Students will take required course to present in LEAP

Starting next fall, students who are planning to present at the LEAP (Learning from Application) symposium are required to take College 211, a post-internship course that allows Mount Holyoke students to reflect on their summer experiences.

Since LEAP’s creation, the symposium has grown. Last year, in order to conserve time, “instead of just having 75 consecutive 12 minute presentations about summer internships, we tried to put people together into panels,” said Holly Hanson, Chair of the History Department, who teaches the course. According to Hanson, it was difficult to have panels where some of the students were in College 211 and others were not. “It was an administrative nightmare,” Hanson said.

There are three things that Hanson hopes will happen as a result of the change:  “One, it will be much easier for students to follow what’s happening. Two, it will be a lot more efficient. And three, it will create a symposium of higher quality,” she said.

Hanson also hopes that taking the course will sharpen students’ presentational skills. “At Mount Holyoke, because of the kind of community that we are, if we’re giving a presentation, people will come to it because they’re our friends. But, in the real world, people don’t come to your lectures and presentations because they’re your friends; they come to your presentation because you’re saying something that they need to know,” explained Hanson.

Hanson hopes that LEAP will be a place, “where people who have done internships generate knowledge which first years and sophomores need, so that they can, in the future, do the same thing,” she said. Hanson hopes that first years, sophomores and juniors can learn how to have a successful internship from the presentations.

Although the class focuses heavily on preparing for LEAP, Hanson does not feel that it is the sole point of the class. “I wouldn’t say the purpose of the class is to prepare for LEAP. I would say the purpose of the class is to reflect on the internship, and the LEAP symposium is the modality; it’s the way that we do the [reflection],” she said.

During the first few weeks, students reflect on what happened during their internships. In Hanson’s experience, both with presentations and conferences, and being part of LEAP, “The more time you spend letting your ideas about a public presentation evolve, the more interesting it [becomes],” Hanson said.

In order to take the class, students need to have some sort of summer work, research or internship experience but “it doesn’t have to be glamorous,” according to Hanson. “Last year, people did really, really productive, interesting LEAP presentations on working as [a] retail clerk for the summer,” Hanson said.

Presenting for LEAP is technically required for the class, although Hanson said that she could imagine a scenario, such as an important job interview, where a student was in the class (which is required for Nexus minors) but unable to present. “A large part of what we do in College 211 is [to] prepare for LEAP, so it would be kind of like being on the swim team and not swimming,” she said.

Hanson anticipated that some students who were uninterested or unable to take the course, but who still wanted to present would be upset. “I realize it means that there will be some people who won’t be able to be in LEAP, and I’m sorry about that, but it’s actually gotten quite large.  We want to give Mount Holyoke students lots of opportunities to present their work, [but] we also want to create something that’s got quality,” Hanson explained.

Hanson hopes to see a shift in LEAP and the way that students perceive it. “We’re moving it from ‘LEAP is something that the College does for us and we go there and present and our friends come’ to ‘LEAP is our opportunity to learn how to create a professional symposium,’” she said.