{"id":3081,"date":"2008-10-27T11:39:55","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T11:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/10\/27\/whats-your-watson-idea\/"},"modified":"2008-10-27T11:39:55","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T11:39:55","slug":"whats-your-watson-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/10\/27\/whats-your-watson-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Your Watson Idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my service activities at the moment is serving on the committee that determines our nominees for the Watson Fellowship<\/a>. Participating institutions are allowed to nominate up to four students, and we’ve just selected this year’s nominees<\/a>, who are a really interesting bunch.<\/p>\n

The Watson, for those who haven’t heard of it, is, as it says on their web site,<\/p>\n

\n

A one year grant for independent study and travel outside the United States awarded to graduating college seniors nominated by participating institutions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s not a grant to study at any particular place– in fact, Watson winners are expected to move around. It’s also not intended to fund academic study or employment– it’s about independent, self-directed exploration of a topic having some personal interest. Watson nominees are supposed to be pursuing something they’re passionate about– they say that the best proposals are for projects that the applicant will find some way to make happen even if they don’t get the money.<\/p>\n

It’s a fabulous idea for an academic award, and has funded some really unique work. It’s also got some pretty stringent requirements– awardees cannot return to the US or to their home country for a full calendar year, no matter what. Projects are also supposed to involve a real stretch, and some personal growth.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure there is anything I’m passionate enough about to pursue as a Watson. Basketball, maybe, but my interest in the game is primarily based on US colleges. Which is not to say that it might not be cool to travel the world learning about basketball culture in other countries. (When I was in Japan in ’98, I walked past a gym a few times and heard the unmistakable sound of a game in progress. I never did go in, though, which was a missed opportunity…). I’m not sure I’d be willing to commit to the idea strongly enough to spend a whole year on the road, though– not even when I was a college senior.<\/p>\n

It’s fun to think about though. So I’ll throw this out there, as a sort of travel-day open thread: If you were going to apply for a Watson Fellowship, what would your project be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my service activities at the moment is serving on the committee that determines our nominees for the Watson Fellowship. Participating institutions are allowed to nominate up to four students, and we’ve just selected this year’s nominees, who are a really interesting bunch. The Watson, for those who haven’t heard of it, is, as… Continue reading What’s Your Watson Idea?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}