At Auburn University, we spoke with Mary-Ann, a student taking summer courses.
A printable version of the following can be found
here.
June 13th, 2005
"So we're here in Auburn with--"
"Mary-Ann."
"With Mary-Ann."
"And I guess we'd like to first ask you where you come from?"
"I'm coming from Duluth, Georgia--right outside of Atlanta."
"How long have you been at Auburn?"
"This is my 2nd year at Auburn."
"Are you having a good time?"
"I love it. I wouldn't change it for anything."
"Yeah? Why do you like Auburn?"
"It's such a big school with the football team and everything, but it's still like a small town: everywhere you go you see somebody you know, there's always something to do and you can always get away from stuff if you need to study or do whatever."
"How many people live in Auburn--as well as how big is the school?"
"I don't know how big the city is; the school has about 23,000."
"Now is that the size of school that you wanted?"
"Um, actually I looked at a school with like 7,000 and I went out and paid a visit and I just couldn't be in such a small place, um, and I didn't want to go to the University of Georgia because it was like 35,000 so, um, I just like the way it's set up and the amount of people here."
"Now when you came here did you ever live away from home before?"
"Um, actually, I was an exchange student in Holland for 6 months my junior year of high school so I kinda knew what it was like to be away from home."
"And do you enjoy it or--"
"No, I like it. Um, I really close to my family but I do like being away from home. Um, I do go home a good bit 'cause I'm only 2 hours [away], but, uh, I still like being here and I like the convenience of being able to go home if I need to."
"Uh, what are you studying?"
"Right now I'm liberal arts undeclared. I'm probably going towards communications or public relations--somewhere in that area--I don't really know what I wanna do [laughs]."
"What in those areas interest you?"
"Well, I really like--in high school I did a bunch of radio-televsion-film stuff, but the school here for that isn't that great--from what I hear, but, um, I really--I have no idea what I wanna do. I don't know."
"Just like us, really--kinda why we're doing this. Well, all right, what do you do here to enjoy yourself? How do you spend your time--other than studying?"
"Um, well--I don't really study that much. I should probaby study more, but I go out with my friends--we have like a couple bars here on the corner: Toomer's corner and some down Blocker Road--I go to the bars or I just go hang out at the pool or, um, go to fraternity houses for their parties. Um, and I'm in a sorority so we do a lot of social stuff."
"And you like the social life?"
"I do like the social life. It's enough to have something to do all the time but also be able to get away form it if you need to."
"So why are you staying around for the summer?"
"Because I'm really far behind on my classes and I need to catch up. So, I'm here catching up on some hours and, I don't know, I just didn't want to leave--when I went home for a couple days I was ready to come back."
"Are your friends around or you just stay by yourself?"
"Um, there's a good many of us here, um, that I'm friends with. There's a good many people that've gone home so, I mean, there's always somebody here, in my room--like I living with one of my sorority sisters, so that's fun."
"I'm gonna ask you a general question, sort of--you said you don't know what you want to do with your life, but do you have any general ideas about what kind of a life you might want to live to give you the most satisfaction and contentment?"
"Um, I definitely want to be able to, um, travel--I want to be able to spend time with my family, um, money to me is not like that important of course--like, I want some money to be able to travel with and everything but I really just want to be able to have a job where I can spend time with my family and raise a family--like, I want 4 or 5 kids [laughs]. Um, but, I would like to have a job that, um, has more flexible hours--I was actually looking into nursing because you can work for like a certain amount of time and then be off for a long time, but, uh, I don't really like science, so [laughs] I went in a different direction--but I just want--I just want to be able to be flexible, and I know you can't be like that at the very beginning, but maybe I can work my way up to it."
"And do you want to stay in this area of the country?"
"Um, I have no idea. I definitely want to stay in the southeast, um--I've visited a lot of other places, um, but I do not know where I want to live--I do want to be at least close to a bigger city, um, like we're 2 hours from Atlanta and 2 hours from Birmingham from here and it's kinda a little bit too far for me--but I love Auburn, I mean, I just wanna be kinda in that place where I can, like, maybe have some horses or farm or something, but good school district, not a like little podunk town [laughs]."
"What about the southeast makes you want to stay here?"
"The people. My whole family's here for one thing--like, all my aunts and uncles, cousins--everything--we're all here, um, in Georgia--well everybody's in Georgia. And, I just like, everyone here's just friendly, like, I've been to other places--I mean I'm not saying other places aren't friendly--but it's just like, for some reason here it's like everyone says, "hey" to everybody--even if you don't know 'em. It's just a southern hospitality thing."
"You've mentioned a few times how important your family is to you--uh, why do you think?"
"Um, I'm the youngest of 3 and I've grown up, um, kinda being exposed to a lot and I've learned a lot from my brothers and sisters and I've learned that like being close my parents and letting them know what I'm doing and everything helps a lot with, um, like their trust--they trust me a lot more because I'm close to 'em. And both of them are married now, and one's pregnant and the other one has a baby, so, it just brought us a lot closer with everything."
"Well, great. Well I guess I don't want to take up anymore of your time..."