<p>It was sort of a combination. They knew they had this need (which hadn’t been packaged up a STRIDE project, because it required some relatively specialized skills that most college students - even music students - don’t come in with.) But she met with the people who were working on the project (during her acceptance weekend), and one thing sort of led to another. The prof she officially worked under (who was the director the project) was a Five-College Professor, with offices at Mt. Holyoke, but who taught most of his courses at Smith. She couldn’t have imagined the project on her own, but stumbled into it (actually, we both stumbled into it - we toured the campus separately, and I was on a tour of the theater where the theater guy talked about this future project they had for an opera), and she stumbled on it when talking with folks from the music department. By the time she left, everything was in place except the paper work (though she hadn’t met the Five-College Prof yet.) </p>
<p>Then something unusual happened - one of those things that could happen at any college, mind you, that sets you on your journey. It really could have happened elsewhere. When she arrived on campus, she took the French placement exam. She placed very high (which surprised her), so she decided on the spot that, rather than take advanced French, she was going to take beginning Italian. As it turns out, the project she was to work on required some knowledge of Italian. Now she is a Ph.D. student in musicology and working on a graduate certificate in Italian studies, and coordinates the Italian Graduate Studies colloqiua program. It turns out that it was her Italian that lifted her above other candidates for her graduate school admissions. Weird how these things sometimes go.</p>