Tradition Continues, Two OC Seniors Win Watson
Fellowship winners to Study Throat Singing, Food-Writing

BY NINA LALLI

Think big companies aren’t interested in your personal growth? Don’t say they never did anything for college grads. Two seniors, Adam Kowit and Stefan Kamola, have been awarded Watson Fellowship for this year. 
The children of Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM Corporation, created the Fellowship in 1968 to give students who have just received their Bachelor’s degrees a chance to travel and conduct a completely self-designed research project.

(photo by Laura Paley)

Every year, the 50 selective liberal arts colleges participating in the Fellowship each nominate four students. The Oberlin committee consists of five professors — Assistant Professor of Historical Performances David Breitman, Associate Professor of Japanese Suzanne Gay, Assistant Professor of Sociology Antoinette Charfauros MacDaniel, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Manish Mehta and Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Laurie McMillin, who is also the liaison to the Watson Foundation and chair of the committee. 
There are three former Watson Fellows on Oberlin’s faculty. The committee reviews applications from Watson hopefuls before narrowing the group down to the four they nominate. 
The national pool is 200 people, who are then narrowed down through an interviewing process to 60 winners in total. Representatives from the Watson Foundation came to Oberlin in February to interview the nominees. Oberlin has produced at least one Watson Fellow every year, sometimes as many as three or four. 
“They’re perfect grants for Oberlin students because of how creative and innovative they are. We are uniquely suited to get them,” McMillin said. 
The applications consist of two essays, one mapping out a plan for the following year, and the other explaining the history of the applicant’s interest in the subject he/she will be studying. 
“The students must present a project proposal that’s feasible and flexible, and challenging to the person and also something of long interest,” McMillin said of the applications process.
“It’s kind of daunting, because with the Watson, you don’t have any guidelines,” Kowit said, adding, “You have to seem really specific, but you can change your plan once you get it.” 
Kamola said he learned most of what he actually knows about Tuva, where he will spend his year, through the application process itself.
“If I had known what I’d have to know in order to apply, I probably wouldn’t have applied,” Kamola said. “The application process was a pretty incredible experience of getting to know the culture.”
The winners are allotted a flat budget of $22,000 for one year, provided they follow the unobtrusive guidelines — it is open only to graduating seniors, they must plan to spend the year in a country (or several countries) they have never visited extensively or have a close connection with (immediate family, for example), they must leave before Aug. 15, and cannot return to the United States within one year. 
“They are trying to get you to have new experiences that you couldn’t have if you didn’t get the fellowship,” Kowit said.
“It’s important to think of it as an amazing gift. I think it is quite outstanding that some organization wants to pay students to do exactly what they want. They write their own ticket. That is such a lovely thing,” McMillin said. “Unlike a Fullbright, [the winners] are not filling in gaps in academic knowledge, they are not associated with an institution.”
According to McMillin, a former Watson herself, what distinguishes this fellowship from others is the “fit between personality and project.”
Kamola cited the fact that many of the contacts he made mentioned one-another, proving the Fellowship can create connections that last beyond the experience itself.
“The Watson Fellowship is not the kind of project you do and then it’s over,” Kamola said. “It continues to inform, shape what you become afterwards.”
Kowit plans to travel through Italy and Japan to study food and food writing in particular. He has always been interested in food and has been writing about it for about five years. 
“I always liked food and cooked. When I started writing about food, it just seemed natural,” Kowit said. 
When Kowit transferred to Oberlin from Haverford College as a sophomore, he was assigned McMillin as an advisor. McMillin mentioned the Watson the first time they spoke, and encouraged him to apply. His initial reaction was to dismiss the whole idea. “I was like, ‘whatever,’” Kowit said. 
Now he says, “It’s great. Everyone should apply for it.” 
Kowit will be in Italy for the fall, intent on experiencing the harvest season. He plans to work on a vineyard for some period of time, but leaves the details up to fate.
“It kind of depends who I meet,” Kowit said.
After Italy, Kowit will travel to Japan, where he plans to spend time in Kyoto and a small fishing village. Kowit will spend his summer studying Japanese in preparation for the trip. 
“The prospect of spending a year basically by myself in these countries is kind of scary, but it’s the kind of project that’s gonna keep me around people all the time so it’s not really gonna be that lonely, in that sense,” Kowit said. 
Kamola plans to spend his year in the southern-most province of Siberia, Tuva, where he will study Tuvan throat singing. Kamola first heard throat singing in middle school.
“It was something I heard but didn’t pay too much extra thought to,” Kamola said. He played trombone and started playing with overtone music and the didgeredoo, an Aboriginal instrument. Kamola saw the trailer for the documentary film, Genghis Blues, about Paul Pena, a blind blues legend who became a Tuvan throat-singing champion in 1995. Though he never saw the movie, those images turned Tuva into a real place for the first time. 
“It was kind of by accident,” Kamola said of how his interest was sparked. He began to experiment with throat singing at that point.
Applying for the Watson was kind of a whim for Kamola. “I thought I might as well give it a shot,” he said, admitting, “It took me quite a while to find it on a map. It is definitely very daunting. There’s enough of a cultural stigma attached to Siberia,” He added, “It’s a cold, desolate place, with people who speak a very different language.” 
Kamola will spend his summer studying Tuvan language in preparation for his trip there in mid-August. 
For interested current juniors, there is an informal meeting about the Watson Fellowship for next year on Monday at 4:30.