By Jim Sheahan
Director of Athletic Communications & Marketing
Artun Ak was a 13-year-old guitarist in a garage band in Antalya, Turkey, an average middle school student, and in his own words, “a little chubby.”
He had a preference for American rock & roll and heavy metal. His collection of CDs included classic bands from the sixties, seventies and eighties. During one performance of The Rolling Stones’ 1966 hit “Paint it, Black,” Ak included the recognizable riff from 1974s “Kung Fu Fighting” in a guitar solo the band had added to the track. It drew laughter and applause from those in attendance.
That was then.
Now, Ak is a Bard College senior with a double major in Economics and Literature and a 3.99 GPA. He’s been a Peer Counselor, President of the International Students Organization, and he is the captain of the men’s squash team. He was the Bard Athletics Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year after the 2018-19 season, and he’s the odds-on favorite to win that award again in 2019-20.
“In 2014, I didn’t care about my classes, I played in a band,” Ak says. “I happened to come across some really good teachers on my way here, and it changed things for me.”
It is those interactions with faculty that are the common thread in Ak's journey so far, to the point where he's considering becoming an educator himself. For now, though, he’s focused on producing simultaneous
Senior Projects with the start of the squash season right around the corner.
Antalya, which he described as having two seasons – summer and fall - was never where he was going to end up. Ak is admittedly very left-leaning in relation to Turkish politics, so staying there for college or beyond was not really an option. It was something his family understood.
He chose the Deutsche Schule Istanbul (German School of Istanbul) for high school, and lived in that city with his great uncle. Through that elite institution, students could apply to attend college in Germany, but after he failed Physics in his sophomore year, he needed another plan. He met with a study abroad consultant, then realized he might need to let his parents know what was going on.
He told his father that he failed Physics and wanted to try to attend school in the United States, and had already met with a consultant about it.
“I talked to my father, and his reaction was, ‘Are you sure, because this is the second time you’re leaving home and you’re 16 years old,’ ” Ak says. “My mother’s reaction was … more colorful, shall we say? My father was OK with it if the costs lined up, and my mother was sort of OK. I wasn’t interested in studying engineering or some other STEM subject in Germany.”
Ak had been to the United States twice, once at a summer camp at UCLA, and once on a visit to New York City with his parents. He was accepted in the middle of his junior year at
Christchurch School, a prep school in rural Virginia, and off he went.
“One of the four schools I was considering was too big, at another one you had to wear a suit every day, and one other was all boys, and there was no way I was doing that,” Ak says. “I ended up at Christchurch.
“I had learned English all my life, but I had never ‘lived’ English, so that took a while,” Ak continues. “I played the guitar, so socially it should have been a plus, but everyone was listening to rap, so it was a plus and a minus. There was some culture shock there.”
It was the middle of junior year, and one of his first classes was Honors American History. On the first day, the subject was slavery.
“I knew I had some catching up to do then,” Ak says. “But I also noticed right away a huge upgrade in the ability of the teachers. At Christchurch, they knew how to teach complicated subjects to a teenager learning his third language.”
His college search was hurried, mostly because he had no idea what he wanted to study. He applied to 13 or 14 schools, got into some, was turned down by others, and had never heard of Bard when a faculty member suggested he apply. He did, he visited, and he was hooked. He got in.
“I loved all the green here, all the nature,” Ak says. “I remember walking through Olin, and thinking how weird Bard was, and how I loved it. I decided to deposit that day. I did, then got a call at midnight from my mom because the bank told her about the withdrawal. Again, I hadn’t told my parents.”
It has worked out well. Originally an Environmental & Urban Studies major, Ak switched to Economics, then also Literature by his sophomore year, all through consultation with various Bard faculty members. By that time he’d already been a member of the squash team, even though he’d never played squash before, and now he’s hooked on the sport like the rest of his teammates.
Men’s squash has been the one of the most successful varsity programs at Bard during Ak’s time in Annandale, with 31 wins in three seasons.
“We didn’t all come from country clubs where we grew up playing squash,” Ak says. “We were all amateurs, learning the fundamentals of the game, and suffering together for hours at a time. That’s what makes it a team sport.
“Squash is an ungrateful sport, too,” Ak adds. “You can sweat your soul off with effort, but if you don’t have the skill, you’ll just be beating yourself up. In a sport like soccer, you can compensate for some things with effort, but that’s not what squash is. You have to really think about it, and practice … the game punishes you if you hit the ball too hard, for example. It just bounces back to your opponent! You have to play with restraint and patience, and it has taken me forever to learn that.”
He hasn’t had as hard a time in the classroom, with nothing but A’s (and one A-minus) since he arrived. He’s managed his time well, and he does his work.
“The first compromise I made when I got here was I decided that weekends were going to be one day,” Ak says. “The other day I go to the library early and stay until they kick me out. I do my work and that often means I don’t have as much work to do during the week.”
He also decided to limit partying and stay focused on figuring out what his interests are. As he works diligently on these two Senior Projects, he appears headed to a career in cultural criticism or cultural reporting. He is considering Master’s programs at
The New School (Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism) and
NYU (Cultural Reporting & Criticism).
“Something of a journalist, I think,” Ak says. “A public intellectual.”
Or maybe he’ll be a professor.
“Professors have saved my life again and again,” Ak says. “But I can’t think about a Ph.D. right now. There’s just too much going on.”
