Knevin Gouldner and Sebastian Buerk

“I was acquaintances with him during my first semester,” Sebastian told me. “It was funny, because he actually went to one of my high school’s rival schools and I didn’t even know it.”

-Sebastian Buerk, Freshmen, Business Management Major

“We knew of each other. Yeah, we kind of just went to social events and we would chill.” “Other than that I only knew his name, but we never really talked. Now we grab food together every day, talk about life and the ins and outs of everything. Yeah it’s a lot better now.”

-Knevin Gouldner, Freshmen, Human Resources Major

I was walking through the Oak Grove on my way back from my Math class when I encountered the subjects. No, you didn’t read that wrong and it’s not a typo. This interview involves two different guys. They were with their fraternity, all of them asking for people to pay to pie them in the face. While I had done a couple of stories about people in fraternities who were looking to be pied as a means of raising money—I figured I could at least see if I could get an interview out of one of them.

Little did I realize that when I donated my dollar to the fraternity that I was getting a two-for-one special. One of the fraternity guys asked these two to take part in my interview. They agreed, and went off to the side with me so that we could hear one another, since the other guys were shouting to be heard. “Which one am I interviewing first?” I asked.

“Can we be interviewed together?” they both asked.

Inwardly, I was wondering if I would be able to do that. I hadn’t done one where I had interviewed two people at once. However, I figured I could at least try and see how it would go. I decided to go along with it. If it didn’t go well, at least I could say I made an attempt. If it did, maybe I could see if I could interview more people that way. “Sure,” I told them.

I then went on to begin the interview.

“What are your names?” I first asked them.

“My name is Knevin Gouldner.” (For those of you who may be having some slight difficulty with the pronunciation, it’s pronounced nev-in.) For reference, he is the one in the picture, he is the guy on the right. The one in the Ohio State hoodie.

“My name is Sebastian Buerk,” the other responded.

“Where are you guys from?” I asked.

“I’m from Harrisburg, PA,” Knevin told me.

Sebastian said, “I’m from right outside of Harrisburg. I’m from Hershey, Pennsylvania.”

I went on by asking, “What are you guys majoring in?”

“I’m majoring in Human Resources,” Knevin said. “I don’t have a minor yet.”

“I’m in Business Management,” Sebastian went on to say.

“Cool,” I said in response. Turning to Knevin I asked him, “So you are planning on taking on a minor?”

“Yeah. Something where I can travel and move around the world. Not stay in Pennsylvania.”

I’ll be honest. My brain didn’t function, and I couldn’t remember that I was supposed to ask what year that they were in. It was cool though, because Knevin was willing to get the conversation rolling. “You can put down we’re Phi Kappa Psi. We do a lot of philanthropy work. We do things for Boys and Girls of America—we raised about a thousand dollars for them. We raised about five hundred dollars for community service. We’re raising money for Parkinson’s Disease now.”

I thought that was pretty cool. However, I also wanted to learn more about them as individuals. I asked them, “How did you guys get involved in the majors that you’re in?”

“Well I was actually in Education” Knevin told me. “I went on a couple of tours and sat in classes. I didn’t think it was for me. I still liked math, so I talked to some advisors. Human Resources was my way.”

“When I first came to college, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Sebastian responded. “I decided to come in as a Business Undeclared Major. This semester I was looking around, I really enjoyed the Business Management Field. I didn’t declare it yet, but I’m on the track for it.”

“What made you decide that Business was the route to go?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he told me honestly. “I always liked running and managing things. I was a supervisor at UPS for a few years. I was also a part-time supervisor at a restaurant I used to work at called the Colonial Lounge. I just like taking on responsibilities and I feel that I would do a good job at it. So yeah, it’s great.”

“How did the two of you get involved in the fraternity?”

“My Dad was actually in this fraternity,” Knevin told me. “So it was kind of like why I got involved more. When I came to visit, I took it upon myself to get to know more about the people in it and the things that we do. There’s a lot more than what I thought.”

“None of my relatives were never involved in a fraternity,” Sebastian said. “I’ve always been interested in frats though. I follow it on Twitter. I enjoyed Greek Life—and decided I was going to check it out. I realized that the Life was in me once I came to college.”

“There wasn’t any pressure,” Knevin went on to tell me. “They just wanted to give you the info and make sure you thought about it. In the beginning they should have told us that if you give us a chance to talk to you, we can show you that it’s a lot more than what people think. It’s got a big impact that’s for sure.”

I went on to ask, “Why did you guys decide to come to I.U.P.?”

Sebastian was the first to explain his story, “Well actually after I graduated high school I took a year off of school. I just worked. That was when I was the supervisor for UPS and I worked in construction. I would visit my friends on the weekends because a few of my high school buddies came up here. I loved the campus and I loved the area. It’s still in Pennsylvania, but it’s on the other side. It’s the perfect distance. I decided that I would apply the next year and next thing I know I was enrolled in classes, and now I’m finishing my first year.”

“Yeah, mine was the same,” Knevin informed me. “I didn’t want to go anywhere local. I actually wanted to go out-of-state. I didn’t get accepted for out of state, and this was actually cheaper than out-of-state. I visited, I got shown around and got to stay the night. My sister went here as well and I got to come up a couple of times with her. I guess I must have come when it was nice weather outside. It wasn’t windy and it wasn’t snowy, or cold. That’s really the only downfall to Indiana, it’s the weather. It plays tricks.”

“It precipitates,” Sebastian added.

We all chuckled. I went on to ask Knevin, “Sounds like you’ve had a lot of family history with this university?”

“Yeah. My sister only came here for Criminology and for her Masters. This university was big in Criminology. My Dad followed his way here. He’s a cook and he didn’t want to stay local—so he came here to Indiana. He’s a Pittsburgh fan. He came here in ‘96, before I was born. He said it’s changed a lot. A lot of the buildings were destroyed and gone. He talks about how different it is when he comes up to see me.”

I nodded in understanding. Deciding to ask more about the connection that Sebastian and Knevin had, I asked, “Did the two of you know each other before you joined the fraternity?”

“I was acquaintances with him during my first semester,” Sebastian told me. “It was funny, because he actually went to one of my high school’s rival schools and I didn’t even know it.”

“We knew of each other,” Knevin further explained. “Yeah, we kind of just went to social events and we would chill. Other than that I only knew his name, but we never really talked. Now we grab food together every day, talk about life and the ins and outs of everything. Yeah it’s a lot better now.”

I decided to go on and ask them, “Are you guys looking forward to the end of the year?”

Knevin shook his head. “Not really. I love staying here. This is like my home now since I’ve lived here. Now I’m picking up and leaving my friends. I have friends back home, but it’s not the same when you go home. You work, you make money. You come back.”

“That’s kind of how I’m looking at it,” Sebastian agreed. “I’m kind of excited to go back home and work. However I know that after about two weeks I’m going to want to come back.”

“You get bored man,” Knevin agreed. “I’ll miss the college experiences and the friends that I made up here. I made a lot of friends in a year here. It’s ridiculous. That’s a huge positive from the fraternity and just coming to IUP. Everybody is just out and about. You can make friends easy if you talk to them.”

“Where I live is kind of in the middle-of-nowhere,” Sebastian told me. “There’s not a lot of people out and about during the day.”

“Yeah, and it helps that the town is connected to the campus,” Knevin added. “People want food or to just socialize, it’s all conjubled together.”

It was then that the realization that had completely forgotten to ask them their years came to me. “I’m sorry,” I said, “what years are you guys?”

“We’re both freshmen,” Knevin told me.

“So if you’re both freshmen, when did you join the fraternity?” I asked.

“We just joined this semester.”

Sebastian went on to explain, “We just got in. We’re about to be initiated.”

“Even though you guys are just getting initiated, you’re still taking part in this fundraiser?” I asked them. I was surprised that they were getting involved so early. However, I suppose it might be a typical thing. All the same, it’s cool that they were willing to help despite not being fully initiated into the fraternity.

“Yeah, everyone in our fraternity participates,” said Knevin. “We try to get everyone. Older brothers, younger brothers. We try to get in as much participation as possible.”

“So you guys are doing this fundraiser for Parkinson’s Disease?” I asked.

“Yeah, this one is Parkinson’s Disease. Earlier in the year there was the Boys and Girls Club of America.”

Sebastian went on and added, “We’re actually partners with them.”

“What would you do with the Boys and Girls Club of America?”

“We would do canning,” Knevin told me. “We would stand outside with a sign in front of a grocery store so we could collect money and send it to nationals.”

Unfortunately, our interview had to be cut short because people were coming to the fraternity and they were needed in order to help manage the table and be pied. I thanked them for the time that they were able to give me, and quickly took their picture. They then went to go and join their table, and I went on my way.

I do want to say again that I am grateful that Knevin and Sebastian were willing to talk to me about their experiences here at IUP. I do wish we had more time to talk, but I’m grateful for what I was able to get. I wish you the best of luck with your initiation (if you haven’t gone through it already) and with any of your endeavors over the summer.

As is evidenced, finals weeks is this week. Which means it’s going to be pretty busy. I don’t know if I’ll be able to update next week or not. Depends on how my schedule goes. After all, I’m an IUP student as well, and I do have priorities other than the blog believe it or not. Still, I’m going to try and keep it updated though. I do have a few more interviews to post, and I definitely plan on interviewing anyone willing to talk to me. So we’ll see what happens. I might have a few to help keep updating during the Break. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime though, stay strong. We don’t have too much longer before Break rolls around. I do want to say that it was a pleasure to be able to begin this blog during my second semester. I am grateful for all those who do take time out of their lives to talk to me about their life. If you’re a student, good luck on your finals. If you’re a professor, good luck with distributing and grading them. If you’re neither, and just reading this blog for the fun of it, I hope your week is nice.

Until next time, I’ll catch you all later.