Digital technologies make it easy to record and preserve interviews with family and friends. With the NPR StoryCorps app, you can store your audio in the Library of Congress for future generations to listen to. For their new-media project in MASC 101, more than 100 students conducted and posted interviews on a range of subjects.
Many of the conversations were about COVID-19. Keagan Hall talked to his mother about her brother Peter, who died of the coronavirus. Jordan Adams interviewed his father, an airline captain, about how the pandemic has decimated the airline industry. Brandon Ranly talked to his mom, the dean of the VCU School of Engineering, about the pandemic. Charles Casciano interviewed his younger brother, Grace Williams interviewed her sister, and Hannah Kossol talked to her twin brother.
Some of the conversations were about family origins: Beau Seymour asked his mother about her experience immigrating to the U.S. from South Korea; Carolina Campos Hernandez’s mother compared life in the U.S. and life in El Salvador.
Music was also a prevalent theme. Haikal Ahmad Nazri’s mother talked about the music she listened to growing up (like The Carpenters). Nicole Casero interviewed a friend who is a recording artist and musician.
Lily Bryngelson, David Baron and Eleanor Dewolfe each interviewed their fathers about how technology has changed over decades — and what life was like before the internet. Some students have relatives who work in the media: Hannah Hartstein’s mother, for example, writes children’s books, and Hannah Beckner’s grandmother ran a small-town newspaper.
Instead of an interview, Colton Wolf gave a monlogue — describing how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted young people’s lives and offering fellow college students words of encouragement. Read more