Mark Ostow
Katherine Lin ’18
Holmdel, New Jersey
Morse College
What courses are you shopping?
There are so many classes I want to take. I’m thinking of majoring in comp sci, but I want to take philosophy courses, language courses, writing courses, a freshman seminar. I want to see Introduction to Ethics with [Professor] Shelly Kagan; I used to watch his lectures online, actually, during middle school. And for my freshman seminar, I’m trying to decide between Interactive Concrete Poetry and One Thousand Years of Love Songs. It’s really hard: both professors are really interesting. Yesterday [in One Thousand Years of Love Songs], we were listening to a love song from the fifteenth century that was written by a bishop, and then we also listened to and analyzed “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. I’d never even thought about analyzing that as a love song—or in any academic way whatsoever.
What do you miss from home?
My mother’s cooking. She makes really good noodles and cauliflower. She also makes really good fish, and I love the sauce thing she does with tofu.
Mark Ostow
Tommy Coleman ’16
Jupiter Farms, Florida
School of Art, sculpture program
Jupiter Farms. What a cool name for a town.
It’s on the edge of the swamp. You had snow days; I had alligator days, days when I wasn’t allowed to leave the front yard. Then I lived in Brooklyn for ten years.
What kind of sculpture do you do?
I’m a woodworker and a metalworker. I do a lot of machining, and a lot of performance. Recently I’ve written two plays about what it means to become an artist. Character-wise, a lot of it is about someone similar to Charlie Brown—failing, and coping with humiliation, and still creating.
How do your parents feel about your pursuing a career as an artist?
My family is very supportive; my mother didn’t have the opportunity to attend college but is very motivated and is more or less a self-taught artist. She’s awesome. My dad does not have a creative bone in his body but is very funny. He’s really excited about it. He always wanted a left-handed first baseman, but he got a left-handed sculptor.
Mark Ostow
Neema Githere ’18
Lakewood, Colorado
Trumbull College
Why did you choose Yale?
It’s so clichéd, but it really was that feeling, that awe-inspiring, I-never-want-to-leave feeling. I’d actually committed to Harvard already when I visited Yale, and I changed my commitment. [At Yale] there’s a sense of community, a sense of togetherness—the Yalie collective! And the whole campus was just vibrant. There’s nothing like Yale in the springtime, I guess.
Do you know what you’ll be studying?
I’m thinking of majoring in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. I have a lot of passion for the diaspora—being a person of color myself, and being an immigrant [from Kenya], I think it’s really important to talk about how race impacts everyday life.
Mark Ostow
Danielle Lotridge ’18
Half Moon Bay, California
Pierson College
Are you homesick?
I feel like I’m not right now, because classes are happening, and there’s lot of meetings: fro-co [freshman counselor] meetings, a cappella meetings, theater meetings. I actually Skype-called my parents last night, so that was nice, and after I called, I was tearing up a little bit. When they showed me my dog on the screen, that was sad. I could see her running around the living room, like, “Where’s Danielle??” I wanted to reach out and pet her; I became a little homesick.
How was FOOT [a pre-orientation backpacking trip for freshmen]?
At the beginning, [I felt] a little apprehensive, because I didn’t know anybody, and I’ve never been backpacking—I’ve only been camping in a campsite. It was a great bonding experience. And throughout the trip nobody complained, even once when we ran out of water for the day. It showed the perseverance of Yale students, and how they’re willing to take challenges. We got pretty close, packing our sleeping bags together to keep out of the rain.
Mark Ostow
Katie Martin ’18
Toronto, Canada
Pierson College
Is that a violin that you’re carrying?
A viola. I just auditioned for the chamber music class, Music 220, and I have an audition for the YSO [Yale Symphony Orchestra] later today. I’ve been playing violin since I was really young, and viola since high school, and I definitely want to keep playing. So it’s nice to have found music even though I’ve only been here a week and a half.
People make fun of viola players.
I like to think that violinists are jealous. It’s a lot easier for us to get places in orchestras, because there are way fewer of us. I’m not going to lie; our parts are probably easier a lot of the time. Violinists are much more competitive, just as people. It’s probably violinists, then cellists, then violists, then probably bass players. Bass players are some of the most passive people in the world. Not a stereotype. Fact.
What are you studying?
I’m in Directed Studies [a freshman survey of the Western canon known for long reading assignments]. I tell people, and they say, “We’re not going to see you for the rest of the year.” I was actually in the library last night until 11:30. I’ve already started off the trend of being a loser in college!
Mark Ostow
Zak Manfredi ’17
Rochester, Michigan
Law School
What have you been doing since leaving college?
I completed a master’s degree at Oxford, then I worked at Google for a year, and have most recently been doing a PhD at Berkeley [University of California] which I’m now finishing, where I have also been deeply invested in labor organizing. At the University of California, graduate students now have an official union, UAW 2865, which has the right to collective bargaining for graduate student workers. The union recently just won a historic victory—securing a new contract with the University of California statewide, [representing] over 12,000 student workers, graduate students, TAs, and tutors. I would add that graduate students at Yale are also undergoing an important struggle to establish the rights of graduate students as workers that could benefit from alumni support.
Will you have time to continue with your activism?
I hope so, since it is a part of who I am and why I came to law school in the first place.
Will that affect your studies?
One doesn’t “affect” the other in the sense that they are two different things; for me, scholarship and activism are intimately intertwined and co-constitutive.
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