Alumni & Student Stories
Writer Expands Her Know-how With Antioch’s B.A. Program
By Amontaine Woods
B.A. Liberal Studies, 2003
This has been an adventure. I hardly knew what was in store for me when I decided to complete my bachelor of arts degree at Antioch. I was already pursuing a career as a fiction writer and wanted to sharpen those skills when I entered Antioch in September 1998. I also was hungry for a community of my peers.
It is almost shocking to look back at the Area of Concentration Statement I drafted in my first quarter, and realize I really did accomplish what I set out to do. I wanted feedback on the novel I had written. I also hoped to acquire the analytical abilities to make me a more effective fiction and non-fiction writer.
Along with accomplishing these goals, I traveled to other countries, presented an original paper at an international conference, worked for the summer at a national magazine, learned I could take a leadership role, stumbled upon a new way of creatively expressing myself, and found friends and confidants in the process.
In the summer of 2001, I embarked on a career-broadening path when I took a student internship at Essence Magazine in New York. The critical thinking and verbal skills I was gaining at Antioch really became obvious to me at this point. I noticed a great difference in my ability to speak and participate when compared with other interns. Some of this was because I was older, but a lot of it was directly related to being in small classroom settings where I was encouraged to speak and to think originally and critically.
Practical Internships
I then took another internship with the publishers of Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air and Midwest Express Magazines. That gave me even more practical knowledge. As a result of my magazine experiences, I began to write, submit and publish articles and essays for magazines and literary journals.
Studies abroad to Egypt and Bali in 1999 and 2000 were two of the outstanding highlights of my education. Observing and participating in two cultures distinctly different from the American one and from one another changed my life.
The critical thinking and verbal skills I was gaining at Antioch really became obvious to me. … Perhaps if I had traveled like a typical tourist, the personal transformation may not have been so dramatic. Yet we were expected to immerse ourselves in the culture and lifestyle. Traveling the Nile River on a felucca boat and camping in the white desert of Egypt were wonderful, but talking to the people and getting to know more about their way of life was where the most poignant learning happened.
Other Ways to Think and Be
So often, as Americans, we believe our way of life is superior to everyone else's. We sometimes do not realize there is another way to think and be that is just as valid and beautiful, and sometimes more so. I found this to be particularly true in Bali, where the daily worship of the divine holds the people and culture to a much grander level of beauty and ideals. It was also both challenging and thrilling to present an original paper at Udayana University in Denpasar, Indonesia, as part of this cultural study.
I was surprised in my last year at Antioch to discover a new outlet for creative expression in drawing and painting. After working so intensely over so many years with the written word, I needed some balance. I wanted to express for awhile without words. I became more visually aware. This heightened sense of color and form played right into my descriptive abilities as a writer.
What more can I say? I'm exhausted. It's a good exhaustion, born of hard work, tears, risk, hope, determination and overcoming a lot of fears. This educational venture was both vibrant and diverse, a rare experience over an entire lifetime. I feel so completely blessed.
(Editor’s note: Ms. Woods wrote this piece at graduation time.)
Are you an Antioch alumnus or student with a story worth sharing on
this website? Let us hear from you. Drop an e-mail to Annie Beckmann,
Antioch’s writer-at-large, at abeckmann@antiochseattle.edu.
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