Photo cred: Jonathon Burne ’17
Name: Susie Paul, 2016
Major: Chemistry and Sociology, with a possible concentration in Biochemistry and molecular biology.
Hometown: Jamaica, Queens
You do a lot on campus, including being a lab teaching assistant for organic chemistry, a tour guide and an Admissions Ambassador, and being on the board of QuestBridge. Has your home life influenced you to join certain groups on campus?
My parents are from Bangladesh and I was born there. I joined the South Asian Student Association and went to weekly meetings during my first year, and I absolutely adore the board. And WGSS 101 inspired me to join the Women’s Collective during Winter Study my frosh year. Those two groups were pivotal in helping me feel more comfortable on campus, and I’m really glad that I’ve met such extraordinary people along the way. Everyone needs a niche, and I’m glad they let me join theirs temporarily.
Could you tell us a bit about your project, Humans of Williams? How long had you been thinking about starting it and was there something more besides HoNY that inspired you to carry it out?
Not for long. I met Brandon Stanton when I was in high school and I ran across him when I went back to New York City for Winter Break. I had a moment where I thought, “If someone else could do it, then I could do it too!” I made the page the day I ran into him, right after Christmas, but I chose not to use a photo I had already taken for another purpose or event. So I decided to wait until Winter Study began to debut the page and to take a photo.[As for something besides HoNY inspiring me to carry it out] not explicitly so, but I had other reasons that I used to convince myself that I should begin. I wanted us to know each others’ names and stories. I wanted staff and faculty to be more visible to the rest of the student body. I wanted to unite the campus, to post cheesy and corny, as well as thought provoking and controversial, quotes.
Do you hope to continue it for the duration of your Williams career?
I don’t think I could do that! I’m definitely going to continue it until the end of this semester. And if I get the chance to be on campus during the summer, I’d love to continue it throughout late August. As for the next two years, I think I’d really like to find someone whom I trust to share my vision for this project, and I’d really like to collaborate with them. I would really like to share my project after a while, and make sure that someone’s around to take over once I graduate in two years.
Is photography something you’re interested in? If so, how long have you been doing it for?
I loved the small point-and-shoot that my father had bought for the entire family, and I hogged it quite frequently. Once I fell in love with it, I couldn’t stop taking photos with it. I bought my first camera after I had my first summer job at a lab at Barnard–this was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school.That broke when it toppled out of my bag as I was running down the escalator to catch a train. I had to wait until my next job, the summer after, to earn what I needed to buy a new camera. And I’ve had it ever since! I was a staff photographer on my school newspaper and I worked at the Record during my first semester here. I was briefly a part of the Photo Club and I usually carry my camera around me.
If you could give Williams students a single piece of advice, what would it be?
Please feel free to say no. Not everything needs to be done by you. It’s so important for us to take care of ourselves emotionally and physically, especially because doing so makes us healthier in the long run. I love that we’ve already begun talking about failure at the College and that my friends acknowledge a culture of shaming that can occur when we all expect each other to manage our academics, our extracurricular activities, our friendships, our relationships and to sleep and take care of ourselves. Sometimes, I think we need to learn how to put ourselves first before we can attend to others. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a good portion of my time here at Williams, and I see myself struggling with it still, but I think we could all benefit from using our time and energy more wisely.