Trinity's location in the capital city of Hartford provides an abundance of opportunities for learning, for career exploration, and for cultural growth. The College has a rich and wide network of connections with Hartford. Our faculty members routinely involve students in class projects that take advantage of the College's special relationship to its "hometown." Students have sat in on legislative meetings at the State House, followed the courtroom drama of important legal proceedings and judiciary decisions, and worked with a wide range of community agenicies and discovered the real-world applications of classroom learning.

Trinity also has a wealth of internship opportunities in which students can explore their career interests and make both important decisions for themselves and real contributions to corporate, professional, and non-profit institutions.

Hartford is home to many wonderful cultural institutions, and Trinity students can refresh themselves from their studies or become actively involved in their operation -- docenting at the new Old State House, acting in plays, leading tours at the Atheneum, or conducting important research at Nook Farm.

Perhaps most importantly, Trinity's connections to Hartford represent excellent preparation for life after college: In contemporary America, more than 4 out of 5 college graduates work in a city.

In the remainder of this webpage, you can meet Trinity students whose lives and learning have been enriched by the College's historic connections to Hartford. You'll see why we say that a Trinity education challenges students to make a difference on campus, in our city, and in the world.

Trinity: The College in the City

Since its beginnings, Hartford has attracted people with dreams. People like its founder, the utopian Thomas Hooker. People with something to say, like Mark Twain (left) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (right). People with something to give, like Thomas Gallaudet, founder of the nation's first college for the deaf. People bent on invention, like manufacturer Samuel Colt. People bound for success, like financier J.P. Morgan.

Today, Hartford still attracts people who want to leave their mark. Students like you in search of their place in the world. Students who think a college in the city is the place to start.

Education may begin in the classroom... but at Trinity it is not confined there. Surrounding our 100-acre campus lies a world of opportunity. Greater Hartford, population 822,000, is an education in itself, infinite in its combinations of achievement and struggle, happiness and misfortune.

"Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a part of it," Mark Twain said of education and training. "But ... I mean all the outside influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands association. It is his human environment which influences his mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on his road and keeps him in it."

In the remainder of this webpage, meet some students whose associations in Hartford have started them on the road to lifelong learning and to a lifetime of achievement and reward.

For Erik Eigenbrod, Hartford was a capital investment in the future.

On the original site of Trinity College sits the Connecticut State Capitol, a grand, Gothic edifice topped with a lustrous gold dome. Its polished granite columns, stained glass windows, and hand-stenciled atrium ceilings were the classroom for Erik Eigenbrod, a student of public policy taking part in Trinity's unique City Term. One of his associates was Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's Attorney General.

Part of Erik's experience was hearing Mr. Blumenthal argue the constitutionality of welfare rights before the Connecticut Supreme Court. "Before the case, I researched the question of whether there is a constitutional right to welfare in the state of Connecticut," said Erik, whose minor is legal studies.

"What attracted me to Trinity were the opportunities in Hartford, especially the opportunities for internships," he said."And I've seen the benefits in my job interviews. If you have significant work experience, it is definitely a bonus in landing a job or getting a call-back interview."

The payoff for Erik's capital investment: A job with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City.

Building bridges between Trinity and its neighbors

Sharon Fernandes is a bridge builder. Sharon, a community activist,is bridging the gap between the Trinity College community and surrounding neighborhoods.

Through L.E.A.P. (Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership for Hartford Youth), Sharon works with young girls who live nearby in the Charter Oak Terrace housing project. "They are the children that America has forgotten," she says, "children trapped in their environment. Kids at Charter Oak don't realize there's another world out there, and some students at Trinity have the same outlook. I have a mission to raise people's consciousness."

Sharon also put her ideals to work as a child advocate at Interval House, a shelter for battered women and children, an experience that sharpened her desire to become a child advocacy lawyer.

While working at the YMCA Youth Emergency Shelter, she met an 11-year old boy who she says left an indelible impression on her with his hopefulness and resiliency. "He would tell me stories about how his mom would tell him he was good for nothing, yet he would write the most evocative poems," she recalled. "Instead of being drained, he was so vibrant and charismatic. I'll never forget him." And Sharon wants to make sure the rest of us don't either.

When you get here, there's plenty of here here.

Of one American city, novelist Gertrude Stein wrote, "When you get there, there isn't any there there."

Not so with Hartford. The crossroads of Connecticut, Hartford is the state capital, a center of banking and insurance, headquarters for industry, artistic center, historical repository, cultural vanguard.

Working through Trinity's Hillel and the Jewish Resource Council, freshman Liz Freirich found Hartford to be the perfect setting for nourishing her Jewish ideals and building bridges between diverse cultures.

"I've had the benefit of working with Jewish men and women on a variety of projects, including a summer jazz concert between the black and Jewish communities," said Liz. "These are the kind of committed people I've been running into all year in Hartford, people who've said, 'Come on, there's more to see.' "

Mauricio Zelaya agrees. "Coming from L.A., I was used to having unlimited social and cultural opportunities. In Hartford, I've gone to see Broadway shows at the Bushnell Theater. The Hartford Stage has fantastic plays and dance recitals. I've attended concerts and watched professional hockey and basketball at the Civic Center. There are numerous restaurants where you can relax with friends and have a good dinner.

Last summer, I saw James Taylor and Hootie and the Blowfish at the Meadows, a new indoor/outdoor music theater. "I feel very happy with my decision to come to Hartford and attend Trinity."

The past is prologue for Sara Farnum and Sanny Burnham

Sitting in the basement of the Stowe-Day Foundation, poring over original letters written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister Catherine, Sara Farnum (pictured left) discovered something about herself. "I found I had an interest in museum studies," said Sara.

As part of her studies with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Trinity professor Joan Hedrick, Sara worked at the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, the place where Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, the novel that changed forever our notions of race in America.

"It was amazing to hold the actual letters written by the Beechers in my hands. It really took me back in time."

Sara researched the influence of Catherine Beecher on the education of women in America. "I wouldn't say she was a feminist, but she had her own ideas on how women needed to be educated."

Senior Sanny Burnham worked next door at the Mark Twain House, where Samuel Clemens penned Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

"Working there was the perfect combination of all my interests," said Sanny. An English major, Sanny also has an interest in architecture and architectural history.

"The Mark Twain house was perfect. It is studied as one of the greatest 19th-century high-Victorian Gothic homes, and real English literature was written there.