Making the Most of College: Creating (and Completing!) a Whitman Bucket List

When I first chose Whitman, I made a “Whitman Bucket List,” a list of things I wanted to do during my time at Whitman. The tasks ranged from the relatively mundane, like living in the Writing House, to the more ambitious, like getting the chance to see inside Memorial Building’s iconic clock tower. 

If you’re looking for ideas for your own Whitman bucket list, or you’re curious how I managed to become the ideal Whittie (a self-designated but currently undisputed title), read on to discover the top five items on my list and how I achieved them.

• Sit on, decorate, and generally appreciate Styx
  When I first visited Whitman, my tour guide took us to visit Styx, the iconic Deborah Butterfield statue that sits along the edge of Ankeny field. It’s a Whitman tradition, the guide explained, for students to climb Styx and sit astride his back. Once, she told us, a visitor asked her if that was a show of disrespect toward the art. “The opposite!” She assured him, “We climb on Styx because we love him. It’s our way of interacting and engaging with the statue.” I vowed then and there that I would return and climb atop the mighty steed. A year later, as a first-year at Whitman, I did just that. Over the years, I went on to climb the statue several more times. My most recent Styx-summit took place last semester just after I’d helped cover the statue in festive holiday lights, another Styx-related task on my bucket list.

• Live in the Writing House
  Whitman’s Interest House Community is home to more than a dozen different themed houses, but I only ever had eyes for one: The Writing House. When attending a Spring Into Whitman Day (a special Admitted Students Day) as a senior in high school, I had the opportunity to see the inside the Writing House. As soon as I stepped into the living room and saw the typewriters lining the walls, I knew it was the place for me. Going through the application and interview process was stressful, but it was all worth it when I was accepted as a resident for the fall of 2022. I was also the Resident Assistant for the house during the 2023 spring and fall semesters, and it was a dream come true. The folks I lived with in the Writing House are still some of the best friends I’ve ever made.

• Publish my writing in quarterlife and blue moon (and beyond!)
  Whitman’s beloved pair of literary magazines were calling my name from the moment I learned of their existence. I’ve dreamed of being a published writer since I was 10 years old, and I am proud to say that my written works have been published seven times (and counting!) thanks to quarterlife and bluemoon. In addition, my art and photography, which I had never previously considered having published, have also been featured in issues of both magazines. The structure of the magazines have also forced me to adapt my style at times and imagine new ways of expressing myself, often resulting in pieces I love but I never would have created otherwise.
  
  What I never could have imagined, however, was taking part in the creation of an entirely new literary magazine at Whitman, Azulejos (formerly Los Ojos de Whitman), an outlet for Spanish and Spanglish writers and artists in the Whitman community. Combined with my work on Whitman Stories and in the Whitman Magazine, my time here has left me with more published work than I would ever have dreamed.

• Act in a play
  While several of my friends were involved in theater in high school, I was always too busy with other activities to take part in a production. So when I went to see the production of “Twelfth Night” that was put on my first year as part of Whitman’s Summer Shakespeare (Shakes) tradition, I knew I wanted to take part the next year. What I didn’t anticipate, however, was the spontaneous decision I made during the spring of 2022 to audition for one of the plays being put on as part of the One-Act Play Festival that happens every other year. Perhaps even more unexpected was the fact that I was actually cast, and my goal of being in a play was no longer a distant plan for the summer, but an abrupt reality. Thankfully, I had a spectacular time acting as a 1930s murderess in “Pippen and Piper and the Case of the Catastrophic Cruise,” and I went on to also take part in Summer Shakes for the next three years.

• Go inside the Memorial Clock Tower
  This was the most far-fetched of my bucket list items, but after hearing a senior friend recount their trip into the tower when I was a sophomore, I knew I had to find a way in to see the old bell and the massive clock faces they described. They spun a grand tale of climbing ladders, seeing across the Walla Walla Valley for miles, and visiting the old chapel housed behind the locked door that leads to the tower. “The old pews are still there!” They told me, and I was hooked. I had to find a way to check it out for myself. Finally, in the last semester of my senior year, after expressing my wish to venture into the clock tower, I was given an assignment at my job with the Office of Communications that allowed me to enter the tower and receive a tour of the inside of the most iconic feature of the college. Not a bad day at work, if I do say so myself!

As my time at Whitman draws to a close, I’m honestly impressed with how much I managed to get done in just four years. More than that, though, I’m grateful for all the ways in which Whitman facilitated my accomplishments, from installing beautiful (and climbable) works of art around campus to maintaining the kind of work environment where a student employee’s dreams of exploring the clock tower can come true, if only they’re brave enough to ask.

Zoe Perkins ’25 is a Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse major from Hillsboro, Oregon. With only a week or so left of her time at Whitman, Zoe is determined to wrap up the last few things on her bucket list—including a trip to the wheatfields to eat a burrito.