Establishing Rapport

When I sat down to complete my first interview with Venetcia Ortiz, I felt comfortable and confident because I met her on my first day of classes at Rhode Island College. I sat down with her and when I began the interview I realized that I was a little nervous. I had nothing to be nervous about but I think I was just scared that I wouldn’t ask the right questions, and then have an interview that didn’t even support my field study. Luckily Venetcia provided me with a lot of valuable information that I can use in my final paper. Venetcia told me a lot about what sports meant to her in high school and that is really going to help me compare her experience to mine. When I asked her about study hall she answered it in the best and also the most honest way, she told me flat out that study hall is like prison. When she made this comparison she gave me a lot to work with and this helped me surround my verbal snapshot around this image.

Although we are both athletes at Rhode Island College, we have very different backgrounds and different experiences with sports at our high schools. At first I assumed that Venetcia is my age 18 but upon asking her she is 19. It’s not a huge age difference but it is interesting to see that she is a freshman who is older than most people. She went through high school being one of the oldest so that definitely has an impact about how she sees the subculture, and it is most likely different from how I see this subculture. We are both females, but we have different race. Venetcia is Puerto Rican and while growing up in Central Falls she has experienced sports in a much different way than I have. Venetcia has broken most stereotypes that surround the area of Central Falls. She succeeded through all of her classes at high school and she was accepted into the Honors Program at RIC. Venetcia joined track because of a video game and it’s amazing to see that right from the beginning, she had talented. Her freshmen year she was invited to Nationals and that is a huge honor.

Since I have known Venetcia for some time now I didn’t acknowledge out differences but they were definitely overshadowed when we began talking about our mutual hatred for study hall. At this point Venetcia already had that in common and we grew off of that. Our differences were put to the side and we were able to laugh about our experiences that we’ve had at study hall and accept each other’s differences because in the end we are truly part of the same subculture, the athletes of RIC.

At first I asked Venetcia about her experiences with sports in high school, and she did an amazing job clearly describing the experiences she had. I then continued the conversation by asking her about study hall. The first words out of her mouth were “it’s prison”. The fact that she mentions this is funny because when you are there it seems like you are in prison. Venetcia had been there once and she picked up on that right away and it’s amazing to see how observant she is. The final part of the interview was Venetcia describing what throwing is like because although I have done track I have never thrown or really seen anyone throw. This interview with Venetcia not only helped me understand her experiences with track and her experiences in high school, but she also opened my eyes to see a view of study hall that I kind have just accepted, it is like prison.