Sally Waters ‘16.5

1. Name: Sally Waters

2. Hometown: Bedford, MA

3. Major: Economics and Africana Studies

4. Year: 2016.5

5. You’re doing some really great work with the Mental Health Committee. Could you tell us about the most recent project you’ve been working on and what inspired it?        

​​Absolutely! I’m basically heading a huge effort to try to make the process of taking time off from Williams more transparent, healthy, and successful. This project is hugely personal and important to me. I took a year and a half off after my sophomore winter study, and it was was just about the best decision of my life — I spent about eight months working in Williamstown to make ends meet while I just worked on mental health issues, and then spent five months backpacking across the country. Still, despite that it was a fantastic decision for me, I actually wish I had done it a year earlier, and sometimes resent how people view it as a drastic measure only for people with mental health issues. That motivates me to change the script around taking time off, raise awareness, and increase resources for both people considering leaving and people coming back from leave.

It’s unfortunate that taking time off often has a stigma attached- no matter what each individual’s reasons are- because it’s associated with quitting, failing, and mental health issues. I’d love to rewrite the script to have the campus view taking time off as a forward thinking decision for personal well-being. The fact is that 4 years is a long time to maintain the high level of effort that Williams demands, and sometimes it’s smart to take a break. But in order to relabel it in a more positive way, I’d like to raise awareness and knowledge about taking time off. For instance, right now I’m in the process of proposing a claiming williams panel to promote taking time off as just another option like going abroad. I took so long to decide to take time off because I honestly didn’t know it was an option, and only found out when it became a dire need. If we raise awareness, hopefully people can make a decision to take time off before it becomes a necessity, and allow them to feel like they are actively making a conscious decision rather than failing.

Finally, I’m working on getting the administration to improve resources around taking time off for those considering the option as well as those returning from leaves. One of my ideas is to make a network of students and alums who have taken time off to provide guidance to people going through the process or reentering Williams. It seems so easy for the Deans to tell people considering the option to say, “hey, here’s a list of people who have done this, they’re here to help you.” They have that for every program for going abroad, why not for the choice to take time off? Knowing that someone did this and then went on to “succeed” at Williams would have made me feel so much better about my decision. Other resources I’d like to make available include small administrative resources for off-cycle students (because right now they basically treat us as if we don’t exist), and partnering with the Career Center or Center for Learning in Action to provide an option for people to stay in the area working at a local business during their time off, if they don’t want to leave their support network here or don’t feel comfortable staying at home.

So many things!!! I’m honestly so excited and every day some new idea pops into my head.

     6.   How did taking time off influence your experience at Williams?

Ugh, so many ways. I think the most apparent thing is that taking time off let me develop some sort of perspective that is often drowned out in the purple bubble. Everyone here is so stressed, all the time. It makes it feel like any sort of misstep is the end of the world. Coming back from taking time off was honestly so freeing from that. For one, I already experienced hitting rock bottom– every “failure” after that felt small in comparison. But also, I had lived for a year working, traveling, and taking care of myself, and I had become secure in the knowledge that I would figure shit out, no matter what. Even if I somehow fail out of Williams within the next year, I know I will figure something out. This sounds super fucking corny, but during the year and a half, I sort of fell back in love with myself. Now I’m able to view myself for who I am- imperfect, emotional, swears like a sailor, judgmental, sure, but also a beautiful human. I’m my biggest ally and advocate now, and I feel like I can get through everything. I would have never come to that knowledge if I had stayed at Williams 4 years straight.

But in addition, just mechanically, it gave me some time to think about whether I actually wanted to finish college and what I wanted to study. Even though liberal arts schools gives us more time to think about majors than other schools, we still rush through a lot of big decisions during colleges. I just had time to think about what I wanted— I came back with a different major and concentration, with a different understanding of what made me happy, and with a different idea of what skills I wanted to build a career on. In sum, I was able to come back with a passion for school and with a deliberateness that I never had before.

   7.   Have you found it difficult to come back?

In some ways. Last year was tough, seeing the people that I started school with graduate. I was on campus for senior week, and that sucked majorly, because I couldn’t really participate (I would have had to get special permission), and yet I wanted to celebrate with my friends. It also sometimes just feels like I’ve been here for too fucking long. I kind of want to get back to real life- live in my own apartment again and make my own food, etc. I also feel older than a lot of people on campus. That could be me being egotistical and self-righteous (which I am a lot), but it’s also a fact that I’m going to graduate when I’m 24 and still have classes with freshmen who are 17, and that my time off made me grow up real quick. So sometimes I feel disconnected from some people on campus because of that amount of life experience.

But honestly, a lot of coming back was really freaking easy. Life here suddenly felt so easy. At Williams, I don’t need to worry about paying rent, I don’t need to hold down a job (though I do anyway), I can walk everywhere, there is a cool event to go to everyday if I want to, and there are so many people I love 30 seconds to 5 minutes away at all moments of the day. All I need to do is pass my classes (or at least some of them). All I need to do is study topics that interest me? Fuck yeah. Coming back felt like a dream in that way. I had a completely new view of my objectives here, and could appreciate what actually is amazing about this place while appreciating what dynamics here I need to avoid because they are dangerous for my well-being.

   8.   What advice would you give people who are struggling with the decision to take time off?

Honestly, my first reaction is to just say “do it!” But I’m super biased. I would also say, get the information first, so you can make a really conscious decision. Cruise the information on the Williams registrar’s website, talk to the bursar’s office, talk to people who have taken time off, hell, email me! There’s definitely a lot of components that make this a very personal decision. Financially, socially, athletically, personally, academically– ugh. But honestly, my perspective is, you can only do college at Williams once, and if right now you’re stressing yourself out, unhappy, paying out the ass, and working all hours of the day, and you’re not sure why? You should figure out why. Trust me, Williams is a lot better after you come to the conclusion that you really want to be here.