Hi Everyone!

My name is Madeline Fuentes. I’m a second year master’s student and Bard Graduate Center’s 2025–26 Admissions Ambassador. I hope to meet many of you at our open house this Sunday, October 19th. I’m always excited to talk with prospective students! My own path to BGC has not been linear, as I moved from studying English and food systems in undergrad to working in environmental education and experimenting with architecture and furniture building prior to arriving at BGC. I’ve focused my work and thinking across these various fields on the region of Appalachia, and have been intent on researching this fascinating region’s design and material culture. As an incredibly interdisciplinary program, BGC stuck out to me as the place where I could unify my academic interests and my interests in physically making and creating things. I’m happy to say that this has been the case!

In my first year I was able to take a class in ancient workshop practices; spend days visiting and learning with stone carvers, glass blowers, and jewelry makers; and integrate my own research about Appalachia into the design of public programming for a public humanities class. This semester, I wanted to add to my arsenal of useful practical tools and skills, so I looked to join a consortium course. Bard Graduate Center has formal relationships with universities and institutions around the city that welcome BGC students to enroll in classes (and those students enroll at BGC). I am currently taking a course called “Video Production for Visual Storytelling” through Columbia University’s oral history MA program (OMHA), and am learning all the essential skills that go into creating documentaries. Our class meetings have been super fulfilling on their own and I’ve learned so much already, but I am particularly excited about how this consortium course fits into my other coursework at BGC. I have been able to flex my oral history muscles in class projects that require interview components, and in a current BGC course about American material culture we even had the director of OHMA visit as a guest lecturer. For my own research, Appalachia has an incredibly rich oral history, and I am eager to use the skills I’m learning to document it, which I anticipate being able to do throughout the process of writing my final qualifying paper.

Finding and enrolling in this course has widened the scope of engaging projects I can make and do and has opened my eyes to the wider academic community in New York City (and beyond). BGC encourages students to engage with these opportunities in creating their personalized academic patchwork. Everyone I’ve spoken with has been excited about the tie-ins this class has with my larger goals, and I’m even borrowing a camera from our Digital Exhibitions / Digital Humanities department. It feels like everything’s connected, and everyone’s here to help.

Feel free to reach out to me with any questions about student life and academics you have. If you can’t make it to this Sunday’s open house, we also have one on November 16th and a virtual one on November 9th. Until then, talk soon and take care.

My best,
Madeline Fuentes, MA ’26
madeline.fuentes@bgc.bard.edu