Woman's voice TAPE 1 SIDE A @ 5:20 minutes
Can you please share your name?
Stephanie Adams.
And where are you from?
South Charlotte.
OK, and your age?
18.
OK.
And so what year does that make you, are you a--?
I'm just finishing up my freshman year in college.
And did you find that to be kind of hard, or did, you know--?
Wha, yeah, very hard compared to high school.
It was?
Um, now why did you decide to stay in Charlotte to go to school?
Um, I wanted to be closer to my family, number one, and, um, number two, I have a lot of friends coming here, which helped me a lot, and, um, I just liked the Charlotte, um, UNC Charlotte because I wanted to be a, a nurse.
Do you still want to be a nurse or--?
Not anymore, no.
How come, just--
It's just not me.
I've, I've decided and it's very hard.
The, um, curriculum here is very hard.
Right.
That's what I've heard, it's extremely hard.
What have you decided, what are you going to do?
I'm going to do Education now.
Do you plan on staying in Charlotte?
Um, yes.
So you do feel like you like Charlotte as an area?
\\Uh-huh, yes.
\\
\\And you'll stay here?
\\
Yes, definitely.
For any particular reason or you just like the area?
Um, I like this area a whole lot and it's, it's growing so much and I just want to be near my family so I can take care of them whenever they get older.
What do your parents do?
They're actually both teachers.
So are they happy that you're going to be a teacher?
Or do would they rather you have stay in Nursing?
They would rather me stay in Nursing because they know that's where my heart is but, um, you know, they're behind me in whatever I decide to do.
Do you feel like you did well this sem, this year, or if you had to do it over what would you do differently?
I wish I could take back my whole freshman year.
I've done horrible, let's just say horrible
really, really bad.
In high school I was, you know, 3.0's, you knows A's and B's an occasional C. Now here I'm lucky if I get a C on something.
Right.
C's and D's, you know, and that's just not me.
I wish if I could do it all over again I would stay home and study instead of going out with my friends, which has really hurt me a lot.
Do you think that's what it was?
Was it the freedom aspect of it or?
Definitely the freedom, definitely the freedom.
Uh-huh.
Even though I had freedom when I was, you know, home, whatever, but I still had a curfew.
But here in college you don't have, I mean you can do what you want to, come and go as you please.
Uh, you don't have to answer to anybody except yourself.
And I've learned, um, at the end of this year how to manage my time, which I hasn't helped me out very much.
It hasn't?
No it hasn't because my grades are still pretty bad.
So do you plan on working on it next year?
Oh definitely.
I have to set some goals for myself next year.
If I don't then I probably won't come back to this school anymore, which I don't want that because I love this school I love the friends that I've made here everything about this, this place I love.
Are your parents putting a lot of pressure on you?
Definitely.
Definitely, I'm feeling the pressure from my dad.
He's, they're like, they're not disappointed but they just know that I could do a whole lot better.
And it, it kind of makes me feel bad.
I feel like I'm letting them down, so to, so to speak.
Kind of letting them down.
Yeah.
So you're just going to work a lot harder?
Work a lot harder, um, take some classes that I think are going to interest me more.
That's one thing about this school is they just give you like certain classes to take and they don't let you pick and choose what you want to take and stuff.
And, um, I just wish that my counselor would have been more helpful to me.
So you felt like you didn't even have anybody there to guide you?
I have nobody here to guide me.
I was pretty much, you know, on my own and I'm not used to that because in high school--
Right.
--the teachers were much more, I guess, I don't know�
Lenient SA: --lenient, you know.
They would guide you and kind of show you what you need to do and stuff?
Yeah.
They were more like my friend and I wasn't like a number in their classroom.
Uh-huh.
Do you feel like that's just in Charlotte that that's how the school systems are?
Or do you feel like in general that's how high school is as opposed to college?
I feel like it's that way everywhere.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Is there anything else you want to--?
Oh no!
Don't get nervous!
Is there anything else you want to talk about or is that pretty much all you had to say?
That's pretty much it.
I'm just going to tell everybody that they need to study!
Definitely study!
And work hard.
Work hard study balance your time, you know.
You can go out on the weekends but during the week it, you know, it should be study time.
Well thank you for sharing your experience with me.
You're welcome.
And it was nice talking to you.
Nice talking to you.
