{"id":45550,"date":"2015-08-31T14:43:05","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T14:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/?p=45550"},"modified":"2023-01-24T15:19:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T15:19:01","slug":"urgo-alum-spotlight-alison-rapp-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/2015\/08\/31\/urgo-alum-spotlight-alison-rapp-11\/","title":{"rendered":"URGO Alum Spotlight: Alison Rapp ’11"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Alison Rapp ’11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo Courtesy of Alison Rapp ’11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alison Rapp graduated from Augsburg in 2011 after studying communications, international relations, and Japanese. While at Augsburg, she participated in independent research, academic year research through URGO, and the summer research program in 2010, where she partnered with Prof. Kristen Chamberlain.<\/p>\n

For her Masters, she headed across the river to the University of Minnesota to pursue a degree in communications and critical media studies. Now, she’s a Product Marketing Specialist for Nintendo of America. Below, she answered some questions for us about her research experience as an undergrad and how it helped her get to where she is today.<\/p>\n

How did you first get involved with research as an undergrad? Was it something you were expecting to get involved with, or something that developed from your other experiences at Augsburg?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My first big research project wasn\u2019t even through URGO\u2014it was an independent study with Martha Johnson. I\u2019d gotten back from a study abroad in Japan, and wanted to keep studying the onnagata (men who play women in traditional Japanese theater), so I did. I\u2019d always enjoyed asking questions, soaking up info, and figuring out stuff on my own, so research was probably a natural fit.<\/p>\n

Then, I figured I\u2019d apply for a summer URGO grant to study archetypes of femininity in The Legend of Zelda video game series\u2014I\u2019d always loved video games, and I was super into gender and sexuality studies\u2026except I actually got turned down for the grant. It was a pretty big blow to my ego. But I kept pursuing it and ended up getting two academic-year grants, and a summer grant before all was said and done.<\/p>\n

What tools did you learn as an undergrad researcher that you carried into your graduate research and your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My URGO summer research project was a look at the relationships and representations of couples in yaoi and yuri manga, which are Japanese comic books about gay and lesbian relationships, written for heterosexual women. I continued that project during grad school.<\/p>\n

More generally, after doing multiple URGO programs and writing all those huge papers and so on, I went into grad school knowing I could handle it. I mean, grad school is a whole other beast and is definitely really tough and time-consuming, but I knew that I\u2019d done it all before, so I could do it again. A lot of it was a confidence thing.<\/p>\n

Now, I work at Nintendo, and a lot of my job is about being a game expert. People from other teams come to me to learn about games that the company\u2019s making, and it\u2019s my job to know everything there is to know about the game I\u2019m assigned to, and to be able to make it make sense to everyone else. Of course, a big part of that is collaborating with the other people on my team\u2014we share knowledge and teach each other so we can all be experts on as much as possible. My job is like being a researcher and a teacher! Not to mention one of my URGO-funded research projects was on The Legend of Zelda\u2026it feels pretty neat to have joked with people in college about how I was studying video games, and now I\u2019m working at the company that made the games I studied. I\u2019m definitely very lucky.<\/p>\n

Briefly describe your current research interests (and what your URGO summer project was!).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Now that I\u2019m out of academia and in industry, a lot of my research interests are dominated by my work, which is games. I\u2019m not complaining! But I still try to keep an eye on communication research more generally. The Pop Culture Association\u2014I presented my Legend of Zelda research to them a few years ago\u2014is hosting their 2016 conference in Seattle, so while I won\u2019t be presenting any original research there this time, I\u2019m still planning to go and see what cool work other people are doing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>What\u2019s the most exhilarating part of your current job at Nintendo? (Or\u2014what does your average work day look like?)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>People like to joke that my job is just playing video games all day, and while there are days I do that, the vast majority of my time is actually spent educating other people about the games, writing about them, giving feedback on things people create for the games, and so on. I also do quite a bit of traveling. I wear a lot of hats, and I stay very busy, but it\u2019s super rewarding. I get to meet a lot of Nintendo fans, and hearing them talk about how much a game or character means to them is the best\u2014I mean, I grew up a Nintendo fan, too!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>What tips do you have for current Auggie undergrad researchers about how they can make the most of their time in college?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had the most success when I was sassy. People who are older than you or have more education than you aren\u2019t gods \u2014 they\u2019re fallible and the materials they assign are fallible. If you have an issue with something, or you don\u2019t like a book, say so. The stupidest and the smartest thing I ever did in college was actually the summer before I started. I got my books a couple months early and started reading The Question of God<\/em> for Larry Crockett\u2019s intro Honors Program course. I hated the book, so I emailed him\u2014before I\u2019d ever met him\u2014to tell him so. I ended up getting a 4.0 in his class. That\u2019s when I realized that doing good schoolwork isn\u2019t everything\u2014showing you\u2019re not someone who just automatically internalizes what other people tell you is also really (if not more) important. You can be gutsy and successful\u2014they\u2019re not mutually-exclusive, and sometimes they\u2019re directly related.<\/p>\n

The 2015-2016 URGO Academic Year Research Grant application is now posted under the “research” tab on the right. Talk with a faculty member today and get started on your own research path!<\/em><\/p>\n

Written by Mary Cornelius ’16<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alison Rapp graduated from Augsburg in 2011 after studying communications, international relations, and Japanese. While at Augsburg, she participated in independent research, academic year research through URGO, and the summer research program in 2010, where she partnered with Prof. Kristen Chamberlain. For her Masters, she headed across the river to the University of Minnesota to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45550"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48830,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45550\/revisions\/48830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}