COVID-19 controls each persons life to some degree and for the six Cal Poly Students that Kylie Kowalski and I interviewed, COVID-19 became their life for at least 10 days. The numbers in San Luis Obispo, and Cal Poly in particular continue to rise. Kylie and I knew that Mustang News, or for that matter any local news source had not done a story about students experiences with the virus, we were always just given the hard data with the number and facts, not the feelings that go along with the illness. When Kylie and I first pitched this story is was because Kylie’s roomates and herself had just finished quarantining after two of them tested positive. We knew we needed to reach out to more than just her house so we began exploring different people we knew or had heard were positive with COVID-19, which as you can imagine was not very difficult at all. We knew that usually all of the videos we would be taking would have to be over zoom, but because three of our sources were Kylie’s roommates or close neighbors we were able to still get quality footage in person. It was interesting to hear each persons response to the different questions, and nobody seemed too worried about the backlash they might face from other students or community members.
One of our sources, Jack Simpson said, “I literally don’t take social distancing seriously at all,” and therefore he was not surprised when he got he virus and acknowledged that it was his own fault for not following proper CDC guidelines. I was glad he said this because I think it’s the honest truth from a lot of college students in general whether they’re willing to admit that or not is a different story. Most of the sources were also glad to have already gotten the virus because now they can travel for Thanksgiving with out worrying about infecting people around them.
Kylie and I work really well together and we’ve worked on projects as a team throughout our time at Cal Poly. It was nice to work with together as my last project of my college experience. Although these times are ever changing and unprecedented, “given the circumstances we both faced with COVID-19 quarantine issues, I think we did a great job producing high quality content that our audiences will enjoy engaging with.”
As I’m typing this, Governor Gavin Newson announced a curfew for all counties in the purple tier in California. This will be very interesting to see how students and community members react especially around the holidays.