Each week, the Record (using a script in R) randomly selects a student at the College for our One in Two Thousand feature, excluding current Record board members. This week, Ali Meyer ’28 discussed being on field hockey, having an alum parent, plans after college, and her desire to relive her youth. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Arleny Flores (AF): I know you’re on the field hockey team. How do you think being on the team has shaped your experience at the College?
Ali Meyer (AM): I think it’s shaped it in a lot of very positive ways. I always knew that I wanted to go to a smaller school. I never really liked the idea of going to a huge school. Part of that is having a tight-knit community. I think the field hockey team has really given me that. People talk a lot about making big schools small, but a great thing about being here and being on the field hockey team is that I have a group of people that I know are always there to support me, who I can always lean on. Playing a sport has inherently shaped my college experience.
AF: Speaking of sports, I heard that you sailed in high school. Can you tell me a little about that?
AM: I grew up sailing, and I was on the sailing team during my freshman and sophomore year of high school. I decided to stop because I wanted to focus on field hockey for recruiting, but I love it. It’s so fun to be out on the water. My dad sailed a lot when I was younger and he got me into it. I sailed Optimists for five years, which are small beginner sailboats, and then I sailed a two-person boat, called a c420, for two years. I used to spend a lot of my summers out on the water sailing, and it was so nice to be out in nature.
AF: I heard your mom also attended the College. Did you grow up visiting Williams with her? If so, do you think that influenced your decision to come here?
AM: My mom played field hockey and lacrosse here, so she was a big advocate of me looking at playing in college. I actually never visited [Williams] before spring of my sophomore year of high school. The first time I came up was for a field hockey clinic. I think I still would have looked at the College if she hadn’t come here, but I think part of why I got really excited about it was the fact that she came here and always spoke so highly of it.
AF: Thinking about the past, if you could travel back to an earlier year of your life, what year would you select and why?
AM: Oh, that’s a really interesting question. This is kind of silly, but I feel like it would be really fun to be eight years old again to go back to a time in my life where there was nothing to worry about. I was carefree. Sports weren’t intense. I was in elementary school, doing addition, learning how to do long division. I’m turning 20 in less than a month, and I’ve been thinking, ‘Wow, I’m never gonna be that young again.’
AF: Yeah. What a time. That was Taylor Swift, “Blank Space.”
AM: The music was good. I used to dance around my kitchen singing Taylor Swift songs with my parents. I have really vivid memories of when I had just moved to [Darien, Conn.]. Before, I had lived in New York City and never had a backyard.
AF: Wow. What was the move like from New York City to Darien?
AM: In New York City, we lived right by Central Park. We were on the Upper East Side and I went to a private, all-girls Catholic school. And then, all of a sudden, I’m in Connecticut and I’m at a public school.
AF: How has living in Williamstown compared to Darien?
AM: It’s been really different, but great. I never really liked the idea of going to school in a city. I like the idea of being out in nature. I told my mom this and she laughed at me, but when I was looking at colleges, I cared a lot about going to school somewhere pretty. I’m always so busy, but whenever I’m outside, I can take a breath of fresh air. I can look out, and see the mountains. It’s so beautiful in the fall. I never really had that small-town experience that I’ve gotten here, which has been really nice.
AF: I know you’re thinking about going to law school after college. What attracts you to law?
AM: I think I’ve always been a pretty logical person. I like the idea of having cases in front of you and having a strategy going into court. So I think that with the way that my brain works, I’ve found that attractive and I’m sure part of it is that my parents [are both lawyers]. I’ve had a lot of people tell me they could see me being a lawyer and I haven’t figured it out if that’s a compliment or an insult. But, I feel like there’s something really interesting about the strategy of it all, having this problem and working with a team to solve it. And, I did a lot of debates in AP U.S. history in high school, and I took AP [European history] and we did a moot court. We got to pretend we were lawyers. I really enjoyed working on that project, presenting it, and arguing back and forth.
AF: If not law, then what would you do?
AM: I wanted to be an author when I was younger. That was my big goal in life. I always thought, ‘Oh, I want to grow up and write novels and live on a farm.’ When I was five years old, I was really set on this idea. I used to make picture books and write poems. I remember one weekend, I was going to ski with my family in Vermont, and I sat in the back of the car, and my parents were like, ‘no iPad in the car,’ so I wrote a bunch of poems. There’s always a lot going on in my brain, and I feel like writing, and creative writing especially, is a good outlet for that.
AF: Last question: On the topic of language and writing, are there any books or quotes that have left a lasting impact on you, and why?
AM: My senior quote from high school was by Winston Churchill: “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” I think that’s left a really strong mark on me. When I’m struggling to be motivated, it motivates me. Even if you’re succeeding, you have to keep working hard, you have to keep going to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Also, one small step back or one failure isn’t the end of the world. It makes you stronger. You can always bounce back from it, and you have to trust yourself and work hard enough to keep going. I think that that’s gotten me far. The quote is up on my wall in my room.
