HIS 5944 (1/23-1/29/2021)

 

This week shifted the priority of the COVID-19 project towards an administrative focus instead of conducting various amounts of interviews. The process of transitioning has begun to conclude with Mary providing as many interviews as possible that were conducted last semester in the fall. In addition, I have begun to upload my own interviews that I had in my own files that were temporarily lost due to a computer malfunction last semester. The administrative portion of the process consists of documenting and uploading the files while marking them correctly. This includes providing consent forms, cataloguing interviews, and properly placing them in the process. The internship taught me much about archiving and the importance of small details such as dates, names, and other aspects of an interview. It allowed me to understand the immense amount of work outside of the actual interview that has made me appreciate the behind-the-scenes portion of oral history.

While covering the administrative responsibilities of the COVID-19 project, I still conducted interviews this week with students that have shared insightful perspectives about their response to COVID-19. Due to the lecture given at Dr. Murphree’s Native American history class, I was able to get a few students that wanted to share their perspective on COVID-19. One particular student even catching COVID-19 during their studies which has helped me understand the virus from someone directly affected by it. Empathy has been a critical trait to hold during these oral histories. I often read accounts of people going through the virus, yet it always shocks me when I hear the stories told by those that have caught it. Another aspect that has been captured in this collection is the freshman experience from the Fall of 2020 to the Spring of 2021. Freshman students coming to the University of Central Florida often experience a lack of motivation from the transition of high school to college level courses. One interview discussed this trouble and the lack of a good first year experience. This pandemic has robbed freshman of truly experiencing what the college life has to offer by restricting them to the prisons of their dorms or homes.

These perspectives only highlight the importance of the COVID-19 project and capturing these insights that the university students have. Sometimes, I feel the need to switch my thesis to the study of the pandemic’s effects, yet I am still dedicated to the study of digital history. However, I hope that in the future a historian will use this collection to define how Central Florida university students handled the pandemic and inspired hope for those that may live through another pandemic to “charge on.”

My academic endeavors in graduate and undergraduate school have helped me hone my skills to properly address this project. The project has again taught me time management and attention to detail that the history major prepared me for. The internship has also promoted empathy towards those affected by the pandemic. My experience with oral history has been very good and I am confident that in the future, I will be able to transfer these skills I am learning now into future employment.