hi hello i'm fiona rose i'm alex um yeah i'm a fourth year biosci major in art history minor and
my pronouns are she her hers sick i'm a third year sociology international relations double major
um and i go by he him and they them pronouns cool
really like your sweater thank you i love your skirt we're such good fashion stuff today
yeah well i got a question for you so this is about your first year experience
so what was your on-campus living experience like resident halls where did you live dining
navigating campus i lived right over there in redwood on the first floor and my first
year experience was absolutely amazing i know not everyone has the best first year experience you
know everyone goes through different struggles and different levels of homesickness and
other things but for me personally i had a really really amazing freshman year my floor was really
supportive and i think that made a huge difference just like having that core group of people and
living so close you know once you move out of the dorms it's a lot harder to recreate that you know
you can live with your housemates but having like the whole floor of people is just so amazing um
as far as the um dining commons food it was okay i'm gonna be honest it wasn't my favorite the
cookies are absolutely amazing especially the late night cookies i will say that they're absolutely
amazing um but i think wherever you go it's a problem because you know you're eating the same
food over and over again yeah and it's no one's fault like you just get kind of used to it if
you're eating the same thing you know happiness is the same thing me like now at home you know
i'm cooking the same stuff all the time so very easy to get bored of it but overall i'd say i
had a really amazing freshman year um as far as academics it was pretty challenging to adjust
and i still had to adjust you know every year i still have to kind of like be in check with myself
since i didn't have that like really great high school education background
but overall i would say just with like the support of my floor and just like the amazing people i met
around me just really helped and it made a really memorable experience and definitely
made me want to stay here for all four years how about you i guess to talk about my experience
it was it was in one word just amazing like i think uh my so what started everything was
one day it was sunset fest and so that's like um like you know this festival the beginning
yeah the beginning of the beginning festival and what happened was that night when like you know
the festivities were over we're all coming back um you know but but this is so this was before our
floor was like cohesively together we were each of us were doing our own little thing and then it
wasn't so um these two girls on our floor knocked on everyone's door and was saying like hey we're
having a little like get together in our room like please you know before COVID obviously yeah
pre-COVID um you know they were like oh that's all you know we're inviting people to a room you
know like we'd love to have you and see you there and so i was like you know what work
like i'll be there um and that that moment was like the moment where like all of us met um but
i've been saying oh navigating campus honestly no but like navigating campus i remember i was like
this is a huge like like i was like you know i come from big city but this is a huge campus you
know and and it was it's like like it can it you can potentially like um take 20 minutes to get to
class yeah just walking from one place to another place um and i think it was so big and so crazy
yeah and i feel like every quarter i mean not now because it's online but i feel like every quarter
i would have class in like a new building and you know i think you know i'm a fourth year like
i should know where everything is but then it's like where's this building never heard of it and
definitely i still get lost in the death star i got lost as a freshman i still get lost now um
yeah and honestly it's so funny because like when it's a new building you're just like
the names are just sometimes so arbitrary like you know like you like they could be called herald
they can be called like anthony yeah and you're just like okay where is this where is that like
you know like yeah i find um lecture lecture buildings lecture halls so funny um especially
like when you're looking under on your little like schedule maker and you're just like oh my goodness
where's that where's that yeah i was like can i get to these two places i know like 15 minutes. i
i think i would have never thought that i would have to think about location of classes oh yeah
that's that's a key point i know like i'm just like yeah like i'm i i do not want to be
busting a mission like every tuesday like you know yeah and i've done that there are some days too
there's some days where i'm just like i'm over it and i walk and i'm like totally late to class yeah
i'm just like you know when i'm unbothered like you like i can't be i can't there's those days
yeah there are the who's days um so um i think i have oh yeah i do have one more question oh okay
okay cool um what's your favorite place on campus oh that's a good one hmm
honestly you go first maybe on this one i have to think about this one i do hardly
have my answer i know i'm over here like saying like it's so hard to take i'm like i can pick uh
like so my my absolute favorite spot is definitely the um the Cross Cultural Center or well not
just the Cross Cultural Center but the Student Community center which is um right by the Silo
and you know like right i would say like almost like in the middle of campus and what i love
love love love about it is just the amount of identities that represented the amount of
events that are held there um you know the people that are there you know they're some of the most
inclusive productive activists i've met and it's it's it's amazing too because especially being a
queer person uh myself i definitely had a hard time trying to figure out if i you know had a
place on campus figuring out if i had you know the means of finding my community here and it was
through the Student Community Center through like Cross Cultural Center, the Student Recruitment
Retention Center the LGBTQIA Center they've really given given me a place or showed me a place and
showing others um a place that they can you know feel feel they can be themselves and accepted
um it was it was fantastic i remember and the thing is that i i haven't really explored it until
virtually this year being now i'm like a part of the Cross-Cultural staff i'm the
Mixed Heritage Community Coordinator and it's been and even though it's all virtual
it's been an amazing experience um absolutely phenomenal and working and just because
like not only is the work that we're doing making making making an impact on campus but it's also
been making impact on myself you know working with so many bright scholars and academic scholars and
it's just absolutely remarkable um to be able to constantly in a space where we're innovating what
activism looks like you know especially especially like in a city i would have never foreseen myself
pursuing activism in a city like Davis yeah it matters wherever you are and yeah being able to
you know put not not just put my stamp but put a collaborative stamp on something so yeah that
was an amazing answer really meaningful um i don't think i can top that no there's no topping
there's no topping here um i guess just for me my favorite spot on campus
really hard one honestly i guess just i'm an art history minor like i mentioned earlier or
hopefully i mentioned that earlier and so i guess for me my favorite spot on campus
is the art building um just because that's where most of the art history classes i've
taken that's where they've been and you know it's just kind of nice for me because most of my
days spent with like science classes and you know that sort of thinking so it's kind of nice for me
to just like have a place where i can think more creatively and artsy so even though it's not like
a special place i guess in itself it just kind of has special meaning for me because
it like represents like my other side like my more artsy side yeah so i think that's
definitely something like really important to me yeah and it it's it's it's so fun honestly i think
it's like it's so hard to really pick a favorite place um yeah even even with what i even with my
what i said just because like at least in Davis you know it's it's it's so small um
there's a lot of like little special places exactly you know like the thing is like
what i love is that Davis like it's not a defined space like we get to define it in what we do
and how we experience it and the people that we meet um and you know we get to define it together
you know and everyone gets to like find their own meaning yeah and that's like what is so remarkable
about Davis yeah it's really special i feel like other college towns don't necessarily have that
going for them but i feel like since Davis kind of like we're saying it's pretty like small
town we kind of get to make it what it is yeah yeah well it was a really fun conversation i
like that we went for the same shoe vibe um i like her you like it yeah i like our shoes i
don't know if you can see them but it was really fun talking to you and getting to know you i know
you too fiona thank you so much it was nice to have this conversation learning from you