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Collected Item: “Jared Walpurgis Oral History, 2020/09/19”

Give your story a title.

University Life Interview

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Personal Interview

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

Despite this assignment being for University students, most American’s do not know the realities that students now face during the pandemic; even myself, who is working full-time from my childhood home while taking this course. I can skip Northeastern’s Covid-19 updates and I am completely ignorant of the protocols that on-campus students have to remember everyday, and the consequences that they face if they do not. I didn’t know that NEU had tents set up for outdoor gathering or studying, or that roommate quotas in on-campus housing has remained the same despite social distancing protocols. I hope this interview shows a glimpse of university life and the students sentiment towards university decisions, such as NEU’s very public and controversial suspension of 11 freshman without a refund, as it is not the norm for all of us.

That’s why it was a pleasure in getting this insight from Jared, a third year Asian studies major. We learned the most before the recording, by simply getting to know how the coronavirus has impacted our location, surroundings, and day-to-day life. This introduction went well, because it set us up for asking more targeted questions with a storyline during the interview. I especially appreciated Jared’s conversational tone, as it felt more like a re-do of our first conversation than a formal one. I liked being the interviewee for this reason, as it took the pressure off having to keep a natural discussion going. Our interviews went over the time limit, mostly because we were both invested in answering each question thoroughly and thoughtfully, and we realized it would have been very difficult to gain the insight that we had without doing so. However, maybe with some more practice we could have been more succinct.

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Kasia and Jared

Give this story a date.

2020-09-19
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