My name is Ashley Bulseco-McKim – I am a graduate student and one of the program assistants for the Nantucket Semester. Here are some thoughts I’ve had about the Nantucket LivingLab:

Albert Einstein once said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”

I will admit that when I was a younger student, this quote didn’t make as much sense to me. I was a book worm, and didn’t necessarily see the value in going out and “getting dirty.” If I understand the concepts theoretically, then of course I can apply it to the real world! Well, that was absolute nonsense. As my training has progressed, I now see how crucial hands-on experience is to a student’s education. Understanding how a barometer works becomes much more useful if you actually make a barometer – the students just finished this last week in Dr. Douglas’ hydrology class. Instead of discussing how scallop fishing is accomplished and what bycatch might result from it, go out on a scallop boat and fish with the people who do it everyday – a couple of the students have already had this honor. This is the ultimate goal of LivingLabs: To teach and learn by doing, and to use these lessons as opportunities to apply solutions to local communities. Why just learn when you can also do? Let’s kill two birds with one stone – forgive the expression – and make a connection between academia and real world problems.

The students so far have been taking this challenge head-on. Each and every one of them have become immersed in not only the educational aspect of the semester, but also the cultural, and have already started to form a concrete connection with the community. I can’t wait to see what knowledge will result from these experiences, and what problems we can begin to solve!