I Handed In My SIP and The World Continued - Combating the Post-SIP Blues at K

BY LISA PHILLIPS
Sports Editor


Published January 2010

I’m sitting next to an exhausted printer in the library, triumphantly holding a shiny grey binder with the words “Kalamazoo College Senior Individualized Project” scrolled across the top. This is it, I thought. I’ve worked 6 months for this day. Inside that binder was the biggest project I had ever undertaken in my life, finally ready to be handed in. Hours and hours of research and writing, finally complete.

With a rush of adrenaline, I sprinted over to Dewing and up to the Political Science offices. I half expected to see a mariachi band there to greet me, accompanied by a gospel choir singing Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” and a shower of champagne raining from above. Fireworks. Birthday cake. All of my closest family and friends cheering. That would have felt appropriate for the amount of work I had put in.

None of that happened. My advisor eagerly congratulated me, and that was it; the world continued, unaffected. I tried to make it exciting for myself – I hugged some friends, called my parents. But as one of my friends congratulated me, he delivered that depressing mantra all-too-common among seniors:  “Congrats.  You know, though, no one will ever read it.”

He’s right, I thought, suddenly realizing that I probably could count on one hand the number of people who will actually read the 120-page document I produced. After brief congratulations, at least 3 friends and 1 professor reminded me of that fact in subsequent days. The sledgehammer of post-SIP depression hit me square in the head.

In the aftermath of handing in one’s SIP, a common sentiment among seniors is more dejection than elation. Sabotaging thoughts fill our heads: “Sure, my analysis section is great, but no one will ever know.” “I spent ridiculous amounts of time on a project that will be filed away in a cabinet somewhere to collect dust.” “It’s like a mini doctoral dissertation that gets you absolutely nothing.” “Why did I have to do this, anyway?” The Post-SIP blues hit the senior class in full force.

These should not be the sentiments entering seniors’ heads after such a big accomplishment! But they prevail partially because the turn-in process of the SIP is largely anticlimactic. There’s no celebration; no recognition of the achievement that has just been completed. Even for a senior who readily recognizes the personal value of undertaking such a project, the lack of anything happening right after handing in one’s SIP feels a bit inadequate for the amount of work done.

Obviously, this argument is mildly trivial: seniors will indeed survive without someone patting us on the back as we hand in our projects. And it’s worth acknowledging that departments differ in how they treat the SIP hand-in process; some do indeed have celebrations. But yet, SIPS are an incredible amount of work, and in the frenetic pace of K, sometimes both professors and students forget to adequately commemorate the moment the SIP is finally turned in. 

How to fix the post-SIP blues? I think that having a handing-in ceremony for all majors that does include birthday cake and loud cheering would be a fabulous idea. But it might be as simple as a congratulatory email from a department head, a heartfelt recognition from a professor of a job well done. Or, having seniors write a reflection immediately after completing their SIPs may help them remember how personally beneficial a SIP actually is: what they’ve learned from the project, how they’ve grown. This might help seniors recognize the value of the SIP beyond the fact that most people won’t read what they’ve done.

Maybe the solution is indeed hiring a mariachi band to serenade every student that walks through the office doors after finishing their SIP.  But something needs to be done to the SIP hand-in process feel less disheartening, and more like the accomplishment that it undoubtedly is.