The Watson Diaries
The next step
Alex Winter
Issue date: 5/28/10 Section: Features
Graduating senior Alex Winter was awarded a $25,000 fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation to fund a year of independent study and travel outside the United States to research a topic of his choosing. Winter, whose life-long passion for video games was kindled at the tender age of five, will be studying interactive entertainment in parts of the world where video gaming holds a prominent position in popular culture. His proposal, "Video Game Culture Studies in East Asia, Korea, China and Japan," will explore how social gaming in the digital age has brought global communities together.
Pretend you're a character from "Lost." You're about to be stranded on a strange island with strange rules for one year - up to six if the writers like you. You can take one thing from your "magic box of anything." This will be the only thing you have for a year to keep you busy, happy, alive and sane.
What was the first thing that came to mind? Survival gear? A book or journal? A friend and trusty guide? The "magic box of anything" itself? That's probably the sensible answer, but I would take a coconut-powered computer.
The Watson Fellowship essentially asks you to answer that question, explain why, and prove that you could make it work.
That wasn't what I said at first, though. I pretty much wanted to say "encyclopedia." It sounded big and smart, whereas coconut computer sounded too "Gilligan's Island." It's also what we expect at Lawrence: rigorous academics.
I spent five, almost six months on and off researching a topic, budgeting expenses and making calls or consulting subject and Watson experts - thank you, Martyn, Madhuri, Megan and Tim!
I liked my project academically, but that was it. I thought it was what the Fellowship wanted to hear, which seemed like the right approach.
Two weeks before the deadline I told someone my plan, and he looked at me, eyebrow cocked, as if I'd answered the island question with, "I choose you, Encyclopedia Brittanica!" Then he asked me, "If you were on a desert island, could you really read that for a year until you were rescued?"
Pretend you're a character from "Lost." You're about to be stranded on a strange island with strange rules for one year - up to six if the writers like you. You can take one thing from your "magic box of anything." This will be the only thing you have for a year to keep you busy, happy, alive and sane.
What was the first thing that came to mind? Survival gear? A book or journal? A friend and trusty guide? The "magic box of anything" itself? That's probably the sensible answer, but I would take a coconut-powered computer.
The Watson Fellowship essentially asks you to answer that question, explain why, and prove that you could make it work.
That wasn't what I said at first, though. I pretty much wanted to say "encyclopedia." It sounded big and smart, whereas coconut computer sounded too "Gilligan's Island." It's also what we expect at Lawrence: rigorous academics.
I spent five, almost six months on and off researching a topic, budgeting expenses and making calls or consulting subject and Watson experts - thank you, Martyn, Madhuri, Megan and Tim!
I liked my project academically, but that was it. I thought it was what the Fellowship wanted to hear, which seemed like the right approach.
Two weeks before the deadline I told someone my plan, and he looked at me, eyebrow cocked, as if I'd answered the island question with, "I choose you, Encyclopedia Brittanica!" Then he asked me, "If you were on a desert island, could you really read that for a year until you were rescued?"
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