One swallow may not make a summer, but one month at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) made all the difference to Katie Davis, who left knowing what her future career path would be.

The former Bermuda High School student was enrolled in the selective liberal arts college, Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts studying for her Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature when she interned at the East Broadway facility, assisting education co-ordinator Crystal Schultz to develop her summer camp curriculum, and also acting as a counsellor. Through these avenues she discovered a love of teaching and helping children to learn and discover new things.

“I became intrigued with children, some of whom learn in very different ways, so when I returned to Williams College I took a number of education courses, and that is where I was introduced to Dr. Howard Gardner's work.

He is a world renowned authority and author in education and education research, and is responsible for the theory of ‘multiple intelligence',” Miss Davis explains. “Basically, Gardner argues that every individual has eight intelligences - linguistic, mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, intrapersonal and musical - in different proportions. I became interested in this theory, and was excited that what I had noticed at BUEI was actually very well stated by Gardner.”

Based on this, two years after her graduation from Williams in 2000, Miss Davis applied to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where Dr. Gardner is a professor.

Harvard's decision was apparently an easy one. Miss Davis had not only graduated magna cum laude at the top of her class at Williams, but also was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, based on a grade point average which put her in the top percentage of all graduates.

“To get into Harvard you not only have to have strong grades but also take a standardised test, and I did very well with that because you have to write a personal statement as to why you think you are qualified, and what your commitment to education is. They take it very seriously,” the graduate student says.

In the year following her graduation from Williams, Miss Davis returned home to earn money for her continuing education, and worked as a research analyst at First Atlantic Commerce.

Currently, she is enjoying her first semester at the Harvard campus, and already her work has caught Professor Gardner's attention.

“Studying with him has been unbelievable dream come true, because I really look to him as my mentor,” she says. “To actually have a chance to work with him and for him to critique my work is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Through this connection, the next step in Miss Davis' education process is already mapped out. Once her year-long Master's degree programme concludes this summer, she plans to go on to get her Ph.D.

“Professor Gardner has suggested that I apply for Harvard's doctoral programme, which would be (another) dream come true. It only accepts 15 percent of all applicants, so it is very competitive, but I am hopeful.”

The icing on that cake might, with luck, include being a member of Gardner's research team.

“I am not guaranteed to be on his team, but hopefully I will have an opportunity to work for him on his research because what he does is cutting edge,” Miss Davis says. “In one of the classes I took with him we were given access to his most recent, unpublished research, and I had to write a paper on it, which was exciting.”

Should she be successful in joining Harvard's doctoral programme, the 23-year-old Bermudian says she does not know exactly what her focus will be, except that it will concern “what children learn, and how to use the knowledge of how they learn to create school systems and curricula”.

“In the next few months, I intend to contact the Department of Education to see what opportunities there might be for me to apply my doctorate,” she says. “At that level, people are interested in educational research and developing curricula and school systems, so you have to work in the capacity of research and educational consultants.”

Meanwhile, through her Master's programme she is learning what has already been researched in education and child psychology as it relates to child development, thus laying the foundation for future research as a doctoral student.

Apart from loving campus life, Miss Davis says learning a new way of thinking has been both challenging and satisfying.

“In the beginning the scientific thinking was challenging. At Harvard they challenge you to explain why you have an opinion, and what evidence you can bring to support your opinion, so it makes you very cautious in everything you say. You really have to think about and formulate an argument, but now that I have had practice in it I find it a very rewarding way of thinking.”

Overall, the graduate student finds the Cambridge, Massachusetts campus “very exciting', and its environment “very rich'.

“They really encourage students to take advantage of all that Harvard has to offer,” the says. “There are phenomenal people in Cambridge who are really at the forefront of their discipline, and they often lecture and hold workshops, so through my classroom experience and work with the pros in the education school I am getting full exposure to many ideas.”

In fact, Miss Davis says one of the great things about education school is its approach to research.

“They are not interested in armchair research, but in bridging the gap between researcher and practitioner. Many of the students have been teachers themselves, and they are amazing individuals. Every individual at Harvard is very committed to education, and to children.”

This augurs well for Bermuda for Miss Davis is committed to returning home to put her studies to good use for the benefit of Bermuda's children, and when she does she says it will be due, in part, to the influence of her late grandfather, David Critchley.

“He was always committed to children's well-being, and education in Bermuda, and I want to come back and carry on that that tradition,” she says. “Then, I really hope that if my grandfather can see me at all, he will be proud of me.”