Like so many other seniors, Matt Moses finds himself faced, upon graduation, with the inevitable decision between differing life paths. The two job offers before him are an internship at a law firm and one working behind the scenes on television's Food Network. Thus is the unusual nature of the dilemma confronting Moses, an English and LJST double major whose curricular and extracurricular activities have frequently included manifestations of his interest in, well, food.

The offer at the Food Network came as a follow-up to a junior-year summer position Moses procured as a production intern at the television station. "I was working on two shows, one called 'Cooking Live with Sara Moulton,' and the other a new show that I helped to develop called 'Sara's Secrets,'" said Moses. His duties behind the scenes were manifest. "As a production intern I really got an opportunity to do a whole range of activities. I wrote a bunch of scripts, breakdowns of how cameras are supposed to work, etc," he said. "When the show was live, I got to wear a headset and be the on-the-floor producer, so during the commercial breaks you get to prep [the host] and solve on-set problems."

In addition to his work on "Cooking Live with Sara Moulton," Moses was instrumental in the creation of "Sara's Secrets." "The whole process was really great because I got to work on conceiving the concept of the show," he said. "Things like helping to come up with the title, designing the set and the outfits ... so I was able to do that right from the beginning, and I stayed through the first block of filming. We designed about 26 episodes, including all the recipes."

His duties on the new show included increased production responsibilities. "It's a pretty flexible work model, so a lot of people fill in other people's jobs, but one of the really interesting parts about production, especially in food TV, is that you have to work with very distinct groups." He frequently found himself having to juggle "very different interests. On one side you have the corporate [component] of the company. Then you have the kitchen, who are well-trained chefs and have very specific ideas of what they will and won't make and how they want to present their food. And then you have the camera crew, who has its own idea of what the show should look like. So a lot of the production job turns out to be balancing these different things, making sure that everyone is working together so that, well, the show actually happens."

One of the aspects of the Food Network jobs that perhaps most appealed to Moses' interest in food was the research that was required for various recipes. "You wind up using a lot of ingredients that people are unaware of, so a lot of my job was research." This interest in food dates back to childhood, when "my parents both worked, so I did fairly early take on some cooking responsibilities for the family."

The enjoyment he found in cooking was deepened when he moved into Humphries House during sophomore year. "My interest flourished in that environment," said Moses. "I really did take on a lot of responsibility for planning, for example, wine and cheese, and it was a great opportunity to have access to a lot of different ingredients."

Forks in the road

This interest manifested itself through academics as well. Though Moses did not end up completing a thesis, he did begin one under the creative writing concentration of his English major. He began, under the guidance of Visiting Writer Claire Messud, a collection of short stories of food fiction, a genre of literature that Moses said is "becoming really popular right now." He defines it as stories that "weave the food you eat into certain situations" so that one can "feel emotion" behind various dishes, "which is what it should be about, at least in my opinion."

During the first semester of his senior year Moses began writing his own collection of food fiction. "I wrote about five of them, and I got to the point where I chose not to continue the honors project for the second semester because I felt pretty confident about how far I'd gotten at that point, but I didn't feel confident that I'd be able to devote as much energy to these stories second semester as I would have liked," he said. He does, however, plan to complete the collection following graduation. "I'm glad I have them," he said of the stories. They all need huge, major revisions, but I'm really excited about that project now."

Moses was also awarded the book collecting prize for his vast collection of cookbooks. "I submitted a little over 200 cookbooks to the [committee], and they're now on display in the library. I was really excited," he said.

However, he has by no means ruled out his other job offer as a paralegal at the law firm of Simpson, Thatcher & Bart in Manhattan. "I'm interested in the law, and I probably will go to law school eventually," said Moses. "I'm interested in the academic side of things, so ideally I would do a joint degree, a J.D. and a Ph. D."

He feels that his two courses of study are in many ways related. "There are clearly differences [between the two], but there was one class I took with Professor of LJST [Lawrence] Douglas called 'Interpretation in Law and Literature,'" he said. "It was kind of what I perceived to be the centerpoint of my academics at Amherst, the analysis of text and trying to come up with some theory of what text, and particularly legal text, means."

Basically, "I love school," he said. "I love the concept of school. So I do want to be involved in the academic world. I definitely want to go back to school and I want to stay in school for as long as I possibly can. What I really want to do is take some time off and think about my future, and then hopefully in the next year or two I'll start applying to grad school."

Moses also served as editor-in-chief of the creative writing magazine A Further Room during his junior year. "A Further Room was a big deal for me, for a while, at least," he said. "I worked on that for three years-this was the first semester for a very long time that I haven't been as involved in the production." He said he truly valued the experience in that "it's really nice to be able to take a look at the work my peers are doing. And I think it has helped my own writing tremendously."

During his senior year he also played an active role in the Student Government Organization, particularly during its recent process of transformation. Though he had not, prior to senior year, ever served on the board, he found himself elected vice-president following the March resignation of Amy Summerville. "I had a meteoric rise to power in the SGO," said Moses. "In the very beginning of the semester I ran for a position on the library committee, and I won, and I did that basically to be involved in the new constitution. Then two weeks later Amy resigned and I ran for the position of V.P. and was appointed by the Senate."

"The new constitution project was really exciting to me," said Moses. His goal was "to facilitate the survival of the student government in the transition process. I knew there was a lot of scandal involving them, and I wanted to be able to set things straight and to make sure specifically that the new constitution passed." Moses is satisfied with the results: "I really support the new constitution. And there had been some contestations [of past elections], and I'm happy to say the elections I have run have not been contested and I worked really hard to make sure that things were run by the book."

One of the triumphs of the recent election, he said, is that voter turnout increased dramatically over past instances, "so that almost 50 percent of the student body voted, which is pretty amazing when you think about it."

Summer lovin'

Moses' pursuits over the summers of his college career have included a fairly diverse range of activities. Following his freshman year he "worked at a non-profit law firm. My job was to make sure that welfare decisions were being enforced."

Following his sophomore year, Moses, who because of the restrictive nature of his majors was unable to go abroad, traveled to Israel and worked for three months as an English instructor at "a kind of camp we created in the middle of the desert, in what they call a 'development town.'" Never previously having felt strong ties to the Jewish community, the experience was a revelation of sorts. "It wasn't something I was expecting to feel that way about," he said. "I really had a transformation. I wound up loving Israel. It was a wonderful experience."

Moses had intended, upon graduation, to return to Israel as part of another teaching program, but the current political environment led him to rule out that option. "If the situation right now were different, I'd certainly be back there, at least for a year or two. But obviously I can't, and I'm really sorry for that," he said. "I'm not sure politically where I stand in the situation. I think if I hadn't gone there it would be easier to take a stance one way or the other, but having had that experience I feel pretty mixed up."

His third summer saw the internship at the Food Network, and while he plans, this year, to begin working in July, his plans include performing in a play in August at the Fringe Festival in Manhattan, a festival that supports up-and-coming playwrights. "I've done about eight plays at Amherst, not [with] the curricular theater department so much as in the extracurricular world," said Moses. "The play I'm doing this summer is an adaptation of a play we did last year, Christina Septien's senior thesis," a play originally titled "To One Who I Saw as Small."

He is very much anticipating the production, in part because "all the theater work I've done has been collegiate or high school, so this'll be the first time I'll be doing so-called 'real' theater," he said

21 to life

Moses' past few months have been so busy that he has not been dwelling upon graduation. "I guess I've been deferring the thought," he said. "I'm in some sort of shock stage." He said that he has "loved" his experience here, "I'm a big fan of Amherst. One of the benefits of going to a school that's small is that there's a greater sense of unity [within a class], which is a really great place to learn about yourself."

Moses said that he also values "the educational experience. I think the lack of core curriculum and distribution requirements inspired me to take a lot more responsibility for the courses that I took, and that sense of responsibility has really inspired me to do the work that I'm doing and enjoying it much more," said Moses. "Also, the relationships I've made with my professors have just been unparalleled. There are professors here that I would rank among my closest friends."

However, graduation does not feel like the end of the Amherst era. "I'm sad to leave, but I'm going to move to New York, where a lot of my classmates are moving, so I don't really feel like this is the end. I don't really feel like I have to say my goodbyes. Also, I'm lucky enough in this market to have job offers, so I think that makes the transition easier," Moses said.

What he is not looking forward to, however, is the thought of "growing up." "I guess this is the point where the summer and the year stop becoming different, and it's just, 'Oh, life and work,'" he said. "You spend 21 years saying 'I wanna grow up! I wanna grow up!' Then in two seconds, the week before you graduate, you think, 'Wait, maybe I don't really want to grow up.' It happens so quickly. I'm 21, I can do all the things that I need to do. I wish you could kind of stay 21 forever ... or at least, for a really, really long time."