{"id":111559,"date":"2017-12-01T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=111559"},"modified":"2021-02-09T17:26:09","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T22:26:09","slug":"bates-at-night-hitting-the-books-the-chai-and-the-thesis-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/12\/01\/bates-at-night-hitting-the-books-the-chai-and-the-thesis-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates at Night: Hitting the books, the chai, and the Thesis Caf\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, students in Ladd Library\u2019s Academic Resource Commons<\/a> helped themselves to chai as they pulled out their books and opened Word docs on their laptops.<\/p>\n

The Thesis Caf\u00e9 was open for business, its goal to support any student writing a thesis, says Bridget Fullerton, assistant director of Writing at Bates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you\u2019re communicating directly or just sitting next to each other, there\u2019s support and power in being in a space with other writers and going through the process together,\u201d Fullerton adds. \u201cAnd it\u2019s my job to facilitate that.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\n\t

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At the heart of the Academic Resource Commons is a large corps of students who support fellow students. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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\"ARC will always be in my heart\" is written on a window of the Academic Resource Commons in Ladd Library. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Zofia Ahmad '19 of Palo Alto, Calif., and Kiyona Mizuno '18 of San Francisco, laugh while choosing a title slide for a class presentation. They are student managers of the Academic Resource Commons in Ladd Library. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Students come and go on the stairway outside the Academic Resource Commons of Ladd Library.(Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Conor Regan '20, Jacqueline Buonfiglio '19, Claire Sickinger '19, and Sara Buscher '19 study together in the Academic Resource Commons. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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The ARC and Thesis Caf\u00e9 offer a \u201cnice environment,\u201d says Durotimi Akinkugbe ’18 of London, especially since the usual end-of-semester misery loves company. \u201cIt helps to be with other people getting on with their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fullerton, who earned a doctorate in writing and rhetoric at the University of Rhode Island, works with students in the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary fields, helping with everything from formatting a table of contents to checking the clarity and consistency of a thesis argument.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, she sat with Chloe Oslin ’18 of Edmonds, Wash., who was working on her thesis on art history and criticism. Oslin\u2019s thesis adviser, Erica Rand, the Whitehouse Professor of Art and Visual Culture, had recommended that she call on the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cBridget helped me figure out the organization of the last chapter and what would give the most effective conclusion to my thesis,\u201d Oslin says. \u201cFor somebody with that much experience to have a professional opinion on my writing is really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the student tutors themselves say that the ARC\u2019s helpful atmosphere is, well, helpful for them too. \u201cIf I have a question about something I\u2019m writing I can go to any of the tutors that are here and even sometimes the other students,\u201d says Claire Sickinger ’19 of Simsbury, Conn., who is a peer writing and speaking assistant as well as a peer tutor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here twice my freshman year, probably just for an hour. Now, I can\u2019t even tell you how many hours I\u2019ve spent here this semester \u2014 it\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ARC home is in Ladd Library, but it was in action across campus Wednesday night. Three separate Peer Assisted Learning<\/a> sessions for students in physics, biology, and chemistry took place in Carnegie Science, Pettengill, and Hedge Halls, respectively.<\/p>\n

As the name indicates, the sessions are led by fellow students who know the material and are trained to help. \u201cIt\u2019s a good way to get help outside of class with someone who has taken the course and knows the subject,\u201d says biology major Natalie Givens ’20 of Fort Collins, Colo.<\/p>\n

Givens began attending sessions last year. \u201cMy intro chemistry professor told me people who go to PAL sessions do statistically better on exams, so now I come pretty much every week,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, she attended the Pettengill session for help in her cellular and molecular biology course, popularly known as \u201ccell hell.\u201d \u201cTonight I came here to learn how to do serial dilutions because I don\u2019t understand it. And I learned it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday night, students in Ladd Library helped themselves to chai as they pulled out their books and opened their laptops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1016,"featured_media":111564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,130,133,14,11012],"tags":[5120,7842],"class_list":["post-111559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-collaboration","category-creativity","category-faculty-staff","category-student-life","tag-ladd-library","tag-senior-thesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1016"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111559"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111669,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111559\/revisions\/111669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}