"The general Carleton lesson is there's no need to view yourself strictly as a person who has a set route in life. You may be a political science major, but you don't have to spend all your time in Willis Hall. You don't have to create boundaries. You also learn to take yourself less seriously. You can do tremendous things, but somehow still be chill about it."
Amy Kenna, Bellingham, Washington

Writing poetry has been important to Amy Kenna since grade school. But for this busy student, finding time to do it is sometimes a challenge. "Usually I have to write in the middle of the night or really early in the morning-whenever I can find a few minutes to scribble something down," she says. Amy is a two-time winner of Carleton's Huntington Poetry Prize and early in her first year, she published a poem in Hanging Loose magazine. She's written thousands of poems, but says most of them aren't worthy of publication. "They're always in a state of development, so that at any given time I think I only have five or ten poems that are publishable. Then by the next week, only two remain, because I've reworked the others or I think they're not good anymore."

Being editor-in-chief of The Carletonian, pursuing a double major in political science and studio art, and working at Northfield's coffeehouse, Goodbye Blue Monday, consumes much of Amy's time. She also has worked for Carleton's alumni magazine, constructed a database of notable alumni for the College archives, taken guitar lessons, written for Carleton's political thought journal, and served food at formal dinners and receptions as a catering manager for the College's food service.

Amy has worked nearly every job at the student newspaper, from writing news stories to designing layout. She's soon off to her third journalism internship: with the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. After a week there, she'll work at the Shelby Star in North Carolina. Her previous two internships also have been in Washington-at Roll Call newspaper and Governing magazine. All this experience will come in handy if she decides on a career in journalism, but she's not quite sure about that. "Reporters have a high level of burnout. I don't know if I want to do journalism anymore," she says.

Other options for Amy include graduate school in political theory or studio art. One of her favorite professors is Rich Keiser, from whom she took a course on the American presidency. "He's not content to let the class discussion go nowhere-he doesn't have an agenda, but he forces you to think on the spot." She's also looking forward to Professor Larry Cooper's class on Plato's Republic.

While she enjoys being informed on current issues and understanding what's going on in the world, Amy says drawing, like poetry, provides an abstract, artistic release for her. "As much as I love political science, I knew I didn't want to do just that. I thought, 'I'm at this great college, I have all these options, wonderful facilities, and great faculty. If I have the opportunity to study art, why not?'" She works in charcoal, conte crayon, and graphite, and particularly likes drawing the figure. She's fond of Édouard Manet, Francisco de Goya, and Albrecht Dürer, saying that she's a sucker for the ancients: "You'll notice when you ask students for their favorite artists, they always pick dead people."