Part One
https://pace.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=c7b08be0-36cd-4171-ada0-b0ca0154df5b
Part Two
https://pace.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=7df5a218-1f4b-45d8-9d09-b0ca0154df60
Interview with Amy Yarygina, Honors Mentor
Leila: So to start, you’re a commuter, right?
Amy: Yeah I’m a commuter, I commute from Brooklyn.
Leila: Have you been living in New York City your whole life?
Amy: Yes I’ve been living in the same general area in Brooklyn for my entire life yep.
Leila: Um what grade were you or were you in college or high school in 2020 when the pandemic started?
Amy: Um I was in high school so that happened during my Junior year.
Leila: Were you applying to colleges during that time?
Amy: Yes I was applying to colleges, taking the SAT as well, all that.
Leila: Did you find the college application a lot more difficult or what was your experience of that?
Amy: A lot more difficult because I didn’t have the resources I would have in person. Since it was primarily online it was like that period of time where colleges were deciding like should we make the SAT optional or not optional and how should we go about that. Even though the applications were mostly online, it’s still like you were missing out on those in person resources talking to someone in person about it, getting advice from other classmates, it was more like you’re kind of doing it on your own.
Leila: Did you find it harder to um study for the SAT and things like that?
Amy: Uh for the SATs I remember it was probably more harder to study for it, I did use online resources so I had an online tutor instead of an in person tutor so that is definitely a barrier that was a challenge and plus since it was like the very online tutoring, it was kind of more difficult to get academic help that way because in person tutoring is much more better than online tutoring and I can speak of that as being a content tutor and being a tutee as well.
Leila: When did you start tutoring?
Amy: Uh I started tutoring not formally since high school, I believe my freshman or sophomore year, so I would tutor elementary schoolers, and then when I got into college I got into the learning commons, and I’ve been tutoring for them since my freshman year of college, so I believe since second semester, so I tutor a variety of math and science, and I’ve been tutoring yeah since high school and then more formally in college.
Leila: When you were tutoring like in high school or the beginning of college were you tutoring online at all?
Amy: While in high school since it was pre-COVID I was tutoring in person, and then once COVID hit, I still have in person tutees just because it was an elementary schooler, it was my neighbor so it wasn’t really like I needed to go online for it, but then like during COVID they ended up moving so I’ve been tutoring primarily online, I do still have some in person tutees but more so online because COVID really offered a lot of development in technology and like how to use a zoom platform better and everything started bettering after that and I feel like it’s useful to use zoom tutoring but at the same time you’re missing that in person connection.
Leila: Can you describe like your first reaction when you found out that school was going to be canceled or online for the rest of the year?
Amy: Um I felt like kind of like confused because it was the same time that I moved to different apartments as well, so I moved in like beginning of March and then in the middle of it it was like everything started happening so I don’t know how I really felt about it, I felt like school became a lot easier because I had started catching up with my assignments a lot easier, everything was online, but I did feel like going outside was really scary because at the beginning of COVID, not everyone was really aware what was happening, like do we need to wear masks all the time, do we need to wear masks some of the time, like what is the uses of that, and then like everyone was really self-conscious about it, and even like I remember I had people telling me when they get their produce they would like wash it with like dish soap and water at the same time so it was like really interesting of how different like a spectrum of how people would treat COVID and like what’s going on with that.
Leila: What was um did you or your family do any of that like washing fruit and stuff like that?
Amy: Um I don’t think so we really just cleaned the apartment, sanitized, like always make sure to wash your hands when you’re coming back from outside, um we would wear masks all the time and even to a degree of wearing gloves when you’re going to get produce or something like that, but not really washing the produce with like dish soap and stuff like that. But we would like clean the entire apartment more so than pre-COVID.
Leila: When masks became a requirement did you find it difficult? Or was it pretty easy to start wearing masks everywhere?
Amy: I mean it was pretty easy for me, I didn’t have any issues with that, I understood that this needed to be done, but then I became more aware of people who didn’t wear masks or like anti-maskers, I would be like oh what are they doing they aren’t doing it correctly they were seeing it more as like politics involvement rather than like a safety measure. So I became more aware of that, and now I’m not as aware because the mask mandate kind of lifted, well it did lift, and it’s more optional. It’s more of like a courtesy now, if you’re wearing a mask you’re protecting others than yourself so like if you’re sick you wear a mask, I feel like it’s more common now.
Leila: Yeah, did you have similar feelings about the vaccine mandate when it became mandated?
Amy: I just felt like personally I did do the vaccine, I did the first round, the second round, and the third round I want to say like in sophomore year of college, um yeah I felt like it was really easy to follow because it made sense to me to get the vaccine, it made sense for my parents to get the vaccine as well and like everyone around us, but there was some I guess precautions before taking the vaccine like there were things going around like it would mess with your fertility, and that was a big thing going around in my community as well, so like my friends would say oh I’m not getting the vaccine because it messes with your fertility I don’t want that. And then I think that overcame because more studies went into that, and they aren’t really sure what the effects of the vaccine would be because people just started taking it and they need prolonged trials for that to happen to see what the effects of that would be. But yeah I feel like it was really easy for me to follow because understanding like okay this is something I have to do and as a person who studies science it makes sense to do so.
Leila: Did you have any friends who were um against it and did you talk to them about it or did you just like leave them alone?
Amy: I did have friends that were against the vaccine, they told me that they had like COVID antibodies and that because of that they can’t take the vaccine, which didn’t really make sense to me I also had antibodies but I still took the vaccine, so I did have people that were against the vaccine so I tried talking to that person and I really couldn’t get through to that person, and it’s also very hard to have friends that aren’t of similar beliefs and it’s always like you’re getting conflicted when you’re doing that, so I started not to raise the topic so I feel like it’s very hard to change someone’s mind if they’re surround by friends and family that are of similar views.
Leila: There was a lot of misinformation going around, did you ever buy into any of that at all yourself?
Amy: Um I mean for a little bit, but you also have to go into it and research it yourself, I didn’t really have that desire to do so, I mean I was in school, I was dealing with other stuff as well, so I was like okay, I think this is the right thing to do and I’m just going to do it because this is what my family thinks, this is what my friends think, so I didn’t really look in to the research too much, which I think I kind of regret now because I would want to look at the research more so on like the vaccine effects, but yeah I didn’t really look into the research as much.
Leila: As someone in STEM, were you in a lot of lab courses at the time, and were they moved to online?
Amy: Oh yeah I did take AP chem online, I remember taking AP chem online but yeah I missed out on like a lot of the chemistry experiments that would have probably made me better at chemistry because then I had to retake general chemistry I didn’t get the credits for it in high school so I got like a three on the exam, so I retook that general chemistry course in college and I was able to do much much better because I was able to perform the experiments. It became a lot easier especially like that acid-base topic that I was learning in AP chem made no sense, but once I went into the lab I performed the titration I actually was able to see like the endpoint with the indicator and I’m able to do the data myself and like crunch the numbers and do a lab report from it, and then I was able to get a better understanding of it. So like being able to apply what you’re learning in the classroom to a laboratory definitely helps, but in high school I wasn’t able to obviously go into the lab, and I also heard from other classmates that were taking lab courses at Pace University, that they would have like one student at a time go into the laboratory, or like switch I guess or something like that so of course like one person’s getting a good understanding of this topic but the other people in the group don’t. So I feel like there was really a lack of teaching like the experience in high school and college in the lab during COVID.
Leila: How did you feel about your other courses? Did you feel like you still got a good understanding when the classes were on zoom or remote?
Amy: Um I remember I took AP macro during COVID, so I had a good understanding of that because I was able to pass the exam but something like U.S. history that I had to take also, APUS, I didn’t have such a good understanding so it really depended on like the course that I was taking and how like beneficial it was, so I remember I took AP US and macro maybe during COVID I believe, and AP chem, so I feel like I got a good sense of like the course, but again since it was online I feel like a lot of students kind of like relax during that time during covid, and didn’t really delve into the material as they would if it was in person. So like that transition from during COVID to in person learning was huge, it was like a totally different experience.
Leila: What about like the social aspect? How did covid change your social life?
Amy: I became a lot closer to my family since I spent most of the time with them, it was really harder to get out like out with friends and stuff like that I did have a smaller group in high school and I remember I also did dance during high school I was a dancer for 10 years, and I quit during the time of COVID so that was really hard like connecting like you can’t really do dance on zoom, it’s like you have to do it in person and I lost a lot of connections to the people in my dance group because of that as well. I did like hang out try to hang out with them during COVID but again it was difficult.
Leila: Did you um did you ever go back to dance after COVID or did you just quit it after that?
Amy: Um I didn’t go back to dance after COVID it’s more of like I was in college, I have a different workload, I started a job, and I have like both the learning commons tutoring and then like outside tutoring that I do, so I felt like I couldn’t balance that workload and specifically like the courses became a lot harder so I decided not to go back to dance and other like personal reasons.
Leila: When you started college was it in person?
Amy: Uh yes it was in person so I did have bio 101 and chem 101 like in person, it was definitely a really different experience because everyone has to be in masks like especially in freshman year, I remember my bio professor would just call out people like if anyone’s mask lowered she would call you out in the middle of class it was like a two hundred person lecture around that and she would call you out of the middle of the lecture if your mask went a little bit down. So it was interesting like going through because now like not a lot of Pace students wear masks or are wearing masks currently, so it was a different experience like freshman year with the entire class with a mask on because of like the pandemic just being still fresh.
Leila: And how was the transition like from high school to college for you?
Amy: Um the transition I feel like just the class workload was different in high school and college I mentioned that before I believe so like it’s just like harder classes that you’re taking and exams so the midterm and final week for college students is just hell in general, like you’re going through a lot during that time and also like since it was during COVID, like fresh from the pandemic, like being in a room masked but also with a large amount of people and specifically with bio and chem classes where the professor is probably more aware of like what’s going on in like the research along with the pandemic, and my professor just in general being more aware of it because she’s not a professor here in the college anymore, she switched jobs but she had thyroid cancer before like she made that aware to the class and she was like I went through COVID I don’t want to go through it again and she was explaining like her personal background around it. And her research I believe was also heavily involved with COVID as well because she had a microbiology background, so she knew a lot about the topic and was really immersed in the research during that pandemic as well so it was also like a different experience because I mean you’re living through, like you’re taking an intro bio class and you’re living through a pandemic so you’re able to apply like what you’re learning to what you can read about like in a COVID research article or something.
Leila: Did you have any internships or like research opportunities recently?
Amy: I just started getting into research so I’m doing research for analytical chemistry, it’s nothing super crazy it is looking at benzoic acid in energy drinks so not really related to COVID but something more that’s on that spectrum was the research I did my freshman year which was looking for bacteria in dirt, so we took a soil sample and were looking for antibiotic resistance from those antimicrobes in the dirt so I believe that it’s called the Small World Initiative, it’s a project that’s done nationwide and that kind hit close to home because you have viruses like similar to what was going on with the pandemic so we were doing more so like the most deadly pathogens I forgot what they were called there’s like an acronym for it if you search up Small World Initiative. But we were looking for like resistance against those specific pathogens that are considered the most like deadly or lead to nosocomial infections, like infections that are primarily in hospitals right so it was looking more at that.
Leila: That sounds really interesting, if you did it during freshman year was it during COVID?
Amy: It was yeah it was during COVID, like freshman year of my college was during the COVID pandemic still so I did do that my freshman year and now like I believe bio 101 students are doing something with plants which is totally different than what we were doing with the Small World Initiative project, so it was definitely an interesting experience because you were doing something probably similar to what they were doing with COVID to derive a vaccine so yeah.
Leila: If you’re comfortable talking about it, um how do you feel that COVID affected your mental health?
Amy: Um I think I was I don’t know more isolated, I wouldn’t say like I had gone through depression during that time I don’t think I would label it like that, but I was definitely more isolated I felt like I wasn’t communicating with people as much as I should. Yeah I believe just like a more isolated feeling that I was going through during that time, also like I wasn’t able to be on dance anymore which was also a huge part of my life so I felt like that was like a missing piece for me so you know I wasn’t exercising as much so I feel like that kind of took a toll on me as well since I was used to being an active person ever since like elementary school to high school I was always like being active so I think COVID really took a hit on that part of my life.
Leila: Were there any aspects of remote learning or just about the pandemic that like you preferred to like being in person?
Amy: I like that the assignments were more virtual so I was able to do my assignments virtually rather than in person I think that was pleasant, I don’t know about the zoom options that I liked for the teaching specifically because even now in college if my professor decides to do zoom for some reason like I feel like the professor is more relaxed and not like really too involved in the presentation that’s going on, so I think that as well had an effect on my learning experience. Um I don’t know if there’s anything I really like. I mean like being at home because you don’t have to commute, because now I have to commute like an hour there an hour back but I feel like in person experiences are much more better than virtual experiences.
Leila: Yeah. Did you um can you talk about how in Brooklyn or if you went to Manhattan or the other burrows if the city changed at all during COVID?
Amy: Um a lot less people I feel like were outside and if you saw people outside it was usually like in masks and gloves, and a lot less people in general because I remember I would go get produce during COVID and a street that was primarily really busy like now it’s really busy, during COVID it was particularly like empty not a lot of people would go outside, and especially like I live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of elderly people as well and I also didn’t see a lot of elderly people outside so yeah people were a lot more isolated. But now since like COVID is not done with but contained I would say, a lot more people have been coming outside, and like I’m able to see there’s like elderly people and they’re able to like participate in social activities and like hang out with each other without having a fear of getting COVID because they’re probably vaccinated.
Leila: I know you talked about dance, did you have any other like extracurricular activities or plans that COVID affected?
Amy: Um I don’t think so I mean I didn’t really participate in too many extracurricular activities in high school but in college I did participate in the Honors Advisory Board and I did do that my freshman year so it was during COVID as well. I remember they’d want to like have smaller groups of people for the events, and they wanted to do something more outdoors rather than indoors during COVID so I remember the honors college would do smaller events ,most of them probably would be outdoors, so I remember that and they had less events because now like I see like there’s like a lot more honors college events going on but before like when I was participating in the Honors Advisory Board there weren’t as many events I think they even skipped like the Pacegiving that recently happened, I think they skipped that during COVID but yeah a lot less people and a lot less events.
Leila: Going back to college applications, were you able to visit any campuses during the pandemic?
Amy: I was able to visit campuses I believe in high school I visited Colombia, but I don’t remember visiting anything else other than that I didn’t really visit a lot of campuses. I think I only visited Colombia since my friend visited that campus and then I tagged along, but yeah I didn’t visit a lot of colleges because of that.
Leila: When you were applying to colleges did you apply the lot or just like New York area?
Amy: I applied to the Boston area and the New York area, but yeah I didn’t get into any colleges in the Boston area but I got into colleges in New York area and then I chose Pace.
Leila: Why did you choose Pace?
Amy: Just money wise because they were able to provide the most scholarship for me so that’s why.
Leila: Do you think that COVID or the whole pandemic has affected your career goals at all?
Amy: Um I would say not really because I did know like I wanted to try to go for premed, but I don’t think it had a huge effect on like what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to go into either like do premed and maybe do like research as well and like teaching so I don’t think it really changed my path too much, I feel like the college experience changed my path because I was a bio major and then I wasn’t really sure if I could like handle doing chemistry since I believed it was a harder major and then like I ended up switching to biochem during like my freshman year but I don’t think COVID really had an effect to like what I wanted to do, even though like I did have a not so great experience in AP chem since it was virtual during the pandemic I still managed to somehow get back to chem.
Leila: Do you know what specialty you want to go into at all?
Amy: I’m interested in endocrinology so that, maybe pathology as well, something more of like with a chem-based aspect so I think like that would be a good specialty for me but I haven’t like decided fully I’m just trying to get good grades on my courses and then apply to Med school and see where it goes from there.
Leila: Um you’re taking a medical assistant course right now right?
Amy: Yeah.
Leila: Can you talk a little bit about that?
Amy: So I took the medical terminology course over the summer and right now I’m working through the medical assistant course so I did that to get some clinical experience so that I could apply to med school later on, yeah. Is there anything specific you want to know about the course?
Leila: Are you in the course right now or you’re working already?
Amy: Yeah I’m in the course right now it is virtual so I guess that’s also like a part of like what happened like an aftermath of COVID, so I decided to take it it’s fully virtual asynchronous so I do it at my own pace so yeah.
Leila: Do you have like patient simulations or anything like that online?
Amy: I haven’t gotten too much into it since I’m taking it at the same time as I’m taking my courses, but it’s more you’re watching videos about like virtual experiences. There is a phlebotomy part of it which I didn’t get to and I’m interested in how they would teach that virtually so I’m not entirely sure about like that part because it seems like more something you would do in person rather than through a video, so I probably would take an additional phlebotomy course if I’m interested in like taking blood like in person rather than someone doing it online I feel like that would be not super beneficial for what I’m trying to do.
Leila: Once you get certified are you planning to work um while you’re in school?
Amy: Uh not during school, I would plan to work during the summer so debating on like whether I should take the phlebotomy course or not I would work during my summer, so next summer and then I’m planning to take a gap year after college so I would work as a medical assistant during that time while taking like MCAT courses.
Leila: As a junior are you thinking about medical school right now or thinking about where you want to apply?
Amy: I have like schools that I want to apply to but I haven’t really started focusing in on the application since I am taking a gap year, so I’m like not doing that right now I know during junior year like people who don’t take a gap year are like trying to figure out application processes right now so I haven’t done that yet.
Leila: Do you think that the courses that you did take online in high school, do you think they adequately prepared you for higher level classes now?
Amy: I don’t think so, I think I would have gotten a different experience if I was in person. Those AP courses that I took, I took AP macro, APUS, AP chem, and I think I also took not an AP class but it was a college course so like a college now course so if you’re like familiar with that they have it across like New York high school so you take a college now course so I did that for psych credits, I definitely think I didn’t get as good of an experience as I would have if it would be in person so I don’t think it was at that rigorous level because I think like the teachers understood that we were taking the course online so we weren’t, I want to say like learning as much as we should have, and we weren’t able to get through like as much as the content because I remember like AP chem was more like she would break us up into break rooms and we would work on this time together but yeah people didn’t have their cameras on, like we don’t know like who was doing the work who was not doing the work, and yeah it was really difficult to like build on to ideas and yeah.
Leila: Were you in like any group projects or did you collaborate with other students at all during COVID and how did that go?
Amy: Yes I believe so, so probably like as I was saying for AP chem she would make us work on problems together, a lot more difficult because some people have bad connection right or like some people that didn’t turn on their cameras, it was really difficult to like work together as like right now like everything would be in person so it’s much easier to say like hey like let’s work on this together and like use a whiteboard or meet like on a Saturday or on a Sunday and like we can work through this project together, or like even now I had to do a computational project for P chem so like I feel like doing that virtually would be impossible, and like having the professor there and him directly showing like what I need to do for the computational optimization or whatever I’m trying to do in person is so much better than it would be like virtual, and it also depends on the professors’ and teachers’ capabilities of using zoom, because there were some teachers in high school that were like a bit older and weren’t really involved in technology so they didn’t know really how to use zoom that well or use a zoom platform, and even like teachers that were like in their 30s who were like exposed to technology still like zoom was a new platform so they weren’t really like able to get it as quickly as the students so it was like a lot of students trying to help teachers so I remember that during high school. I also wanted to speak about this probably relates more to your project I did volunteering online for a virtual senior center, I’m not sure if I mentioned that, I did courses for technology. So there’s a lot of seniors during COVID that became more isolated and weren’t able to communicate with each other in person, they started to rely more on emailing and zoom platforms so I volunteered for the virtual senior center where I would teach a course fully in Russian how to use Gmail, how to use zoom, how to use Facebook, Instagram, so they would start to like get more into technology and I believe the center was open to all seniors but then they did have like a Holocaust survivor program as well I want to say, so yeah I was able to teach like courses online like how to use zoom, how to use like different online platforms, or like how to find Russian movies. So it was really an experience I wouldn’t get if COVID wouldn’t happen because I believe seniors wouldn’t really want to use technology as much, maybe they would but like not as much as if COVID happened.
Leila: When you were teaching that did you record videos or like teach on zoom?
Amy: It was like a zoom meeting like this and it was recorded so they could play it back like if they needed to rewatch it for a certain part they would play it back. So I would have presentations and we would go through it so they’d have access to the presentation and to the video as well.
Leila: Were you able to interact with them a lot or was it kind of just like they were listening?
Amy: Oh no they were really interactive they loved the meetings, they like any communication that they were able to get because some of them were a little bit older so they weren’t able to like physically go outside so they love the interaction. Like even at the beginning of the lesson when I was still waiting for people to arrive they would start talking about different topics or they would talk about me and they would ask like what I was doing and everything, so it was like a really great experience overall.
Leila: And um how did the pandemic change like your daily routine?
Amy: Um pandemic during high school like when it first started I feel like it changed my routine because I stayed home more, so like I wouldn’t really like go anywhere or do anything outside of school really because like hanging out with friends became more harder, but I feel like as the pandemic started to become contained I was able to go back to a more social routine and I noticed like after the pandemic I became much more social in college and that could be an effect of like me not having enough social interaction in high school.
Leila: Did you have a lot of friends who were also like premed or in stem?
Amy: In high school or in College?
Leila: In high school.
Amy: In high school not really because I was in the premed program and science program in high school, but a lot of students I interacted with were in the humanities so no I didn’t have a lot of like stem friends I would say.
Leila: So when you were applying to colleges, if you were applying like specifically for stem did you find the resources online to know how to do that?
Amy: I probably did, I can’t really remember specifically too much but I probably did. I asked like probably friends of relatives or something like that because I wasn’t really sure what to do, so my sister’s best friend he also went to Pace he was I believe a chem major, he now is like a doctor of pharmacy at Coney Island Hospital so I remember I asked him if I should be a bio major should I be a chem major like how my career path should look like. So I probably got more knowledge from relatives and friends of relatives rather than friends from high school because I don’t think they were on the same path as I was.
Leila: Alright do you think the experiences of remote learning and how people taught during remote learning will have a lasting effect on how people teach in the future?
Amy: I think it will because everyone started depending on technology a lot more nowadays, like even for my physical chemistry course I know Pleasantville is doing in person experiments, however the physical chemistry course that I’m taking right now more focuses on computational projects so projects on the computer, and like science in general has started to like people started working more on computers now because the programs that are on there are able to capture like effects that would happen in person. So even for like my future biochemistry course I talked to my professor and he said that we’re using an online platform that someone created for biochemistry and for learning, so it definitely has changed and even like the professor I work more closely with, Professor Chang, his general chemistry course that I do imbedded tutoring for stuck to like you watch a video at home that he prepared during COVID and then you come into class and do like a flipped classroom, so you’re doing a worksheet, and he’s doing the same as he as he’s doing for biochem where people are watching a video working more with like online rather than in person material. So yeah like not paper material but more online material that’s what I meant to say.
Leila: Have you used Labster or any other like lab simulations during or after COVID?
Amy: I think definitely like before COVID, not before COVID, but in high school I think I used online simulations. I remember my physics professor at Pace he still uses online simulations from Boston University that he has for our lab time at Pace and he said I think the online version, like what I have for online lab is better than what in person lab would be because maybe like some of the experiments wouldn’t work out perfectly because Pace doesn’t have materials for it unfortunately, so he said like online works better so we’ll do it online. So I feel like we shifted to hybrid for stem, that like sometimes the online version works better than the in person version so professors have really switched to hybrid learning.
Leila: When you were applying to colleges and you needed letters of recommendation was it difficult to find teachers since it was online?
Amy: I think it was a little bit more difficult I think to my best knowledge I asked my AP chem professor, but again I wasn’t really super close with her so again it was probably harder, but yeah it was harder to build a connection with professors. I was able to build a connection with my biology professor because I did um I forgot what it’s called like I helped him like read quizzes and stuff like that, probably like a student assistant so I was a student assistant for him so I was able to get a better letter of recommendation for him and it was easier to ask him since I was closer to him. But yeah it was harder to get letters of recommendations because you weren’t able to build relationships with your professors during COVID. Like now my relationships with my professors in college is like way better than in high school, like I’m able to talk to my professor about the material or like what they’re doing this weekend so it’s way better than the high school experience.
Leila: And this your first year being an honors mentor?
Amy: This is my second year being an honors mentor.
Leila: So was it always, like towards the beginning of last year was it any more difficult at all? I know we were in person but there was still a lot of people masking and stuff like that.
Amy: I think the honors mentoring program last year was like, it was still COVID but I felt like it was a little bit harder to connect to my mentees because not everyone wanted to meet in person because maybe they took online courses or commuted, but I feel like in general it has the same vibe for mentoring because like everyone is pretty busy so I try to send out the monthly emails on time and then like if you want to reply you can reply, if you don’t want to reply that’s also cool. Like the mentoring program is more of what you want to get out of it it’s not like Mohini is not trying to force relationships you know.
Leila: And do you know if the mentor program was always as online as it is now? Like it’s a lot based on emails and online communication.
Amy: Probably because when I was a mentee rather than a mentor my mentor connected to me mostly over text or over emails, it was never like in person like I was able to see her because we worked at the learning commons together and if I had a question I would ask her, but it was online mostly it was emails probably because of COVID, I think the mentoring program before maybe it was that like more in person rather than virtual but now I feel like it’s like 75% virtual and 25% like in person maybe even less because I rarely met my mentees last semester and like last year when I did the mentoring and this semester as well, some of them just ended up being in the same gen chem class that I do imbedded tutoring for so that’s why I’m able to connect with them, but yeah.
Leila: I know they have a lot of mentor meet up events, was that still true when you were a mentee?
Amy: I don’t think so when I was a mentee they didn’t have mentor meet up, events probably because of COVID, probably because it was still like they didn’t have a lot of events in general. As I was mentioning before I was in Honors Advisory and we didn’t have too many events, and they wanted to minimize the amount of people that would go to it because again like regulation-wise. Um now they’re starting to do more monthly meetups, I don’t know how effective it is, I haven’t been going to them just because of my schedule. I’m usually either working when I’m in Pace or I’m commuting to go home to then work, so yeah.
Leila: And what do you do for work right now?
Amy: Uh so I’m a learning commons tutor so I do science and math there, I also private tutor for students, yeah five students so four of them are like elementary school or middle schoolers just from my community, like I was able to find them and then the fifth student is an orgo student so I was helping them out.
Leila: Is all that tutoring in person now?
Amy: Just because like two of my elementary schoolers, elementary school and middle school, they live in Pennsylvania so they can’t come in person but they still want to work with me so I do virtual with them. But then the other two students, one of them is elementary school the other is middle school, they primarily come in person just because it’s better to do in person tutoring rather than remote tutoring it’s very hard because like they’re younger, they get distracted so so easily, so it’s really difficult to have a zoom meeting because they want to show me their cat, or like they want to show me like a music video or something like that, and it’s so like distracting like I feel like in person it’s better that way, and yeah and then like for the older college students they also prefer in person rather than virtual which is interesting, just because like they learn better in person and I feel like that’s the general consensus that like a lot of the high school students and older students like college students. Because doing orgo virtually, yes you can do it but it’s easier to have someone do it in right in front of you so yeah.
Leila: Do you have any strategies that you use for teaching virtually like for showing how to do problems or keeping people focused?
Amy: Usually like I have notability on my iPad I’m able to connect it and they like visually see me writing everything down, so we do that and then just to like engage the younger students we do a booklet so that’s like online platforms have really like started becoming better, like online games because before like I remember like even when I was in high school like jeopardy was a thing but now there’s like booklet and jeopardy and I want to say Facta, I don’t know, but there’s like a lot of stuff out there and virtual learning experiences have become better because of that, because more people are investing their time into creating apps and creating websites that are virtual because of the pandemic.
Leila: During remote learning did you have any difficulties with yourself staying focused or like difficulties with motivation or anything like that?
Amy: I think I was even more motivated because I was getting my work done more efficiently, I had more time to do that and I was like I have nothing else to do so might as well. So I think like I was able to stay motivated, but yet again like I’ve heard experiences from other people like it was probably difficult to like stay motivated during that time because you have so much to do at home like why should you be doing homework when you can play video games or I don’t know sleep, so yeah it’s a different experience. From my experience I think I was more motivated during the pandemic in high school.
Leila: Did you was it more difficult like to network during like end of high school beginning of college for you because of COVID?
Amy: Definitely, as I said like once you transition to college and like my freshman year, sophomore year, like I was able to make more connections but in high school I didn’t have many connections just because that like middle of the year, like middle of my junior year, everything started becoming virtual so I think it was definitely harder to make connections like professional connections and personal connections, but in college it started to become way easier. As I mentioned before like my connections with my professors right now are way better than my connections with teachers in high school.
Leila: How’s your experience of graduation, like the ceremony was it virtual?
Amy: I think it was in person but they called like groups at a time and they’re like if you don’t want to go we could send you your high school diploma, they can mail it to you. I didn’t go I just had it mailed, I didn’t see a point of going in groups because like I wouldn’t see my friends because I don’t think anyone has the last name like Y that I was friends with, so I was like doesn’t even like matter. So yeah the graduation experience, like my sister also is ten years older than me, her graduation experience for high school was way different than my graduation in high school so like seeing that perspective like she was able to go to a graduation and I wasn’t, like it was my own choice but at the same time I feel like if I did decide to go it wouldn’t be the same experience as a normal high school graduation would be.
Leila: So that’s pretty much all the questions I have unless there’s anything else you want to talk about?
Amy: No, if you have any other questions you can email me, I wish you luck with your project!
Leila: Thank you!
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