What Are You Doing This Summer?
HS & College Students Speak Out
by Sarah N. Lynch

This summer, Barnard College junior Hannah Elmer was able to find a way to exercise her passion for both plants and medieval history—a subject area where it can be difficult to find work as an undergrad.

When Hannah’s not busy doing landscaping for a woman in Connecticut, she spends her time once a week in a rare book room at Columbia University helping to catalogue secondary sources and create a computerized bibliography for the British Library in London.

All of the secondary source materials that Hannah catalogues pertain to medieval and renaissance manuscripts. By helping the British Library to create a searchable database, it will assist other medieval studies students with their research.

“I am a medieval studies major and I really enjoy manuscripts and books,” Hannah said. “Having done little research papers here and there, I know that it’s a total hassle to try and get information on a lot of these manuscripts. The job needs to be done and there are very few opportunities for any kind of medieval studies work out there as an undergrad…I’m not qualified to teach or curate at a museum, so my options are limited and this is one that fell into my lap,” she said.

Hannah is the first person to volunteer to help the British Library. She said that by doing the project, it would also help her next semester when it’s time to do research papers.

“I think that I’ll at least know the places where I should go for secondary sources if I were doing a paper on a specific manuscript. I’ll know how to use my tools better,” she said.

Hannah said that working the other days doing landscaping provides a nice contrast to her volunteer work at Columbia.

“I’ve done some painting and right now, I’m working on a design for this woman’s yard,” she said. “It’s a nice contrast to being inside and reading all the time and it’s fun.”

“I’m using some of my creativity and love of plants to come up with a good design for her yard.”

Hannah said that she and her boyfriend would also be taking a three-week vacation in her home state of Washington where the two will go backpacking in the Cascades.

But Hannah is not the only one doing her fair share of traveling this summer. Joann Corsetto, who just graduated Dover High School in Morris County and will be attending Rutgers University in the fall, recently went on her first trip abroad.

Because her sister is studying in Venice, Joann’s mother decided it was a great excuse for the whole family to visit Italy. “The architecture of course was amazing,” Joann said. “The buildings were so beautiful and we went to a lot of different churches.” Joann said her favorite part of the trip was traveling everywhere by gondola. “It’s public transportation,” she said of the boats. “It was the best way to see the most stuff in the least amount of time and you can’t go speeding down the water. It was a leisurely kind of ride, and I love being on the water.”

Although Joann could make out some of the Italian thanks to studying other romance languages in high school, she said the language barrier at times proved to be difficult. She tried to give herself a crash course in Italian on the plane ride. “It was a long flight, so I had a lot of time to study and I picked up stuff as we went along,” she said. “It was a constant adventure just trying to figure out what’s going on around you.”

In addition to traveling this summer, Joann is also working as a camp counselor at the Dover Recreation Department in New Jersey. “Basically I’m guiding the kids through activities and making sure everybody is participating,” she said.

But most importantly, Joann is getting ready for her first year of college. “I’m leaning towards majoring in English, but I’m undecided now,” she said.#