I was disheartened to read that Heidi Kahrl's impassioned plea to study abroad next semester in London ("Study Abroad Policy Flawed," Sept. 27) fell on deaf ears. Shame on the triumph of bureaucracy! I sympathize with Kahrl because the unparalleled highlight of my Amherst career didn't take place at Amherst at all: it was, rather, the year I spent at Goettingen University in Germany. Not only did I have the time of my life-visiting a dozen countries during various vacations-but I also managed to save an astounding $15,000. Going abroad helped me appreciate the uniqueness of an Amherst education, and I returned for my senior year more enthusiastic about Amherst than ever before. The pages of The Amherst Student have already borne (too) many of my articles extolling the virtues of braving new worlds, so I will be brief here.
While giving tours at Amherst, I was sure to mention each time how popular and simple it was to study abroad, hyping it as much as I did the open curriculum and Five College Consortium. That Amherst occasionally bullies students into staying home-for purely selfish financial reasons, of course-is not something I dared divulge. Neither did I disclose the scare tactics regularly employed by the Fairest College: "We can't guarantee you'll earn Amherst credit for that" or "It would undoubtedly be cheaper just to stay at Amherst." As if all roads in this world lead to the Pioneer Valley!
It is indeed a sad commentary on Amherst-a place with such wealth (financial, intellectual and otherwise)-that petty bureaucratic paperwork and profit maximization rule the day. Certainly the form in question is utterly meaningless in that one is by no means bound to leave campus by filling it out. Its only conceivable use, then, is to insure against a massive exodus-say, the entire junior class deciding to go abroad, unannounced-but when has Amherst ever had legitimate grounds for such a fear? We boast one of the highest retention rates around, and not without reason.
Kahrl's suggestions on how to remedy her particular situation and improve the overall procedures for studying abroad are no less first-rate than practical. It would be a disservice to Kahrl's education to deny her the chance to study abroad. Hiding behind bureaucratic rhetoric, dear Dean Lieber, is a further disservice to a community which knows better: Amherst, like any other school, never knows the precise number of students enrolled for any given semester until that semester is well under way, and even then people drop out, fail out, go on medical leave, transfer, etc. Things change, majors change, desires to study abroad change. Amherst's role is to be in reality the accommodating and user-friendly place it bills itself as in the catalogue, and the first step in that direction is to let Ms. Kahrl loose on London.
Justin Snider '99
<b>Plans Are A Home Abroad</b><br>To the Editor:
Imagine my surprise when plan-surfing one day in an Internet cafe in Delhi and coming across a plan which announces that Doomsday is approaching for planworld. There was a link to a Student article on the web for more information, but the World Wide Web proved to not be so "world wide" and all I got at my terminal in India were error messages. I got back to my hotel in a panic, not knowing if plans had only hours to live or months.
Now, almost a month later, I have pieced together bits of the story (I still can't get to that Student article) and I am relieved. Even though many of the people who make up what I think of as Amherst will not write me every day this semester, I can keep up somewhat with their lives through their plans. I almost hate to admit it, but plans play a big role in my picture of Amherst. I can never explain it to my friends from other schools, but a plan relationship creates a unique bond between Amherstians. Different aspects of a person's personality are expressed in a plan. It is not always positive, but often things that would not be said out loud are revealed in a plan.
I have heard that there is a movement afoot to transfer planworld to some sort of modified home page world. You'll have to forgive me, for my distance from campus hinders my grasp of the facts, but I can't imagine that planworld will ever be the same through the eyes of Netscape 4.0. I just don't think the same sorts of pure spontaneity would be conveyed in a higher tech world. If nothing else, the temptation to play with fonts would be too great. The time waste factor would be increased by a power of 10.
Plans can be a good introduction to an unknown individual. It is always a disappointment to finger someone who has not written one. I won't go so far as to say I think less of them, but when trying to find out about someone, not having one is quite a roadblock, as all one discovers is the person's middle name.
I for one would be a sad puppy if plans drifted out of existence. When my mailbox is empty because I have checked it 10 times already in the past two hours, I can always count on someone to have changed their plan. And here in India, it is about the only way I can keep up with the busy lives of my fellow Amherstians.
Sarah Short '02
<b>Valentine Work Is Inflexible</b><br>To the Editor:
I read the article in last week's Student about the remarkable shortage of workers in Valentine ("Worker Shortage Overwhelms Valentine," Sept. 27). The appearance of this issue was no great surprise; anyone who has been eating there during the past few weeks and last year can see that the dining situation has gotten more difficult. What surprised me was the explanations for the understaffing.
The article cites the stigma of working in Valentine as a major cause of the shortage. Although this is one valid reason, I doubt it has the great impact the article seems to suggest. The fact that working in Valentine is not a job in which students can do other work simultaneously is a better explanation. The article fails to mention other, more practical considerations that act as deterrents to that work. The hours are set, scheduled, and during the day, which is often inconvenient. A friend and former worker mentioned having to wait to eat until off-hours when other people are done. The various positions involve physical labor: lifting, carrying, scrubbing, pushing carts, etc. Most importantly, the pay is among of the lowest on campus.
I work two jobs on campus. One is in the same pay range as Valentine work, as a dean of students' "office reader." The hours and location are flexible, the work is sedentary, and it involves reading work for a class. The other is with campus security as a party monitor. The location and hours are set and I can't do classwork on duty, but the atmosphere is exciting and the work is not heavily physical (most of the time). Moreover, the pay is significantly higher than the other to compensate for inconveniences.
There are more solid matters than social issues involved in the Valentine worker shortage. There are a lot of different jobs available, on and off campus; given the prevailing circumstances, why wouldn't students feel reluctant to choose Valentine? It is a mistake for the administration to expect students be attracted to work there, especially with this year's "less financial pressure" to be employed. Pay students $12 an hour instead of $6, and I expect the staffing problems should rapidly disappear.
Katharine Liu '03