Student Works

I went to the talks on Political Science and watched presentations on Guantanamo Bay, Tobacco in Georgetown, motivations for the Bush Doctrine, Developing Nations Economies, Revolutions and their artistic representations and perhaps a few others that were equally engaging. The Poster fair was fun for me given how many of my friends were presenting and getting to talk to them though in general, I found the posters rather dull. I loved the presentations as they gave so much information but the Posters were more conclusions than explanations and I thought it was kind of awkward to read the information while the presenter was just standing there wondering if he should start talking or not. Also, it was loud and though I did talk to my friends about their work, I didn't really get too into the poster fair. The speeches though gave me information I've been trying to find for years. There is so much information on Iraq and Guantanamo Bay for example that I've never been able to get a handle on all the polices associated with them. The research of my fellow students cut through that barrier as they had already done the brute work and I just got to benefit from a like-minded examination of issues that I too was concerned about. I thought vaguely of trying to attend a non-Political presentation but luckily decided against it. Dr. Selbin and Dr. O'Neil were both in the audience and their questions and insights were very helpful. I found myself blissfully lost in a happy world of corruption, war, terror, revolutions, poverty, and early death. I really loved this event and wish we had it more often as I also felt that more people were engaged by the presentations than by those of their professors where homework, grades, and other variables distract from the pure learning that going to these lectures provided. As a side note I was also interested in the presentations of 4 of the presenters particularly as I work at the library coffee bar and always see them there working on their capstone. I finally got to see what all that time led to. I also kind of wish I were staying at southwestern so I could do such a fun capstone but given the stressed and frazzled grimaces of some of the seniors, perhaps its best that I'm not.