Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Overcoming the Big Obstacle: A Slight Topic Change

A month ago I wanted to investigate the ways in which athletic directors and trainers make athletics possible at Rhode Island College but since then I have changed my topic. I have spent all of my time at the Student Athlete Success Center and I took both sets of field notes there. The more I started thinking about my field study I always wanted to relate it back to the Student Athlete Success Center. While I started looking at my literature review I realized I started to focus it on Title IX and the amount of boys and girls I counted while I was at study hall. This is when I decided that I wanted to focus on study hall and investigate why athletes are forced to go. When I started to look deeper into study hall I noticed to sides of why athletes have to go to study hall. One is to keep the athletes on track because sports consume a lot of time. The people that are in the athletic department want to see the athletes succeed and by having us go to study hall they make sure that we are on top of all our work. The other is a view from student athletes. We feel that study hall is a place that we are forced to go to and it sometimes proves to be a waste of our time. Some people are so on top of their homework that they don’t have anything to do. For me, I believe that athletes should only have to go to study hall during their sports season because at that time it is a lot of work that has to be done but after the season is over it’s a waste of time, and it isn’t fun to have to walk back and forth in the cold when I can do my homework at home.

Now with a new topic change I have begun my interviews. I have completed one interview with Venetcia about study hall. She is a winter athlete that was never told about study hall, so when she went to go talk to Gail, the woman in charge, about study hall she told her she had to complete 30 hours. This amount is near impossible to complete so Venetcia said she wouldn’t compete in this winter. Now she is able to and I got to ask her what her first experiences at study hall were. Of course it was negative. She instantly described study hall from prison and it’s not that far off. At study hall there are so many strict rules and its extreme. I have a view from someone that is on the outside that has stepped a toe inside but I also want to interview someone who frequently goes to study hall. Still for my first interview, I would like to interview my suitemate about study hall and how she feels about it. I think it is interesting to hear what both of these girls have to say because they are both in the honors program so its crazy that they have to be watched in order to succeed. For me, my first interview was not as awkward as I thought it would be. I do feel however that towards the end I started getting interested in what Venetcia did in outdoor track rather than focus on study hall. Since Venetcia has never really been to study hall, I believe that I asked enough questions about study hall to see how she feels but when I interview my suitemate I want to keep my main focus to study hall.


I would like to do my second interview either tomorrow or this weekend so I can type up my transcript. The informed consent form is completed and I already have one signed from Venetcia. So far I think that I am doing well with dates and I am completing everything on time. For my second interview I would like to get a guys perspective about study hall and hopefully someone not from the honors program.

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