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.
Hi. My name is Pavita Sidhu. I am from Vancouver, BC, and I am an English major with a minor in art.
I decided to come to Whitman because I actually was familiar with the campus already with my sister being a student here previously, and I already knew how welcoming the space was and just really enjoyed the campus life and also where it was located as well as the team dynamics of the women's varsity golf team. It was an easy answer for me to come here.
Currently, I'm captain of the women's golf team. I've been captain for two years now, and I just really love the team dynamic and seeing it grow each year with the incoming first years and us bonding over school trips and spring break events as well.
We compete all over the Northwest Conference. A lot of our tournaments end up being in the Portland area, so I'm very familiar with the five-hour drive along the Columbia and we also compete some in Tacoma.
In each spring break we actually get a larger school trip. This year we're going to LA.
Each year we actually get to host our own tournament called the Confluence Classic, happens during our fall semester because we have a two-semester sport, so we compete both in the spring and the fall. It's really great to be able to play at Wine Valley, which is a local course here. It's the most beautiful course I probably ever played on. I'm very privileged to be able to practice and play there consistently.
Our coach for the women's golf team is Skip Molitor. He's been a coach for I think 35 years now and he's great. He was here when my older sister was on the team and so I've known him for a while and he's very supportive, super fun, and just a very caring coach, we're really lucky to have him as a coach.
Well, I initially entered Whitman being a bio major because throughout high school I was STEM, took all three sciences, calculus, everything you can name. But then I came into Whitman and I took my gens course with a Professor Gaurav Majumdar and it totally shifted the way I saw the world. I already had a love for literature and this was just the final push to finally pursue what I am passionate about, which is writing and literary theory.
Gens, previously was called Encounters and it's the general course that's required by all first years. Basically, you explore a variety of topics. It's taught by a variety of professors in different fields, there's some topics in economics, some in more scientific topics, and a lot in anthropology and humanities. It's just a good way to introduce students to reading and writing and what it's like to be at a college-level class.
My class was titled Inventing Others. I talked a lot about colonial history and just colonialism in literature and how othering groups was prevalent throughout time in memoriam. It was just really interesting to break that down and see things in Shakespeare all the way to contemporary work.
My internship in Walla Walla was at the Telander Gallery with Todd and Kirsten Telander and they're such a wonderful couple. I got the internship by just reaching out and being like, "Hey, I'm interested in writing for your gallery space. I think it's a really cool place." Because I would go in intermittently to see the new shows that they had previously. So I love the space and they were just so sweet and so I was like, "I can work for free using the WIG."
The WIG is the Whitman internship grant and it is just a really great program that's at our school. Other people at other schools that I've talked to don't have the same opportunity. When they get an unpaid internship, they just have to take the blow and not get paid, but with WIG, if you land an unpaid internship, they compensate you for rent, food, if you have a car, they pay for your gas, and literally any cost you can think of while attending an internship, WIG will help you with that. So it really is a great opportunity for students who can't afford to just drop at a hat, just spend their own money to have opportunities such as the ones that I was given. And for me, it was really a valuable thing to have in order to continue to do work over the summer.
You apply for the way through the CCEC. The CCEC is the Career and Community Engagement Center and it's basically the student engagement center and they really help students find internships and help land internships really help with your application and your resume.
This past summer, I interned at the Gallery George in Vancouver, Canada, and I received international WIG, which was really great because commuting on train and Uber, because I don't have a car, is quite pricey, so it was nice to be able to be compensated with that. There I basically was a gallery assistant, I would help curate shows each month and help with managing clients and working on UX designs of making flyers.
I learned a lot about running a business. I really saw the economics behind it, which I wasn't expecting going into the gallery internship. I thought it would be more creative-based, which it definitely was, but it was great to have additional information on how it works essentially in a city, in a larger city.
Walla Walla is wonderful. I don't know how else to describe it, but it is something I've never experienced prior to coming. It's a smaller town, but the people are friendly. The area, we're in a high desert, so a lot of great hiking. I actually go out to the Wallula Gap quite a bit and hike before class, which is really fun. It's really beautiful, it's the most amazing sunsets you'll ever see, and everyone will tell you that once they come to Walla Walla because it's insane how beautiful the sky gets, especially in the spring and summer.
There's a few professors that have made a huge impact, but I would have to say the first person that comes to mind is professor Gaurav Majumdar, he really just reoriented my college career at Whitman.
First taking gens with him. I was hooked. He's quite a zany man and you get hooked as easily in his class. The things he talks about are really poignant and important to discuss, and he does it in a way that's collaborative and nuanced, which I really appreciate. So I just started taking classes with him and now he's my advisor and someone who I really trust and enjoy his company.
Whitman is a really friendly place and making friends with people has been quite easy honestly. When I first came to women, it was during COVID, so it was a weird moment of isolation and masking and brief interactions, but I feel like people still value those interactions greatly. I still have friends from my first year gens class that was online and they're still my friends to this day. Coming out of COVID, everyone was eager to meet people.
I guess something that I would want people to know is transitioning is always hard, at least for me when I was back home, sheltered with my parents, coming from a family that was very caring and protective and then traveling abroad and being alone. It's a lot for anyone, but I feel like Whitman makes it as easy of a transition as they can.
My experience as an international student with Greg Lucky, who's the international coordinator, him and now Laura Cummings as well is a part the team, but they make it really a nice transition for the international students giving international orientation, which is separate from the general orientation that domestic students get. The international community is a really great space and really great community and it's something I've relied on throughout all four years of my time here at Whitman. Just know that there is a community for you and there's support for you wherever you're from and wherever you want to go in your time at Whitman.
I'm Pavita, 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.
Music for this podcast provided by Big Joe, a band made up of Whitman students. For more information, go to whitman.edu/stories.
