Whitman College students tell their stories—about their unique experiences in choosing Whitman and being part of the Whitman community and what they love most. This is Rosa’s story.
Rosa Woolsey is a junior from Mill Creek, Washington, majoring in Anthropology. She says at Whitman can be inventive and have fun while you're here. Some of her favorite things to do are throwing tea parties, sending her professor on a scavenger hunt and listening to music in the wheat fields while admiring the full moon.
The “Our Whitman, My Story” podcast is a collaboration between the Whitman College Office of Communication and author and podcaster John Moe ’90. To meet more of our talented students follow Whitman on social media.
Whitman College students tell their stories—about their unique experiences in choosing Whitman and being part of the Whitman community and what they love most. This is Rosa’s story.
Rosa Woolsey is a junior from Mill Creek, Washington, majoring in Anthropology. She says at Whitman can be inventive and have fun while you're here. Some of her favorite things to do are throwing tea parties, sending her professor on a scavenger hunt and listening to music in the wheat fields while admiring the full moon.
The “Our Whitman, My Story” podcast is a collaboration between the Whitman College Office of Communication and author and podcaster John Moe ’90. To meet more of our talented students follow Whitman on social media.
Everyone at Whitman has a story to tell, how they got here and what happened once they did. And every story is different. This is Our Whitman, My Story. My name is Rosa Woolsey. I am a junior anthropology major at Whitman College, and I am from Mill Creek, Washington.
I think the most unique experience I've had in my academics here was definitely during first year, I was writing my last essay for my first-year seminar course, and I decided to write an essay on the significance of handwriting and how you can glean a lot from a piece of handwriting. And you can just add a lot to a written piece of work. So I decided to handwrite it. That felt pretty apt for the paper, but that choice was highly inconvenient because we were already online at this point. So I emailed my professor and I asked her what I should do. I could mail it to her house. Or I said I could tape it to her office windows. And she was on the first floor of Maxi, or I could hide it somewhere on campus, under a rock or something.
And she opted for the third option. She said that would be the most fun. So I found a bench out right outside of Maxi Hall, and I found a random manila folder in Anderson Hall. And I hid it under this bench. And I emailed her a description of where the bench was, just to the south of Maxi right off Boyer. And she emailed me back a couple hours later with a picture of it in hand successfully. So I thought that was really cool that she was willing to actually go like really out of her way to go on a fun scavenger hunt for my paper. And I think that speaks really well to the kinds of relationships between Whitman professors and students, that they're willing to kind of have fun with it.
I currently live in a house called the Train Station. It was not named by us. There have been generations of Whitman students who've lived there before us. So there's a sign out on the porch that someone made that says the Train Station, and there's a little train on it and whatnot. It is called the Train Station because there is a pair of old train tracks that runs by it. There are no trains that go by it anymore, but it probably would go through the house if there was still a train going through there.
Yeah. Most off-campus houses do have names, which makes it really fun to find out where people are living. And there's a whole bunch of them. There's like the Playground, the Shire, the Tree House, Pot of Gold. The Pot of Gold is actually behind the Rainbow, which is very fitting I think. So yeah, there are a whole bunch of them and it's really fun. It kind of helps you to personalize it. And then also kind of knit you to the Whitman students who were living there before you as well.
We do make plans based on what houses are getting together. We, in fact, just the other day I was making plans with some of my friends and it was, oh, the Pot of Gold and the Train Station should get together or the Circus and the Train Station should hang out this weekend. So yeah, it's really fun. There's a plate in my house, in the train station that was left behind. Usually, houses are left like fully furnished. So there's already a bunch of plates and spices and whatnot. And we found a plate in our house that says Duet 2015 with a bunch of names of people that we don't know who supposedly one of them might have lived in the house before us. And actually, a friend of mine saw it recently and pointed out her sister's name that was on the plate. So that was really cool.
A big thing to do for fun in Walhalla is definitely to go out to the wheat fields. I've been telling my friends from back home that I could write like a love song to the wheat fields if I was into songwriting. But I actually just the other day went out around 10:45 PM. I think it was a Wednesday with a couple of friends of mine. And we parked on the side of the road. The five-mile road is my preferred wheat fields path. And we hiked up to the top of this really, really big hill. And we brought like a blanket and some music and it was the full moon. So we were just hanging out with the full moon and also the wheat fields is a great place to go to watch the sunrise or the sunset.
And you can go to like a food place and get takeout beforehand. And so, I think the wheat fields is a really great all-around place for any emotion you're having really. You can go out there and scream if you want to or cry, or it's also a good date spot, or you can just go hang out with your friends. So the wheat fields is definitely a main spot.
I think one thing that's really fun about living in Walhalla is that it kind of makes the Whitman community a little bit more tight-knit. And because there's not an abundance of things to do off-campus, you kind of have to be a little inventive with what you do. So we've had a couple of really fun party themes. We have an annual Yule Ball. We've had a Donner party for Halloween, and we were also thinking of having an annual Salem Witch Trial-themed potluck every year. We've got to get going on that one.
We've had a tea party. We had a tea party last week. So yeah, there's a lot of fun themes. And what makes it even more fun is that people are usually really willing to run with whatever idea you've come up with. I think what makes Whitman different from other schools in terms of academics is the professors. I love going to my professor's office hours. I go weekly. It's fun to just go in and talk about different ideas you have. I don't even really need to have a question about the class, but they're usually always willing to kind of hear what ideas are bouncing around your head. And you'll hear a lot of stories of Whitman professors like inviting students to the houses for dinner and to continue conversations they had in class and to like meet their families and stuff like that.
So yeah, I'm in the anthropology department and we're working on getting some anthropology major mingles going, just so that everyone kind of knows who's in the department, which I'm really excited about. So definitely the professors and a lot of them are like literally experts in their field. So it's really cool to have such like close contact with them.
Well, right now I am working on some internship for a few different Smithsonian museums in Washington, DC for the summer. And I have my fingers very crossed for hearing back about those. So the plan right now is to go into museum work after Whitman. I was able to do an internship with the Fort Walhalla Museum here in town. And it was a really, really cool experience. So I'm hoping to get further into the museum field.
I think the kind of person who would succeed at Whitman is someone who is willing to kind of go for it, to let your guard down a little bit and not get to hung up on... I don't know, what other people are thinking of you, if you do this like particular social thing and just be willing to like to go for it and make it a good time for yourself. Because yeah, like I said, you do have to be a little bit inventive. I think the idea of going for it also kind of translates to classes as well because professors are super excited to talk to you, but you kind of have to also take advantage of that opportunity as well. So I think someone who is willing to go for it, as abstract as that sounds, I suppose.
I'm Rosa Woolsey and this has been Our Whitman, My Story. There are more episodes of Our Whitman, My Story available right now, wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, go to whitman.edu/stories.
Music for this episode provided by the band, Wind Up Birds, which is made up entirely of cur Whitman College students.