Senior Projects
Every year, VCS seniors spend 6 weeks exploring a passion and/or interest of their choice. This usually involves working with an adult mentor doing an internship. At the end of the internship, students make a presentation about their project to the entire VCS community. Below is are descriptions of the Senior Projects for the Class of 2010 written in their own words. Enjoy!
Peter Ballard - EMT Intership
The goal of my senior project is to increase the skills and services I can deliver to my community as a Colchester Rescue EMT for six weeks. During this time I will be finishing my EMT-B class and receiving my CPR instructor certification. With being on the day and night schedule on rescue, I will be responsible for meeting my commitment, not just for the school but also for the organization. Emergency medical care has become a passion of mine over the past couple years. I enjoy learning and enhancing my skills and the best way to broaden my knowledge is through experience.
Peter is from Colchester and will be attending Champlain College in the fall.
C.J. Bowman - Graphic Design Internship
My passion in life is being able to create; it can be simplified into those nine words. Pretty broad passion, but now it is time to narrow it down for my Senior Project. Graphic design and fashion are my main areas of interest within creating, and working with Okay!! Okay!! will give me the opportunity to take that next step. Interning for the first time and being in a corporate and professional world will fine tune my passion and mold me preparing me for college and a career after it. Learning the importance of the basics, upcoming styles and artists, project and time management, and all the behind the scene work to a piece of work is what I want to take away along with the just the experience. At the end of the day the passion remains creating, mostly through an artistic manner, but I want to take my passion and create a life. Vermont Commons gave me the opportunity and the knowledge to find my passion, and now I am given the chance to explore this world of graphic design. This project will be the next step in creating my life.
C.J. is from South Burlington and will be attending Massachusetts College of Art in the fall.
Joseph Congdon - Political Campaign Internship
The purpose of my senior project is to comprehend the inner workings of politics and to learn how a successful campaign is run. This gubernatorial race is an extremely intriguing and deciding time in Vermont politics; I hope to capture this essence. Why did I choose this project? I know that my future life entails public service, therefore getting my foot in the door and literally testing the waters is a good idea. Kate O'Connor, my community mentor, has many years of campaign experience under her belt, and will be a great source of information. Hopefully I will even make connections to aid me in the not so distant future when I'm up for election!
Joe is from Charlotte and will be attending University of Saint Andrews in Scotland in the fall.
Sophie Daigle - Event Planning Internship
The main goal of my senior project is to "help girls gain confidence, courage, and leadership through adventure-based experiential education" (same mission as Girls Move Mountains, created by Nadine Budbill). I hope to do this by leading an all-girls Encounter Week in the spring with Jessica Redmond. Another goal of my Senior Project is to explore an interest I have had since a young age, taking advantage of the experience both Nancy Bove and Jordan Romm have when it comes to event planning.
Sophie is from Burlington and will be attending Bowdin College in Maine in the fall.
Eric Fournier - Music Production Internship
It is my intention for senior project to explore the topic of music from a few different perspectives. My plan is to combine a working internship with creating a series of recordings that are of deep personal importance to me. The main portion of my time each week will be spent working as an intern with a local record label called Cumbancha, based out of Charlotte. Cumbancha was founded by the music producer and ethnomusicologist Jacob Edgar who, prior to running Cumbancha, was the head of music research and product development at the famed independent record label Putumayo World Music. He created Cumbancha to give artists from around the world a chance to record full albums, rather than only the singles that Putumayo was releasing. The label represents a number of artists from the world music genre and their office is adjacent to a full recording studio facility. Although the tasks that I will get to perform during my internship likely involve more website updating and handing out flyers, I will nonetheless be exposed to the music industry in a way that I never have before. Therefore this experience will undoubtedly be invaluable to my understanding of the recording process and the music business.
Eric is from Shelburne and will be attending Bishop's University in Quebec in the fall.
Andrew Jaffe - Website Interfaces Internship
The goal for my Senior Project is to get experience at a local business in the technology field. Additionally I hope to in some way help them by completing a project for them in my time there. I currently plan on doing this through working with the Blue House Group in Richmond, Vermont. I will be investigating different online mapping interfaces that could be built into a website and determining the pro's and con's of each one as well as the compatibility with different sites. I will then report my findings to Blue House Group.
Andrew is from Shelburne and will be attending Rochester Institute of Technology in New York in the fall.
Patrick Magowan - Sports Marketing Internship
I will be working along side Jeff Schulman and Chris McCade on sports market research to benefit the University of Vermont. My goal is to learn about the business of sports and what it takes to be successful in that field. What I hope to achieve is an understanding of the industry and if I want to pursue a career in the field. This project will give me an idea if I would like to be in sports management and sports marketing for my career.
Patrick is from South Burlington and will be attending Arizona State University in the fall.
Tamara Melkumov - Theater Internship
The objective of my Senior Project is to experience the several different aspects of putting on a theater production. Because theater is my passion, this will help me move forward with my goals in life of becoming an actress. What I hope to get out of my senior project is to come back having directed a successful show, and gained the knowledge and skills of directing through my experiences, as well as improving in my acting. I am also excited to be doing a Shakespeare production, since I did my single author study on Shakespeare, and it feels as though everything is falling into place, because now I will be using what I gained from that class for this project.
Tamara is from Burlington and will be attending Drew University in New Jersey in the fall.
Elena Mudd - Photography Internship
For my senior project I want to challenge myself in a few different ways. I want to learn more about photography and the different aspects of it (film, digital, composition, lighting, developing) and what photography can do. I am interested in the profession of photojournalism so I am going to document important things with my camera. I will work with the Pueblo of Tesuque after school program and document the program and people with my camera. I also hope to learn about documentary filmmaking and make a short documentary about the Pueblo of Tesuque program. I will spend about a week doing my own project with the two age groups at Pueblo of Tesuque, and teaching them aspects of photography. I will also spend a week in New York City with the Encounter Week and plan on doing more photography there, comparing the differences between New Mexico photography and idea of art and New York's. I want to become a better photographer through this project; I want to learn more about teaching young kids; and I want to become better at voicing my opinions and getting to know strangers.
Elena is from Colchester and will be attending New York University in the fall.
Catie Mueller - Non-profit Fundraising Internship
I will be expanding my knowledge of photographic technique and style with Ed Wolfstein for the first week of my project. I then plan on applying that knowledge in a trip to Belize, where I will be taking photos with the ultimate goal of making a calendar. I will be staying at the Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education (BFREE), located in the rainforest. I also plan on traveling to some of the Mayan villages and the coast. Upon return to the U.S., I will be working with LG Printing LLC in Swanton, VT. Here I will create and print a calendar with images from my trip. The proceeds will go to BFREE as they are a non-profit organization and funding is a challenge. The goal of my project is to expand my knowledge of the photographic process as well as to raise money for BFREE. For the project, I plan on learning the details of not only photography, but also the printing process. I hope to achieve a greater sense of artistic format and production. This project will allow me to further my interest and understanding of photography and printing, while simultaneously allowing me to travel and then share my experiences with the community.
Catie is from Enosburg Falls and will be attending Cornell College in Iowa in the fall.
Grey Switzer - Physical Fitness Internship
The purpose of my Senior Project is to learn how to teach other people, preferably middle to high school students, about the importance of being active and in shape. I hope while working with a personal trainer I will obtain the skills he has, to be able to teach others how to do the same thing. I want to be able to learn more of how to use the equipment in a gym to the benefit of my physical well being. By the time I go to college I hope to be able to go to a gym and be able to share my routine with others to help them prepare for upcoming sport seasons. Someday I might want to pursue being an athletic coach and part time teacher at an environmentally friendly school like Vermont Commons.
Grey is from Shelburne and will be attending Paul Smith's College in New York in the fall.
Joey Wiles - Fashion Design Internship
For my senior project I will work with Douglas Davidson on making designs for my own apparel business. He was the former design director at Burton Snowboards, and his expertise will help me create solid designs that will appeal to a large market. I will focus my production towards t-shirts and hats, and I plan on using a screen printer to produce these pieces of clothing. This project will enable me to work on something I am passionate about with an individual who is an expert in the field.
Joey is from Williston and will be attending Massachusetts College of Art in the fall.