the role of women in the movement.  I had grand ideas to integrate organic agriculture, climate change, fair trade, gender equality, and food security.  The Fellowships Coordinator at Hamilton politely raised the point that I had about five separate Watsons within my one project and I needed to find some kind of common thread holding everything together.  Fast-forward to present day and the title of my final project is “The Future of Food: Modern Technology and Traditional Agriculture Systems.”  I have tentative plans to travel to Tanzania, India, Bolivia, and Iceland, where I will explore these issues.  In the context of population growth, widespread food insecurity, global climate change etc., I will investigate how we are going to feed the planet.  I am curious as to whether small farmers will maintain a place in the global food system or if industrial agriculture will win out.  I want to observe how the tension between tradition and innovation is playing out at the grassroots level (if at all).  For the purposes of my project, “technology” is a loose term that can include genetically modified organisms (GMOs and biotechnology), radio technology for disseminating information to farmers, highly mechanized agriculture systems, irrigation schemes, and drying and preservation techniques to name a few.  I don’t anticipate that I will find any clear cut answers to these complex questions, but rather, expect that more questions will be generated as I move forward in time and space. 

   

Although I am wildly excited for the coming year, I don’t think it’s going to be anything like the vacation it seems to be; in fact, far from it.  And I am certainly going to miss my family and friends next year.  During the Watson interview back in January, the interviewer asked me if I had ever dealt with profound loneliness and if so, how did I cope with it.  I don’t remember what I said, but I can honestly say that I haven’t.  This coming year is going to test my emotions and wits in every single way.  The foundation asks, “Where’s the stretch in the project?”  I reply: everywhere.  New cultures, languages, food, currency geography, and climate.  By linking up with local families, doing homestays, and using farming, cooking, and food as universal languages, however, I hope to combat some of the loneliness and fear that will undoubtedly find their way into my life.  And although I’d be the first to admit that I’m scared, above all, I am grateful: for my parents, sister, boyfriend, friends, my Hamilton College experience, and now the Watson Fellowship.  Without Hamilton, none of this would have been possible, which may sound trite, but my Alma Mater has given me so much – I can’t wait to give back and support future students.

I want to end this post with a question: if you had twelve months, $28,000, and the ability to travel anywhere in pursuit of anything, what would you do?  Where would you go?  What are your wildest dreams and deepest passions?  What makes you tick and lights your heart on fire?  I encourage everyone to think about these questions.  I think the Watson application process in and of itself is extremely valuable, as it forces applicants to look inwards with a critical eye and to envision something entirely of their own creation.

Thanks for reading and feel free to email me at anytime this year: laulhowe@gmail.com – I welcome correspondence from home, even if it’s just to say hi.  I can’t guarantee how timely my response will be, but I can promise that I will eventually reply :) This invitation to connect especially goes out to prospective fellows/current applicants/future Watsons - I had a lot of guidance and assistance from past fellows and am eager to return the favor!

p.s. Apologies for the lack of photos - the Internet here is very intermittent.  There are some on my Facebook page if you're interested!