week 3

My sub-culture that I am exploring is the freshman male at ball state. So naturally, from interacting with my friends and peers daily, I immerse myself in this culture. However, formally I have interviewed several of my colleges, some of which are not people I see frequently. Last weekend, I sat down with one of my close friends Jeremy, to attempt my first interview. It went rather smoothly, we were both just hanging out in his dorm room playing rock band and eating day old pizza. I ran through some questions with him, such as “so run through a typical day with me. What do you do, how long, where do you spend most of your time, and what do you think about college life in general, ECT.” He whipped off the answers to me. Most of which I expected (mostly because I am with him most of the time), however, there were some that caught me off guard. When I asked him about his and most other freshman’s love life, he seemed to be caught off guard, then answered with a smirk saying, “well, I can’t say that it’s all that older people made it cracked up to be.” The reason this caught me off guard, is because Jeremy and I spent the first semester studying “anatomy” and “social studies” rather than our academics. After I finished interviewing Jeremy, his response to my love life question stuck with me. I immediately started asking around with the rest of my friends. I was almost all struck when the majority of them replied with similar answers. It turns out, that contrary to popular belief; most freshmen males aren’t looking for as many one night stands as possible.
Next on the list, was to observe the field site. This is where we as ethnographers are supposed to step outside our usual comfort zone, and look from an outsider’s point of view. Unfortunately, looking into greater detail at a boy’s dorm room can get a little scary. As I stepped into one of my classmate’s dorm room, it seems to fit the regular description of a boy’s living quarters. Clothes are scattered about in heaps on the floor, trash overflowing onto the floor, unmade bed with little but a pillow covering it, and Adam sitting in the middle of it all playing Call Of Duty on his X Box. “Grab a seat man” as he knocks off a pile of dirty clothes uncovering a chair hidden from view before. Before I started this project, none of this would faze me at all; however, now that I have forced myself to open my eyes, walking into a dorm almost sends chills up my spine. After I finished my session with Adam, I went immediately back to my own dorm, and proceeded to clean it thoroughly.
I have attempted to research my sub-culture, but generally, it is unsuccessful. I feel that the difference between academic and non-academic research is, that with academic, you look up a formal source from something that already is in existence. Things like books and magazine articles can be “academically” researched. Non-academic research is research that you perform interviews and taking field notes fall under this category.