Erin Baumholser

Warren Wilson College is set up with a Triad system: we are required to complete 128 credit hours of academic work, 100 hours of community service (with a presentation on 25 hours of a specific branch of service), and 15 hours of work a week at the college.

The Work program gives real work experience and training to each job from Lock Smith-ing, to farm work, to IT services, to Administrative training. I worked in six different aspect of the college: Switchboard/Reception, Occupational Safety and Training, IT Services, Motor pool, Heavy Duty (janitorial sanitation), and Career Services.

The Service program has several areas available for students to participate in. My 25 hours for my presentation was in trail creation and park maintenance. However, I have volunteers in other areas from food security, to child care, to human rights.

In the Academics program I completed 129 credit hours for cultural anthropology, business administration and general education. My general education included 49 credit hours in Math, English, Religions study, Global study, History, Art, Foreign Language, Physical Fitness, Biology, and Literature. My Minor in Business Administration included 28 credit hours of Business, Management, Accounting and Finance, Marketing and Advertising, and Systems classes. My management class worked with local businesses to create some sort of plan to present to the class/business. My group was the only one to have their plan implemented by their assigned business. My Major in Cultural Anthropology included a total of 43 credit hours of Sociology, Anthropology, and Archeology courses from field methods to gender, and subcultures. My Senior Thesis is comprised of an IRB approved original Human Subjects Research in which I communicated with 16 participants and created a 51 page ethnographic argument about how meaning and identity are constructed through tarot reading. With this and a 20 minute presentation given in front of the college and the department I was awarded a Bachelor of the Arts Degree.