ABOUT FULBRIGHT

My Fulbright Life

Transcript For: Current Fulbrighter Mitra Sticklen in Trinidad and Tobago

Current Fulbrighter to Trinidad and Tobago, Mitra Sticklen, discusses her Fulbright experience.

Mitra Sticklen

Schuyler:          Hello and welcome to my Fulbright Life. I’m Schuyler Allen and today I’m joined by Mitra Sticklen who has just come back from Trinidad and Tobago on her Fulbright grant. So tell me… you were in Trinidad and Tobago, what was your field of study and what was the title of your project?

Mitra:               My field was in Anthropology and my project was looking at the voices and experiences of organic farmers in Trinidad and Tobago.

Schuyler:          Great. So you were there for a full 9 months in Trinidad and Tobago? Where in Trinidad and Tobago were you?

Mitra:               Well, I based right near... they have a university there in St. Augustine. So I was based right near the University of West Indies for most of the time. For a couple months, in the middle of my grant, I stayed in the capital city, Port of Spain, in an area called St. James. And that was also great. But also, throughout… that was where I was based, but I also went all over the country and stayed in different places, including Tobago, which is the sister island of Trinidad and is part of the same nation.

Schuyler:          Great. So, just backtracking a little bit, what compelled you to apply to Fulbright? What had you been doing prior to Fulbright, academically or professionally, that made Fulbright a good fit for you upon graduation?

Mitra:               Well, actually, ok. Last year I was graduating with a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University, and before my senior year I knew I wanted to continue studying. I’d also been working at the student organic farm on my campus and got really into organic farming, and I wanted to combine my interest in that with an academic pursuit and do something before I got into my Master’s that would allow me to travel and experience another culture, and kind of take some time off in between and do some research on my own. So I did some research with my academic advisor, and we came across a couple of grants, and Fulbright was the one that was most appealing to me because it just seemed so open to letting the student focus on what they really want to do, create their own project, and spearhead it, work with different institutions and really in any field of study too. So it’s a very flexible grant, and also it’s available in so many countries and a lot of English speaking countries and that was good for me because I’m not fluent in any other language so. And then I knew I wanted to be in the English speaking Caribbean, and the way that I figured out that it would be Trinidad is by contacting different professors in different research institutions and explaining my interests and my plans for applying for this grant and seeing who was receptive to that. And Dr. David Dolly from the University of West Indies in Trinidad was very interested and so we went from there. It took about… I worked on my grant application over the summer with a number of really wonderful and so helpful advisors from Michigan State. You know I took my time and did a lot of revisions, I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own so I wasn’t shy about asking for help from anyone that I thought could help me.

Schuyler:          That’s a lot of fantastic information. How did you find your affiliation? I mean, it sounds like you had everything kind of lined up and it’s all fresh in your mind now because you’ve just gotten back, but how did you get that first step off the ground?

Mitra:               I guess that I just, you know, I did some internet searching and found a few research institutions. The best one that had an agriculture focus would be the University of West Indies and they’re in three different locations throughout the Caribbean. So, I started looking in the department lists, and it lists their emails, so I just started emailing people. There were a couple different professors who I ended up having phone conversations with, and figured out where it was most appropriate, where a professor would have the time to be my advisor, and meet with me periodically throughout the 9 months. I went for the place that had the most viability and interest from that professor in particular, so you’ve just got to be bold and email someone and send along your CV when they’re ready for it. Phone conversation help too, especially … in University of West Indies everyone has email addresses and computers and everything, but emails are just so slow in terms of getting things done, so calling people up is also a great idea.

Schuyler:          That’s a great piece of advice, but it started out as simple as something as an internet search and you expanded it from there. And I think that’s really excellent advice for candidates applying to the 2009-10 cycle of the Fulbright Program.

Mitra:               I agree. And along those lines, also when you’re just doing those early searches, at that point, unless you’re a PhD student or something like that, you’re options are really open in terms of what you’re going to be researching. So I did a lot of reflection, and writing, journaling I guess, mapping out what my interests were and what would be useful research not just for my future academic career and the field of study, but also for the people who would be involved, in my case the organic farmers in that country. So, looking for something relevant and useful and interesting, but also doable because you don’t want to bit off more than you can chew. That’s a common issue! Or at least for me it came up a lot, I had to back off a little bit on some of the things I wanted to do because 9 months sounds like a long time, but it goes by so quickly.

Schuyler:          Another excellent piece of advice that you need to be really careful about feasibility in terms of thinking what you can truly accomplish within 9 months time. And the other piece of advice that I just want to underscore for our listeners is that you sought out people online, and then worked with the person who ended up expressing the most interest in you, and then hammering out the details.

Mitra:               Absolutely. I mean, in the US, even if you’ve been researching something, reading about it or however you’re keeping up to date on an issue, on something you want to research, you don’t really know what’s it’s like in the field in that country until you go there. But talking to someone who is there, and who is familiar with what you’re going to be going into is so important when you’re writing your research plan because they’ve been there, they’ve lived there, they know what the reality is. And oftentimes the reality in the field is very different from what you might read about in some government document for example.

Schuyler:          Well said, absolutely well said. So, beyond all this application preparation, tell us just what a day in your life was like.

Mitra:               Oh boy, well, in Trinidad I would wake up pretty early. Depending on what phase of my research it was, my days were really different. So for the first 2 months or so I spent a lot of my time researching in libraries, working with the local academic type researchers that I wouldn’t have access to back home, and also at the same time meeting with different professors and farmer’s groups, and then also an organic shop that was based in town. So the first couple of months was really preliminary research, setting the stage for later months when I would basically wake up in the morning, have a hearty breakfast definitely, and then go out, sometimes driving three or four hours or more to get to a farm, do some volunteering for part of the day, take pictures and notes, and talk to the manager of the farm and the different people working there. Or, probably about one fourth of the days I would be out in the field, actively working with people. Other days I would be either setting things like that up, or setting up meetings with people in the Ministry of Agriculture. I guess every day was kind of different, but they fell into a couple of categories. And every day I took a lot of notes at the end of the day before I would let myself fall asleep, even if I was exhausted. I would write down what I had done that day, just kind of journaling it out, or what my thoughts were about it—it’s a paper journal, not like an e-journal—so I would tape little things, like if someone had given me their business card, or anything like that that I might need to go back to. Sometimes in the middle of the day, I would just look back over the last week or the last month and reflect more deeply about what I’d been learning, how my research was going, and just always going back to my main research questions, refocusing myself, and just chugging along. You can sort of get side tracked really easily. When there’s so much to do, and the country is new to you, it can be an issue to stay focused, so just revisiting your main objectives and everything, but still enjoying you time of course, the whole 9 months.

Schuyler:          You’ve got so many great pieces of advice for our listeners here today, Mitra, thank you so much. Tell us a highlight of your experiences in Trinidad.

Mitra:               Oh gosh…

Schuyler:          I’m sure they may be more than one, but…

Mitra:               Yeah, it’s hard to choose! I guess if I had to pick one thing, and the thing that I miss the most it would be all the friends that I’ve made there. A lot of my friends that I’ve made, we would go hiking in the mountains, or we would all work on a farm together, or have a big potluck, or do yoga together and— I just miss all my friends—cooking together. The food is phenomenal; I miss the food a lot too.

                        But specific events- carnival is amazing. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Trinidad carnival?

Schuyler:          Oh absolutely!

Mitra:               It’s one of the biggest street parties in the world and it was incredible. I had a blast. And I wish some of my friends could have come because pictures do not do any justice to all the bacchanal, you know, the madness that goes on. Carnival is just wonderful.

Schuyler:          Wow, I want to go. So now that we have a window into your daily life, and a highlight of your program, what was one of the challenges that you encountered that you didn’t anticipate and how did you address it?

Mitra:               The only real challenge that was unexpected was 2 weeks before I came, because I’d been planning on living in university housing, about 2 weeks before I was leaving the US, the university contacted me and they had realized that I’m not a full time student and I wasn’t going to be taking a full load of classes, and they have such a big student population, and priority for the student housing goes to people who have a full load of classes. So I had to find a new place to live in 2 weeks, and not being in Trinidad… so that was kind of difficult. But luckily, the US Embassy there has a list of host families, that people visiting from the US like visiting students, or scholars, or diplomats or whatever it is could contact these host families and live with them. So I did that at first and by the time… I mean, it was more expensive than the other places that I lived but it gave me the time to make some friends and talk to people and figure out a new place to live and get that all sorted out. So I’m really glad that the Embassy helped out with that because I would have had a really hard time if they didn’t.

Schuyler:          It’s good to hear that there’s a happy ending to that because I know that not having a place to live can be very unsettling.

Mitra:               Yeah, that would have been really stressful, being in a hotel or something and using my whole budget in the first month.

Schuyler:          It sounds like everything was handled very well, and you had a fantastic experience overall. So, now… you’ve given us so much great advice for the ’09-’10 candidates to the program, if you could distill them into one little kernel or phrase, what would be the thing you would tell candidates who are looking to apply for the next cycle?

Mitra:               Is this candidates who are looking to apply, or people who are going?

Schuyler:          Yes, candidates who are looking to apply. Or people who are looking into going; if you want to give advice to both, please do so.

Mitra:               OK, I have advice for both. The advice to the candidates who are in the application process now is take your time, don’t be shy to ask for help because there are so many wonderful resources that can help you in this process. Don’t try to just do it all yourself. It’s always good to have a fresh pair of eyes looking at your proposal.

                        And then for people who are going, I would say expect the unexpected and just roll with the punches because if something happens with your research plan, like you aren’t able to do something, or there’s a new opportunity that’s presented to you, it might be in your best interest to go with what your gut instinct says to do.

                        And also for the applicants, keep your chin up because I was not one of the original, I wasn’t chosen as one of the first people to go, I was an alternate. I didn’t know until May and then they were like, and now you actually have it. So, keep your chin up; you never know what’s going to happen. So it’s great when it does work out.

Schuyler:          That’s great advice. So now you’re back home in the States, and I’m sure there’s a lot of skills that you acquired while you were in Trinidad. What are some of those skills, and what are your future plans?

Mitra:               I guess along the same lines as what I was just talking about. One of the main skills is just be able to adapt. If things don’t work out as planned, they still work out in the end. You just have to be able to roll with it. So I’m definitely going to take that as a life lesson.

Schuyler:          But what fun things did you learn, too?

Mitra:               Gosh, cooking! I learned so many awesome recipes, because I love to cook, and because you know, because I was doing agriculture stuff, my research, I got to work with people who had wonderful fresh veggies and fruit and I had some of the best meals of my entire life. I’m definitely taking that with me.

Schuyler:          Yeah! And also it really sounds like you immersed yourself in the culture. Did you happen to learn any Trinidadian slang, or language?

Mitra:               Yeah, and that was another interesting thing. Especially when two Trinis are talking amongst themselves, it’s hard for us Yankees to understand sometimes because they’ll talk really quickly and in a slang and dialect. Some of the words are the same words, but they’re pronounced really differently. Like, if you’re saying “I’m going downtown” or “you can’t go downtown” it’d be like, “ke- ahn” would be “can’t” and then like “don tong”- it has like a g sound at the end. So some words are the same words but just pronounced really different. But then they have their own words as well, like if you’re insulting someone you’re “buffing” them, that’s one thing, or if you’re yelling at someone, you know, like “Why ya buffing me?” You know, like if… and this was one thing that was hard for me to get used to but like when you greet someone in the evening, instead of saying hello or good day or anything, you would say goodnight, like right when you first see them That doesn’t mean I’m going to bed, it’s like, “Hi, goodnight.” But yeah, it was awesome and a lot of the slang rubbed off on me, when I’m talking with my Trini friends now I definitely have that same sort of… I mean it’s a very beautiful, musical way of speaking so I’m envious of people who can just speak like that naturally.

Schuyler:          So, what are your future plans?

Mitra:               Well, this summer I’m going to be relaxing in Michigan with my family and my friends back here doing a little bit of traveling. And then in the fall I’m going to U. Chicago to do a one year program, it’s a Master’s program in Social Sciences. So that should be exciting. And after that year is over, I’m not exactly sure but I’m kind of leaning towards going for my PhD, going into academia and such. I mean, what I did in Trinidad is really laying the groundwork for the rest of my academic career I guess. I definitely want to go back and now that I understand so much more about the culture it’ll be easier to… I mean I already know so many people and the next time I’m there I’ll be able to slide back in. You know. I’m excited to go back already, even though it’s only been a week!

Schuyler:          Well, Mitra, thank you so much today for your very evocative description of your time in Trinidad and I wish you all the best for the future.

Mitra:               Thank you so much.

Schuyler:          OK, bye.