What am I doing? — Peak Charlotte

“The Question”

All recent college graduates know the question— “what are you doing after graduation?” This routine and innocuous inquiry provides some with an opportunity to share that they’ve landed their dream job or gotten into an exciting graduate school program. The question elicits a fight-or-flight response in others who have no idea what they are doing yet and are in an eternal state of low-grade panic. I dreaded the question because it just took so long to try to explain.

What AM I doing after college?

I’ve been granted a Thomas J Watson Fellowship to spend a year doing independent research on women’s empowerment in mountain communities around the world. According to their website, “The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a one-year grant for purposeful, independent exploration outside the United States, awarded to graduating seniors nominated by one of 40 partner colleges.” Basically, what this means is that I got to design my own ideal course of study for 12 months. And the Watson is paying for me to travel the world and explore my passions. Pretty amazing!!

I first heard about the Watson my sophomore year of college and was immediately captivated with the idea of traveling the world for twelve months, fully funded, just exploring a topic that I got to choose. Like, wow. It’s absurdly wonderful that this opportunity exists. I spent many afternoons (when I should have been studying) musing about what I’d want to learn about. My ideas ranged from tea-drinking cultures around the world to activism through visual art to art created from materials from the physical environment. At the last minute, just a few weeks before the first round of applications were due, I settled on women's empowerment in mountain communities. A big part of that decision was because I tried to consider what it would really be like to devote a year to one subject. I love tea, but I’m not sure I love it enough to just learn about tea for twelve months. I also learned, after spending a day picking tea in China last summer, that it’s damn hard work. Tea is a lot more fun to drink than to process or pick. There’s a good reason that quality tea is pricey! And studying art would keep me in cities for most of the time. As I pictured learning about weaving in Peru or pottery in China, I kept dreaming about trekking in the mountains. I knew I could spend many years exploring mountains and learning about how women are becoming guides and porters, breaking barriers, and asserting our place on the peaks. So, that’s what I’m doing.

My dad and I on top of Mount Rainier. I had a blue puffy, blue rain coat, blue long sleeve shirt, blue backpack, and even blue boots!

Women’s experiences in the mountains is also a topic that I’ve always felt interested in. I grew up mountaineering, hiking, and climbing with my family in Leavenworth, Wa. At fourteen, I decided that I wanted to climb Mount Rainier; Rainier is the tallest mountain in Washington and one of the biggest mountains in the lower 48. My wonderful dad was excited to help me summit. When we arrived at Camp Muir, an established base camp shelter a few thousand feet up the mountain, I was the only girl. With my awkward pigtail braids and all baby-blue outfit, I stood out like a teenage girl in a sea of 30-40 year old men. Some of these men nicknamed me Pippy Long-stockings and mocked me lightly. This probably just motivated me to push harder; I beat them all to the top! This experience of being the only woman on the mountain (or at least the only woman at our basecamp) stuck with me though. When I announced to friends that I wanted to be a mountain guide, they doubted my ability to carry the necessary weight or pull clients out of a crevasse (just watch me. I know the rope systems.) And this is in the US. In other parts of the world, very few women climb or hike, and few women are allowed into the profitable roles of mountain guides and porters. I want to learn how women are breaking the “glass mountain” and gaining employment in the outdoors, as well as how women in mountain communities interact with their environment.

With these experiences in mind, I was confident that I’d put my all into my proposal for the Watson. After a preliminary application and an interview, I was selected as a nominee for Middlebury College. I then had to complete a practice interview (which was essentially a grilling by several faculty about my project to help me determine where my weak points were) and finally, an hour-long one-on-one interview with a member of the Watson selection committee. Then I waited, from November until March, for a final decision. The waiting was grueling. I couldn’t create other plans because the Watson might work out, but it also very easily might not. My obvious alternative plan was working on SheFly, the women’s outdoor pant company I co-founded. Planning out future goals for SheFly while also hoping for a Watson was often quite painful. Neither option came with any degree of security and both relied heavily on factors out of my control.

I also wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted a Watson. Traveling the world for a year sounds fantastic in theory, but in practice, it’s extremely difficult and often unpleasant. Flights get delayed, loneliness sets in, illness is a very real possibility. One of the requirements of the Watson is that you are not allowed to return to the US for the extent of the Fellowship. That means no holidays with families, no trips home to see friends or loved ones. You also can’t have a paying job, or have friends or family visit for extended periods of time during the year. Beyond that, though, the Fellowship is very independent. No one is checking up to make sure I’m logging enough hours in the mountains. I don’t have to produce anything or submit a major report. I do have to write quarterly reports, which they describe as “long letters home,” and attend a conference at the end where I’ll meet all the other Fellows.

In the end, these discomforts and inconveniences didn’t outweigh the opportunity to push myself and explore. I’m extremely excited to see what happens in the next twelve months and I’ll be sharing what I learn along the way on this platform. I have no idea where this next year is going to take me. But we’re about to find out!

I’m packed and ready to go, see ya in India!