Item

Jacob Frisch Oral History, 2020/09/19

Media

Title (Dublin Core)

Jacob Frisch Oral History, 2020/09/19

Description (Dublin Core)

I interviewed Jacob Frisch about his experiences from Covid 19 and how it impacted his life.

Recording Date (Dublin Core)

09/19/2020

Creator (Dublin Core)

Jacob Giering
Jacob Frisch

Partner (Dublin Core)

Northeastern University

Type (Dublin Core)

audio

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Education--K12
English Education--Universities
English Government State
English Home & Family Life
English Online Learning

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Northeastern University
New York
testing
prom
graduation
parking lot

Collection (Dublin Core)

Lost Graduations
K-12

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

9/19/20

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

10/29/2020
11/13/2020
11/19/2020
2/3/21
05/23/2022

Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)

Jacob Giering

Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)

Jacob Frisch

Location (Omeka Classic)

Long Island
New York
United States of America

Format (Dublin Core)

MP4 Audio

Language (Dublin Core)

English

Duration (Omeka Classic)

00:06:34

abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)

A Northeastern University student interviews another about the social and personal toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussion includes subjects such as prom, social clubs, school clubs, lost graduation, online school, and working at a grocery store.

Transcription (Omeka Classic)

Jake Giering 00:00
Do you give consent to be interviewed for the COVID-19 archive project? Yes, I do. Could you please state the date and time?

Jacob Frisch 00:08
It is September 19. And the time is 3:07pm.

Jake Giering 00:11
And could you please give your name and where you're from?

Jacob Frisch 00:14
I'm Jacob Frisch and I'm from Long Island, New York.

Jake Giering 00:17
Perfect. So, my first question is How has the pandemic affected your life in general, your school life, your social life?

Jacob Frisch 00:28
The pandemic has affected all aspects of my life, in terms of social life, I couldn't really go out with my friends to restaurants, or eat inside. And I couldn't go to concerts and, and things like that. So, it definitely hurt my social life. But I tried to make the best of it and spend a lot of time with my friends in nature. In terms of school life, I went online after March 9. So there wasn't much school life or clubs or extracurricular activity, but we did the best we could on zoom.

Jake Giering 00:58
How did your teachers transition to online learning? And what did online learning look like for you?

Jacob Frisch 1:04
Yeah, so my school closed down on March 9, once a staff member was infected with covid. And it was it was rough initially, because a lot of my teachers aren't the best with technology. So it was it was very difficult in the beginning, and that it wasn't always working out. But my teachers eventually got the hang of it learned how to use zoom and the websites and it it worked out after a few weeks.

Jake Giering 01:26
Did you have designated zoom meeting times? Or was it more like they gave you assignments? And you just did them?

Jacob Frisch 01:33
Depending on the class, some classes just gave assignments like Jim, because there wasn't really a point to meeting scheduled time. Whereas in Spanish, we always had our first period meeting at 7am.

Jake Giering 01:45
Interesting. What about your extracurricular activities? What did they look like? What were you into? And how are they affected by the pandemic?

Jacob Frisch 01:55
Right? So, I mostly did business clubs, such as Wall Street investors, which is where we did stock simulations, online, and other business clubs. So basically, the club was impacted a lot. And we didn't have the in-person meetings and the the chemistry between people. That was what made the club so great, but we still made the best of it. And we, we still continued with our investment competitions online. And we still had zoom meetings, and like, Did our presentations, but it wasn't the same. And we just made the best of it.

Jake Giering 02:27
How often did you guys meet?

Jacob Frisch 02:29
We usually met every Thursday.

Jake Giering 02:32
Okay, for how long?

Jacob Frisch 02:34
Usually 45 to 45 minutes to an hour.

Jake Giering 02:38
And then your job? How is that impacted if you had one?

Jacob Frisch 02:43
So, I worked at a supermarket named Shoprite. since freshman year of high school, once COVID occurred, my parents did not want me to return to work. So I, I temporarily quit on March 13. And I will hopefully go back for December break.

Jake Giering 02:59
Interesting. And what kind of things did the supermarket do to respond to COVID?

Jacob Frisch 03:07
The supermarket put up plastic screens in between each register, they made a separate line with six feet rules before you could even go on a register. So there was a separate line before each register, and the manager would send you on that line. You one or two people were only allowed on a line at once since they were so far spaced out. And the customers and the cashiers alike had to wear masks and be very respectful and careful of each other.

Jake Giering 03:33
Does the pandemic make you worried or anxious, especially going into college in a city?

Jacob Frisch 03:39
Yeah, I was initially very nervous to come to college because I really didn't know what to expect. And I didn't know how well Northeastern would handle it. But luckily Northeastern has been amazing testing us every three days. And making some designated spaces that we can stay safe and still socialize. I am a little nervous being in a city because it is a big change from being in a suburb dealing with a pandemic. But the only real risk in my mind is taking the train within in the reality of things really isn't that big of a deal still.

Jake Giering 04:07
Yeah. How do you feel about the responses from your home state and the responses on a national and global scale?

Jacob Frisch 04:21
I think initially my state was very, very hit. It was hit very hard. But Governor Cuomo did a great job in taking it under control. And it's not one of the best states. What about the national responses? What do you

Jake Giering 04:34
Think about that?

Jacob Frisch 04:36
I personally think President Trump didn't handle the pandemic as well as he could have. And initially, he didn't even wear a mask until June or July. He was advertising like false or ineffective treatment methods that that put many people's lives in danger. And it wasn't really fair for them to do that. Yeah.

Jake Giering 04:58
What about memorable stories or experiences due to covid good or bad?

Jacob Frisch 05:04
I'd say a good memorable story was that my friends and I used to do a ton of bike rides and jogs in the woods. And we became a lot closer as a result, just having so much time to spend where we weren't just doing homework or studying.


Jake Giering 05:17
And then anything bad?

Jacob Frisch 05:20
Anything bad in terms of what?

Jake Giering 05:23
memorable instances anything specific that happened?

Jacob Frisch 05:27
Yeah, when I found out prom was canceled, I was really, really upset. And I had everything planned out, like the limo, all of that, and all of it got canceled. And another bad thing was when my principal announced what we were doing for graduation, and that we had a graduation in our mall parking lot near the high school. And although, although it was much better than nothing, it was it was still there were still some major flaws with it. And it was definitely an adjustment.

Jake Giering 05:53
Yeah, absolutely.

And then what about the best thing that happened from COVID. And then the worst thing as well.

Jacob Frisch 06:01
I just say the best thing about COVID in general, which is being able to spend more time with friends and family and just like realizing that the little things in life are really what's important and just making the most out of your time with people. And I would just say the worst thing is that, like our senior year, was really impacted as well as our freshman year of college. And just being able to adjust to life without like, the things we were used to is very difficult.

Jake Giering 06:26
Absolutely. Well, thank you very much.

Jacob Frisch 06:29
Thank you.

Item sets

This item was submitted on September 19, 2020 by Jacob Giering using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

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