I encountered the subject of this interview while I was waiting for my Math class to start Wednesday afternoon. Since it’s been nice out, the Oak Grove has become a great place to find people willing to be interviewed for my blog. Since I didn’t have anything urgent to do between my Sociology class and that class, I figured why not see if I could find someone to interview for my blog?
The subject of this interview was actually standing behind a table set up by the Sign Club. Always curious about a good cause, I made my way over to check them out and see if I could get an interview from one of them. When I approached, I was greeted kindly by the subject, whom proceeded to offer a ribbon and showed me how to sign my name in Sign Language. (I didn’t do too awfully bad. I’ve had some experience with Sign Language. Not enough to call myself an expert by any stretch of the word. I think I can hold a small conversation though at least.)
Finally I revealed to them that I was with the Faces of I.U.P. blog. I asked if any of the members of the Sign Club would be willing to talk to me. “I’ll be willing,” the subject told me kindly.
From the tone of her voice, I could tell she was not only willing, but also excited. I smiled, and said to her, “Cool.”
Once I had gotten my equipment ready, I began the interview. I informed her that I would be asking the basic questions: Name, major, year, where she was from, and how she came to I.U.P. She responded by saying, “My name is Katlyn Plotzer. I’m a Junior Speech Language Pathology and Audiology major.”
“Ideology?” I asked her, wanting to make sure I had correctly heard her. Since there was more people outside, it was a bit hard for me to hear.
“Audiology,” she corrected, chuckling kindheartedly as she did. “It focuses on hearing.”
We both laughed. “What year are you?” I asked again.
“I’m a junior.”
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from Ellwood, Pennsylvania. It is forty-five minutes north of Pittsburgh. So if you’ve never heard of it, you have no clue where it is.”
“Middle-of-nowhere kind of thing?” I asked.
“Kind-of, yeah,” she confirmed with laughing.
“How did you come to I.U.P.?” I asked.
“I actually came to I.U.P. because my Mom went behind my back and asked information from the school. She actually went here for college, and then I got here. I heard about the Speech Path program and how it’s the best, so I applied and got into that. I’m really happy I ended up coming here. It’s a great campus!”
“So what made you decide that I.U.P. was the best place for you?”
She thought for a few moments. “I think it was because of the campus. I really like it. I really love the Oak Grove, and I also really love the Speech program. There’s only twenty-five people in our year, and it’s a close-knit program. After I actually got here and started taking classes I just knew it was the major I wanted to go into. It was cool that I found the program was for me and it was really exciting!”
“What made you decide you wanted to go into Speech Pathology?”
“When I was younger I actually had a speech impediment. I couldn’t say nine sounds correctly. So I needed to go into speech therapy when I was younger. I don’t know for how long, but I did have to go. Now I can speak correctly and it’s a wonderful thing.”
“I actually suffered from a speech impediment when I was younger as well,” I revealed to her. “I had to take speech therapy when I was young.”
“Oh really?” she exclaimed in surprised intrigue. “Can I ask you what happened?”
I didn’t mind at all. After my interview with Vincent, I had gotten comfortable with the idea that the people I interviewed would ask me questions. “I think I finally just graduated,” I told her. “I think it was in the fourth grade.” (Honestly, I’m not sure if it was fourth grade. I just know it happened before I left elementary school.)
“What sounds?” she asked.
“I think it was mainly ‘L’ and ‘W,’” I told her.
“Oh yeah! That’s a hard one! That comes in later.”
“So you couldn’t say nine different sounds?” I asked her, moving the story away from me and getting back to interviewing her.
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I can’t remember what they all were. I asked my Mom and she told me that sometimes instead of saying ‘ceiling fan’ I would say, ‘ceiling can.’ I know I called Pocahontas ‘Po-ho-ho-ho.’”
We both chuckled. Katlyn continued, “I don’t remember what happened with that one.”
“That’s funny,” I admitted, a smile crossing my face.
“Oh yeah,” she agreed. “I used to watch myself on home videos and I asked my parents, ‘How did you know what I am saying?’ They just told me that they just knew. That was good enough for me.”
“Was it difficult?”
“I don’t really remember any of it. I just remember random things like playing Connect Four. It’s really random things that I remember. It was because of that I came here in the speech program and actually found out that I wanted to do something a little different. So I decided on the Audiology track. That’s what I am going into Grad School for.”
“What does the Audiology track deal with?” I asked.
“Audiology is the study of hearing. I get to learn everything about the ear, everything that goes on with the ear, everything that goes up to the brain, working with hearing aids, copular implants, and balance problems. I love ears! Ears are fantastic!”
“That’s interesting,” I said in fascination. “Typically you don’t really think about the ear until it hurts.”
“Yeah!” she exclaimed. “The thing is you can hear people speak and understand them in real time. But it has to go through all these steps to get up to the brain to get processed. It’s so fascinating that it happens so quickly. Like instantaneously! You do take it for granted until you can’t hear anymore! I just love it. I love hearing! I love ears! Ears are wonderful!”
“How did you get involved in the Sign Club?” I wanted to see if I could find out more about her involvement in the club.
“I got involved in the Sign Club because I love Sign Language and my goal is to become fluent in it.” She indicated one of the guys who was standing behind the table. “Rob talked about starting up a Sign Club. I was like, ‘Yeah! I’ll totally be involved in it!’ Right now I’m the secretary for it. I love every second of it. I’m in intermediate-level sign language right now also. It’s thanks to this that I’ve been able to learn as much as I have.”
“Nice,” I complimented. “You’re intermediate level?”
“Yes, that’s a second year language learner. It’s becoming a little more fluent now. Sometimes my professor will sign things and I’ll be like, ‘I have no idea what you’re saying!’ It’s still a learning process. I’m definitely much better at it than when I started this year. Which is all I can ever hope for.”
“Do you think Sign Language is more difficult than spoken language?” I asked her, curious about her opinion on the language.
“I don’t know,” she told me after thinking for a few moments. “It’s just different, it’s a whole language- it has characteristics of a language. I find it real easy to learn because I work well with my hands. So I can pick up on it quickly. There are some signs that you think look similar, and other things that don’t seem to relate at all- but it does. Sign Language can be picked up on, you just got to be willing to learn.”
“What are you guys doing here in the Oak Grove?” I asked, indicating their table with their ribbons and the opportunity to buy a shirt for ten bucks. (Unfortunately I wasn’t able to purchase one, I have to be careful how much money I spend as well. I did take a ribbon though!)
“It’s A.S.L Awareness Day so we’re selling t-shirts and we have ribbons with colors representing Deaf Awareness. We have pencils with our meeting times on it and we have papers with an alphabet and numbers and tips on how to communicate with the deaf and hard-to-hearing on the back. We have a lot of free stuff!”
“What do you plan on doing with the money?”
“I think our plan is to donate it to the Indiana County Association for the Deaf. That’s where the money from today is going to go.”
I decided to see if I could dig deeper into her story. “How did you decide that Speech Pathology was something you wanted to major in?”
“I’m going to give the clichéd answer and say that I love helping people. I’m just a big people person and I love finding out about people’s background stories, I love learning about people and talking to them. And ultimately I want to be in the V.A. health system and work with veterans. I come from a military family. My brother was is in the Air Force now, and my Dad was in the Navy. My Grandpa was in the Marines, and I have a bunch of friends who are too. It’s one way that I can give back to those who have sacrificed so much. That’s where I want to ultimately end up at. I’m looking into Grad School for that right now.”
“Cool,” I said. “So you come from a military family?”
“Yeah, my brother is at St. Andrew’s Air Force base in Washington D.C. He’s actually doing the presidential security program.”
“Nice!” I exclaimed.
She smiled. “I know! I’m such a proud big sister! I also had a Dad who’s in the Navy, my Grandpa and my Great Uncle were in the Marines. I have an uncle and a cousin who are in the Air Force. My Mom actually worked on military bases and when she graduated from here- she worked in the cafeterias. She hopped around from base to base too. That’s how I got interested in it. I’m so proud of my brother, I’m so proud of Kyle. I always talk about him. I just have so much respect for anyone who goes into the military because of all that they sacrifice. I want to help them as much as I can.”
“You said that your Mom worked here too?”
“She graduated- I’m not going to say how long ago because she’ll be mad at me but she graduated here in Hospitality Management. That was here degree. She was in Ackerman a lot. I guess there’s a cafeteria in the basement there that I didn’t even know about! She was telling me that was a final project of hers- she had to serve food in there.”
“So since it’s almost the end of the semester, what are your plans for the summer?” I asked.
“I work at a McDonalds back home, so I’m going to work back there over the summer. For the first half of summer I’m going to be working two jobs because I also work at a softball concession stand, and I help out the guy because I used to play softball in the summer. The second half of the summer I’m going to see if I can also volunteer down at the V.A. Hospital and help the speech and audiology therapists. So that’s my goal for the second half of the summer.”
“Is it required for like an internship?”
“No, I actually don’t have to do an internship to graduate. (Thank God!) I just want to volunteer down there since it’ll look good on an application when I try and go into Grad School later on. Fingers crossed I can get down there! I don’t like to drive down to Pittsburgh.”
“What made you want to go into Grad School?”
“I actually have to go into Grad School in to get a job,” Katlyn told me. “For the Audiology program I actually have to get a doctoral degree in order to actually work. So, while people are graduating saying that they’re done with college, I’m only halfway done. I still have four years on the other end of it. I’m excited for it, I’m up for the challenge, and I’m ready of it!”
Suddenly a question hit me. “Why are you interested in Sign Language? I can understand why you would be into Speech Pathology and Audiology, but why Sign Language?”
“I always wanted to learn Sign Language. When my Dad worked at his one job he knew a lady there who was deaf. So he learned Sign Language so he could talk to her because she didn’t really have any one else to talk to there. I would see him doing signs, and I would be like: ‘Wow! I really wish I could learn it!’ I pick up some here and there, and I saw that they had a Sign Language club and Sign Language courses here and I was like, ‘Sign me up!’ So I went ahead and signed up for them. I’m really excited for them.”
“What else do you guys do for the community?”
“Well we only just started. We’re trying to volunteer over at Four-Footed Friends. We have plans for that. We want to try and have officer elections, and then our goal is to start working for the Indiana County Association for the Deaf. They have meetings, and we eventually want to be able to go to the meetings and be able to converse with them in Sign Language. That’s going to be very exciting. This is step one to bring awareness to Sign Language.”
“Yeah, and it’s sad that not all places have enough resources where people like that can get together,” I lamented.
“Yeah, it is unfortunate. I actually think we’re lucky that there’s a large deaf community here in Indiana. That’s how we found about it. It’s real helpful for them, and it makes so that they can get together, converse and make friends.”
“Do you think that this being a college town plays into that?”
“It might. I think there’s a lot of people who are interested in Sign Language, but they don’t know that there’s a club. That is another goal of ours, we want people to know that there is a Sign Language Club here and you can join and we can help teach you everything that we can. I think the need of the community to learn Sign Language is one of the reasons why the Club is going to be successful. We’re trying to revive it actually. Our numbers fluctuate between ten to twelve people.”
“Did you guys just start this year?”
“Just recently. It was just recently in February or March. It’s still small, but we’re going to grow.”
I was amazed at how recent their attempt to revive the club was. “You guys are about as old as Faces of I.U.P.!” I told them.
Katlyn laughed. “Maybe can share a birthday!”
We both laughed. After talking for a couple more minutes, I realized that it was getting time for me to start heading off and grab my stuff for my next class. Drawing the interview to a close, I took Katlyn’s picture and wished them all the best of luck before heading back to my dorm. “Good luck!” I called back to Katlyn and her friends. “And thank you!”
“Thank you!” they called back to me.
Before I do draw this post to a close, I do want to say that I want to wish the Sign Club the best of luck as they try to revive it. I hope the members achieve their goal of not only being able to reestablish themselves, but also in their pursuits in fundraisers and volunteer activities. They may be small, but they’re energetic and ready to learn. I also want to wish Katlyn the best of luck as she pursues her goals. Hang tight, you still have a while to go, but keep up that positive attitude and I know you’ll get there.
Unfortunately, this post is coming to an end. The end of the semester is also fast approaching. No fear though. I still intend on getting a few more faces of I.U.P. before it’s time for us to go away for the summer. So until I have another face to share, I’ll catch you all later!
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