{"id":9670,"date":"2007-02-16T15:45:53","date_gmt":"2007-02-16T19:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bridge.batesmaine.net\/?p=9670"},"modified":"2016-01-14T13:40:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T18:40:54","slug":"sulochana-dissanayake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2007\/02\/16\/sulochana-dissanayake\/","title":{"rendered":"Sulochana Dissanayake &#039;09 lands a double role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2007\/02\/72sulo4324.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"135\" height=\"185\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2007\/02\/72sulo4324.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium alignright\" alt=\"Sulochana Dissanayake &#039;09\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The First-Year Activities Fair at Bates College reminded Sulochana Dissanayake &#8217;09 of Colombo, Sri Lanka, &#8220;of a market back home with people selling their wares.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Accustomed to a system that rewards status rather than ability, Dissanayake discovered that &#8220;Bates provides many opportunities to all its students.&#8221; Her first semester on campus, she directed a play with the Robinson Players, a student theater group. &#8220;I had literally just gotten off the plane,&#8221; she says. &#8220;That amazed me. Here, if you are serious about something, you can do anything you want.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Like many international students, she chose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/ECON.xml\" target=\"_blank\">economics<\/a> as a major, but her love of the stage lingered. The Office of Career Services put her in touch with an alum whose contacts yielded a 2006 summer internship with <a href=\"http:\/\/vee.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">VEE Corporation<\/a>, a Minneapolis-based firm that provides live entertainment for children. Spending every spare moment attending productions at the nationally famous Guthrie Theater, Dissanayake concluded that she couldn&#8217;t live without the stage. Upon returning to Bates, she declared a double major.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Coupling theater with something steady like economics gives my parents a little relief,&#8221; Dissanayake laughs.<\/p>\n<p>Distance from family is a challenge for international students, she says. But new activities and academic rewards distract her from homesickness. &#8220;I have twice as many opportunities here as I would have had if I stayed at home,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I can&#8217;t imagine being anywhere else but Bates.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sulochana Dissanayake &#8217;09 balances academics and extracurriculars, taking full advantage of the Bates experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"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":[4,133,11012],"tags":[3117,4447,6587,11035,8289,71],"class_list":["post-9670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-life","category-creativity","category-student-life","tag-economics","tag-international-students","tag-office-of-career-services","tag-profiles","tag-sulochana-dissanayake","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9670","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\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89781,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9670\/revisions\/89781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}