Press Releases

May 10, 2002
Stay-at-home Southampton College Student Sees the World

Contact:
Jane Finalborgo (PR@southampton.liu.edu)
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

Southampton native Peter Topping stayed home to go to college but ended up going away.

The 22-year-old Southampton College senior took advantage of so many of the College's hands-on learing opportunities that he spent half of his sophmore and junior years in other countries. In his four years as an undergraduate, he tracked sea turtles in Costa Rica, went SCUBA diving off the South Pacific Island of Tonga, studied the rain forest in Australia, and took a 3,000 mile sailing trip up the East Coast of the United States.

He is scheduled to graduate magna cum laude on May 19th with a degree in Marine Science Biology, and if all goes as planned, his next stop will be the Galapagos Islands where he plans to study and explore before applying to graduate schools.

Topping made the decision to live at home and attend Southampton College in part because of the school's outstanding programs in marine and environmental science--fields that have always interested him. His mother, Mary Topping, is the College's Director of Athletics, so staying home meant that he could also take advantage of the tuition remission program. He was a little disappointed about missing the opportunity to go away to college as many of his friends did. But it didn't take him long to make up for it.

During the school's January "Intersession" of his freshman year he traveled with a group of students and a professor to Costa Rica to monitor the nests of the endangered leatherback sea turtle. At a national park there, the group stayed up nights to patrol the beaches, counting eggs, marking nests, and tagging the turtles.

In his sophmomore year he entrolled in the College's four-credit travel course "Tropical Marine Biology" and spent the month of January studying with other students and professors in the crystal clear waters of the South Pacific on the Kingdom of Tonga and the island of Niue. From there he went on to "SEAmester," a nine-week voyage on board the 125-foot schooner "Spirit of Massachusetts" in which students take a full semester of work while crewing the ship.

Spring semester of juior year found Topping in Australia on the College's "Spring in Australia" program based in Byron Bay. Students in the program spend a full semester studying the environment of Australia through lectures, field trips, hands-on and independent research experience, travel, and involvement with organizations active in environmental protection.

By senior year, Topping had to stay closer to home in order to finish the rigorous lab and classroom assignments required for a marine science degree. But he took an independent backpacking and surfing trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica during winter break.

Topping said his travel experiences gave him perspective, both on different cultures and on different environments. "I was able to see different countries, their policies and problems and how that parallels our own. I also saw and studied different ecosystems--things I had only been able to look at in text books."

Did he miss going away to college? "Overall it was a good experience, one I wouldn't have traded," he said of his "stay at home" college career. An avid outdoorsman, Topping admitted that the time he spent in his seaside hometown on eastern Long Island was nothing to complain about. "I love the area. Southampton is a place where I can surf and fish and enjoy the outdoors." This week Topping learned that he is the recipient of a $4,000 Evan Frankel Scholarship given to outstanding marine science students.

Topping will join 325 graduates on Sunday May 19 in Southampton College's outdoor commencement ceremonies beginning at 2 p.m.