pt.2 Initial Interviews

Each member of our group conducted an interview and wrote a summary of our findings.

Summary and Results

Interview #1

The first interviewee is a student living on campus and in his fourth year at CSUMB , currently a business major. Some of the main activities and events he enjoys are comedy events and events with food. When asking about the outdoor adventure club, he was not really sure what that was. He assumed it was a club on campus but never really heard much about them. However he does like doing outdoor activities with friends and family. Some of his outdoor adventures include hiking all around Monterey, sea kayaking near Del Monte beach and biking on trails. As far as his attitude for socializing with other students, it was neutral. He does not feel isolated from students since he usually keeps to himself anyways and he does not find social events interesting enough to attend. For the topic of aptitudes, it is not easy for him to meet students from other majors since he is a senior in upper division classes.The interviewee tends to gravitate towards the people he already knows and has little motivation to meet others. In addition, for his BUS 484 Advanced Accounting class there is no tutor. This is a challenge since the class is difficult and the homework is hard to complete for him. When asked about difficulty socializing with people living in different housing he mentioned it is not difficult because his friends live on campus and are a ten minute walk away. When discussing about the topic of skill, I asked, “Does commuting or work schedules get in the way of meeting for group projects?” His response was that it’s not so much the people who live on off campus but it really is difficult to work with those with busy schedules and it takes skill to work out times to meet and finish projects. The interview lasted ten minutes. I was able to gain insight on why students may not to attend social events which may be due to the fact that when you’re a senior you tend stick to the people that you already know, causing a lack of motivation to meet people. Furthermore, the new classes at CSUMB do not have TA’s therefore classes can be challenging since students can not get outside help. During this interview I also realized the amount of outdoor activities in Monterey such as kayaking and hiking, however there maybe a lack of awareness of these outdoor adventures.

Interview #2

The second interview was conducted on the second floor of the BIT building in the old game research lab. His name is Manuel Gonzalez, and he is a computer science student. The setting was very relaxed, and after I asked permission to conduct an interview, we dove right in. I found out that Manuel hasn’t gone to any social events on campus, being a pretty anti social person. He has not gone on any outdoor adventures with the on campus club, but rather goes on his own to the beach, or to Big Sur to hike. Concerning his feeling about commuting to school, I found out he wouldn’t mind having someone to commute with to laugh and joke with, because the drive can be a bit lonesome. When I asked about it being difficult to socialize with people from other majors, he said yes, because the only people he knew from other majors were business majors, since they took classes in the BIT building, where the CS classes are. He mentioned he did not need a tutor, and that without tutors he is a B average student. We discussed how difficult it was to socialize with students who live in different housing then him, and he said very. This was mainly because he does not live on campus, and therefore the only chance he gets to hangout with people is when he is on campus. Since he does not live on campus, we talked about if it is difficult to to study on campus, or attend group projects, and he said it is not because of there being time before or after the class to work on things. There could be follow on research to be done about how far his commute is, and specific outdoor activities that he would like to do with other students if he had the chance.

Interview #3

The third interview was conducted at Pete’s located in the library. She is a business major on her second year at CSUMB. This student commutes to school three days out of the week. When asked about social events around school she stated she has not attended to any of them in her two years at CSUMB. She did state that she would like to join other like minded students in hiking activities but she finds it difficult to make time in her schedule that also coincides with the schedule of the other students. When asked what other outdoor activities does she enjoys, she did say she really enjoys playing softball but her schedule of classes does not allow her to join the CSUMB softball team. When asked if she would like to join the team she showed no motivation to join because she prefers to just focus on her school work and not add another factor of stress to her life. She also does not show much motivation to go out of her way to meet other students from other majors, she mostly prefers to keep to herself and hangout with a few close friends. As far as tutoring goes she has not had the need to get a tutor yet because she is confident in figuring out stuff on her own. When I asked her about group projects and meeting with other students she did state it was more difficult for her to stay on campus for a later time or earlier depending on the time. On top of that since she lives an hour away from campus she would have to plan ahead to meet students for group work because she would be spending one hour on the car just to get to her destination. To sum up the whole interview this student is aware of clubs and sports teams that the campus offers but does not have the time or motivation to join said clubs.

Interview #4

The third interview was conducted in the BIT building on the second floor at the tables near the offices. Will is a fourth year Cinematic Arts major. Will commutes to campus four times a week and has classes every day except Fridays. He usually doesn’t enjoy social events and especially events that take place outdoors. Will isn’t exactly social but he did bring up that he is interested in meeting new people in and outside of his major. Since he will be graduating in the Spring of 2018, he feels that he should have already met friends from in his major and believe he is too set in his ways to branch out. He doesn’t enjoy being on campus “more than he has to” which means longer than class hours. Will lives in San Jose so he hates thinking of his commute and would rather rush back to San Jose before hitting traffic. Because he rather go home as soon as possible, he doesn’t use on campus resources that may be useful for him, such as tutoring. Will ultimately believes that if he lived on campus or at least closer to campus, he would be more social with his peers and probably study more in the library or use resources on campus. Overall, it was clear that not all students want to be very social but essentially blame having to commute being the reason why he isn’t more social or at least motivated to be.