Students use senior theses to explore personal journeys, past experiences

Five days into his fifty-day long bike trip across the country, Brian Romanzo '02 lost feeling in his hands. After gripping the straight handlebars of his mountain bike in the same position for eight hours a day, Romanzo had just enough sensation to work the brakes.

He certainly couldn't hold a pen and write.

Little did Romanzo know that this journey would become the topic of his senior thesis. As of last spring, Romanzo, an English major, had been planning to analyze elements of Catholicism in Shakespeare's literature. It was not until he arrived back on campus in the fall, a month after his bike trip, that he decided to focus on his summer odyssey instead.

Unlike many seniors who turned in their theses last week, Romanzo wrote about a personal experience. For the seniors who do write on personal topics, the thesis experience can hold special meaning.

Andrea Oliver '02, a sociology major, found writing a personal thesis easier in some respects.

Oliver decided to combine her greatest personal and academic interests by applying her sociological analysis to youth commitment in her own place of worship, the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

"I remember watching seniors go crazy over their theses when I was an underclassman . . . but because I'm so interested in what I'm writing, I'm not stressed like that," Oliver said.

Oliver had already begun researching war criminals and obedience to authority under oppressive political regimes when, late in October, she decided to start over.

"One of the most important things was to take ownership of my thesis. Beyond writing about something interesting, I wanted to write about something that mattered to me. I really wanted to make it special," Oliver said.

Jo Sittenfeld '02, whose photography thesis will show at 185 Nassau this week, underwent a similar process of realization, although over a longer period of time. Sittenfeld had always enjoyed taking pictures of her family. But it was only when she went home during college breaks that she appreciated details she had never previously noticed.

"When you're away from home then come back for vacations, it is really special for noticing, appreciating other things you might have missed before," Sittenfeld said.

While Sittenfeld's thesis topic sprung from an evolved interest, Romanzo's thesis stemmed from one particular event. Sept. 11 led Romanzo to view his summer odyssey in the light of a very different journey his grandfather had taken fifty years earlier.

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Romanzo turned in his thesis on April 8, the day his grandfather began the Bataan Death March, the infamous forced trek of American G.I.'s through the Philippine Desert in World War II.

Just as his grandfather's generation had paused their lives in the wake of World War II, Romanzo's generation would be forced to take time for deep reflection on their own lives, he said.

Romanzo decided to retake his bike journey by writing his thesis and dedicated it to the victims of Sept. 11.

Both the bike trip and the thesis — titled "America at Ten Miles an Hour" — allowed for a slower-paced observation of the people and places Romanzo passed by.

"When you're on a bike, you don't want to pass people . . . It's not like in a car. You notice every single hill," Romanzo said.

What Romanzo found was how the landscape shaped the people. Biking from the New Jersey shore to the Pacific Ocean at the coast of Washington State, he received gifts from well-wishers along the way, ranging from handmade ropes of hay, to fish, to Bibles.

Romanzo found that even the manner in which people offered the same items differed in various parts of the country.

"The way people give you Bibles in Pennsylvania and North Dakota are different," Romanzo said.

While the physical landscape was a powerful influence on Romanzo's thesis, the theses of Romanzo, Oliver, and Sittenfeld all enriched the landscapes of their lives.

Sittenfeld has produced a work she will always treasure, she said. "I'm so excited about having a body of work of my family . . . It's just so special to capture people I know really well on film," Sittenfeld said.

Oliver reinforced her sense of religious community through her research. In her survey of a group of youths in her church, Oliver found herself empathizing with many of the youths she interviewed.

"It has been fun . . . being able to identify with the respondents," Oliver said.

Writing the thesis has been an exploration into both new and established roles for Romanzo. When he told his friends he was writing a creative thesis, they were astonished. As captain of the crew team for two years and president of Cloister Club, Romanzo was the least expected among his friends to undertake creative writing.

"People were shocked," Romanzo said.

Romanzo discovered as he wrote, however, that rowing was not so far removed from his journey. Both his companions on the trip were also rowers, and Romanzo's thesis advisor pressed him to find connections between his sport and his summer adventure.

"I thought, rowing is the epitome of team spirit, of being non-confrontational," Romanzo said.

It is such a spirit that allowed Romanzo to complete his journey, beyond the shores stroked by the ocean to a polished work of creative nonfiction.

In recalling the summer, Romanzo retook the ride through the journals kept by his friends Kalle Crafton '03 and Seton Marshall '02. Romanzo's unwritten words of those fifty summer days finally found their place in the landscape of his thesis.