It has been a year of COVID. Our graduate student podcasters share their funniest Zoom stories and how they have been navigating this new landscape. Burning Man expert Caitlin Brooks (Recreation, Sport, and Tourism) speaks about mourning canceled ethnographic dissertation fieldwork and the power of community in times of isolation.
It has been a year of COVID. Our graduate student podcasters share their funniest Zoom stories and how they have been navigating this new landscape. Burning Man expert Caitlin Brooks (Recreation, Sport, and Tourism) speaks about mourning canceled ethnographic dissertation fieldwork and the power of community in times of isolation.
Hi I'm Shelby.
Sebastian:I'm Sebastian.
Cat:And I'm Cat.
Shelby:And you're listening to the Graduate College podcast.
Sebastian:Where we take a deep dive into topics related to higher education at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and we're members of sage, these students advising on graduate education. And we are here today to talk about COVID-19 One year later.
Cat:The pandemic has changed so many things over the past year, it's made us reflect appreciate and learn about ourselves and our lifestyles.
Shelby:It's been a difficult time for everyone, but like so many people during this year, we want to keep things positive, so we thought of a new segment called funniest zoom stories.
Cat:So let's get to it Sebastian you want to start us off?
Sebastian:Yes, so my story dates back to, sort of one year ago, pretty much almost exactly at the brink of the pandemic, I, we all switch to working from home, but before that, around the office that I was working at, at the time there was rumors of this couple these two dating that no one really knew if they were dating, we'll be all sort of secretly one of them to get together. And so right when we switched to virtual we were all in virtual meetings and looking at all the Zoom tiles on the gallery portion. And one of my co workers will call them Ben, was just in his house and so was my other coworker Kayla, that's who we thought were in the relationship, and Ben's dog who is this like dashing dog and really fluffy little fat thing was always popping in and out of the screen like pets do in zoom but then we noticed that the same dog kept migrating over and switching tiles from them to Kayla so he thought it was really funny to sort of see a sort of a confirmation by this dog that kept popping in and out like, like a, like a whack a mole like on different tiles, he would sort of see him pop up as the pile sort of switched around. But that was really funny to sort of see and I think that that only could have really happened on zoom so it was just a cute little moment for the office and for them.
Shelby:It's really funny. I can kind of relate to that my relationship was revealed via Zoom is 100 because of quarantine. So I wouldn't blame the pets though my advisor just saw that we were in the exact same room, our background were the same.
Cat:Okay, so am I. My story, I'll jump into it for you guys can see my cat likes to sit in front of the zoom camera, she loves looking at screens. And I figured out, I'm like, Oh, the best way to do this is to distract her so I got her like toys, and that didn't work for that long. There are YouTube videos for cats. So just like a person puts a video camera and they put some birds see down and like birds and squirrels come up and cats can watch it and they like love these videos, and it was great for like a week because she would just be distracted to like watching the TV and I made the mistake, I think, one time I put it up on my laptop. And then she learned that like that's where the birds are so now she sits, every time I have the laptop open especially on Zoom when there's like stuff on the screen, she likes to sit, and especially when I'm teaching. She likes to put her face in the camera and so...
Shelby:That's the common thing.
Cat:Right, yeah.
Shelby:Especially with cats.
Cat:So common that you need cat, I mean cat videos that show sort of distress that this is not about cats I guess it's about something that sort of like zoom I don't know if it's somebody that is like zoom but I know that some people like I have a friend named Alexis and she had to ask her co-hort her co workers to stop saying her name in Zoom because she lives alone and, so she doesn't have headphones on or anything, but sometimes some people say her name they say Alexis her Alexa will like perk up in the background and start going off and like nothing ever happens to the thumb zoom you can't hear that well because it says Alexis. It's sort of reads it as zoom so she's had to sort of direct them to say something else and I don't know she has a nickname now but it's sort of reminds me of something we have to come up with a patch to control it. During zoom.
Shelby:Wow, so it's time for our second segment here on our one year quarantine anniversary podcast, we interviewed Caitlin Brooks, a PhD candidate in the recreation, sport, and tourism department within the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. We talked to Caitlin about how COVID-19 changed her research, perspective, and her definition of home after not being able to go to the foundation of her research Burning Man. Hey, Abby and Shelby here!
Abby:We would like to introduce Caitlin Brooks to the podcast, Caitlyn is a PhD candidate in recreation, sports, and tourism and works for the graduate college here on campus as well.
Shelby:Her research focuses on the creation of communities and meaning in sub-cultural leisure spaces, and her dissertation explores narratives of home at Burning Man.
Abby:So Caitlin to start thank you so much for being with us via Zoom. To get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up at the University of Illinois?
Caitlin:Thanks for having me. Yeah, so a little bit about myself. I'm the daughter of a navy family, so I grew up all over the country. But emphatically not originally from the Midwest, I joke that I'm from everywhere except the Midwest, and I came to Illinois, almost nine years ago for a former partner who was at the University, and I actually started working at the university first before beginning my graduate education. So I was working full time and wanted to get a master's degree, and looked at all of the opportunities available at Illinois, saw that you could actually study tourism which as someone who grew up in a navy family, traveling was really important to me, I thought that was fascinating, not something I've ever seen before. So I started doing my master's degree as a full time employee. And then once I finished that up. I loved doing research on tourism so much that I stayed on with my advisor to do my PhD as well.
Shelby:So Caitlin, for those of us that may be unfamiliar with the specific events that you study Burning Man could you expand on what Burning Man is? Yeah. So, Recreation, Sport, and Tourism is related to Leisure Studies that's sort of our parent discipline. And so, people who study within my realm are interested in how people spend their free time and the activities they do outside of work that give their lives meaning. And I say that as an introduction to Burning Man, because it's very hard to explain what Burning Man is, but with that context, hopefully that'll help a little. So, Burning Man is a 75,000 person, arts and culture event that happens every year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, about two and a half hours north of Reno. So truly the middle of nowhere, a very inhospitable place, and 70,000 plus people come and experiment in what the world could look like if we sort of invented things from the ground up. So, nothing exists in the desert there's no permanent infrastructure all of the things that are part of this event are brought in by the participants themselves, to share with one another and to cultivate what I often think of as a city of leisure, a city of fun and recreation. But in addition to that, there's also what are known as the 10 principles of Burning Man, so people who come to the event are unified under a commitment to follow these 10 principles which include like, you know recreations idea of Leave No Trace, but also radical inclusion and radical self expression. So it's really a community of people from all over the world, experimenting in what the world could look like, while having a lot of fun doing it. I mean you can't really talk about Burning Man without talking about having a ton of fun.
Abby:So can you tell us a little bit about your dissertation on Burning Man and kind of what led you to choose that topic?
Caitlin:Yeah, one of the really interesting things I found while being a participant in the Burning Man community is that even though this event takes place in the middle of nowhere, in a very harsh desert, we're tracking like 120 degrees during the day and down to freezing at night it's not a nice place to be. There's an entire EMT team that's contracted by burning man in case people get dehydrated or things like that, but it's fun, I swear it, actually fun. People still refer to the event, and to the desert where it takes place as home. And that's really weird in a tourism context, it's not unheard of to think of your vacation destination as like a place that you consider home or think of fondly, but particularly for an event that happens once a year and doesn't exist for the entire year it kind of appears and disappears. I thought that was really weird. And so I wanted to know what was actually going on. When people refer to a, an event, what some people would think of as a festival as, "home". What does that mean? So that's sort of what prompted my interest in studying that area about Burning Man.
Shelby:Have you been to Burning Man before and felt that same sense of being at home?
Caitlin:That's a good question. Um, I get that, I get that a lot because my leisure identity and my research identity are very interconnected, but I came to the Burning Man community, as a researcher first rather than as a burner, which is what people refer to themselves as when they belong to that community. So I went to a smaller regional Burning Man event in North Carolina, because I was interested in studying what leisure space looks like when we intentionally focused on the idea of interpersonal consent so like the "Me Too" movement. That was what my entrance into the community was, and I discovered I really liked the community I found that fascinating and I really enjoyed spending time at Burns. So I entered as a researcher, but yeah, initially at those smaller regional events, and then at the event in the Black Rock Desert the larger Burning Man event. I definitely feel like I'm home there. You know, my now husband and I met through a regional Burning Man event, and we were planning on having our big wedding ceremony at Burning Man last year but you know Coronavirus had other plans. So the community that I have there and even the place, although it's tough, it's a, it's a beautiful and interesting place to be. And those are both very close to my heart.
Shelby:Wow, so that's very interesting that, you know that's kind of how you met your husband and I'm sorry we weren't able to get married there, but like speaking of COVID How were you feeling when you realize you wouldn't be able to do attend the event that your dissertation was supposed to be on?
Caitlin:I was devastated, on a number of levels. Obviously, I have the distance and the awareness to know that there are a lot of really awful things that happened as a result of
Coronavirus primarily:loss of life and prolonged illness of other people. And those are certainly things that we need to be mourning and keeping in front of mind so it can feel a little bit strange to also be feeling very sad about a tourism event, which some people may consider to be a little bit frivolous or, you know, something that is good to have but not necessary. And so I honor and appreciate that perspective. But for myself and for other people within the community, especially those who consider that place home. It was very much one of the biggest losses of connection. As a result of Coronavirus so many of the people who I go to Burning Man with andwho are in my community, are the closest people in my life, and many of them I only see out in the desert, or at smaller regional events which were also canceled, so there was a big loss there of connection and community, and the week that Burning Man would have happened it was hard. It was hard to not be in that place that is very dear and it's looking like we may not have another event this year, which is less hard than the first time, but still something that is very sad that is missing from our community.
Abby:Yeah, I can imagine that would be really difficult. Can you walk us through the process of kind of how it looked to adjust your dissertation, and can you speak a little bit on what your current dissertation is?
Caitlin:My dissertation is based on ethnographic fieldwork, so that was obviously very disruptive to no longer have a place to do ethnographic fieldwork, and to not be allowed in the field. Fortunately, I'd already done preliminary fieldwork for three years. But this was sort of going to ramp up. Now that I had an idea of my questions about home and those narratives, this was going to be a much more tailored fieldwork experience. So, I had the ironic funny experience of defending my dissertation proposal on April 9, and having Burning Man canceled on April 10th.
Abby:Yeah, that is some cruel timing.
Caitlin:It was pretty bad. It really was, it was, it was a lot. Fortunately I already done three years of fieldwork, I was already immersed in the community I already have those connections. And because my research relies a lot and reflexivity, and my positionality is deeply embedded in the work that I do, I recognize that the feelings that I was having these feelings of like loss and sadness, were potentially also feelings that other people within the community would be having as well, and they might actually even be a benefit to highlighting some of those feelings of home, because sometimes you don't know just how valuable something is to you until it's taken away, so it was like decided, I made a choice to take this thing that was very difficult, and to try to let it help shape my research in a way that could give me an even closer look at our understanding of how burning and helps people to make meaning in their lives, and also how it feels when you're told that you can't go home and sort of the treachery that exists in home existing in a space that is not always accessible, and not under your control. So that brought up a lot of really interesting additional facets of the research.
Abby:So where are you currently at in the process of your dissertation, and has COVID kind of changed that trajectory?
Caitlin:I am done collecting data, So I instead of doing my fourth year of fieldwork, I jumped straight into life story interviews, which are intense two hour interviews with individual participants, where we talk about a wide range of experiences that they've had. And try to situate a particular subject within their broad life experience. So I was fortunately able to conduct those via Zoom for all of my participants and people love to talk about Birmingham, so that was a really nice thing and especially without being able to go, they were excited to be able to still connect to it in that way. So I'm actually in the writing process have a few chapters down and a few chapters to go. I was very lucky that COVID did not delay, my timeline. So I'm hoping to finish up by this summer, ideally.
Abby:Wow, that's amazing!
Caitlin:Thanks. Yeah, it was all because the community is just so wonderful. I sent out a survey to get like initial interest in participating and over 600 people responded and like half of those indicated they wanted to be interviewed, which you know doesn't always actually happen, but the enthusiasm was really really nice, and to be able to have a heck of a lot of different participants.
Abby:Yeah from a research perspective that's pretty good.
Caitlin:Yeah, it was, it was really exciting.
Shelby:So, for us specifically Caitlin, has your sense of how you define home and community changed since COVID happened?
Caitlin:Yeah, that's a great question, really brings it all together. It has, it's interesting, because I really consider bringing it to be one of my homes. I had an ache, thinking about the fact that we wouldn't be back there and probably won't for another, another year. But being specifically at home like being physically in the house that I only live in with my husband for the last year and not going anywhere, has certainly changed and sort of like messed with some of those ideas of home. I feel more comfortable here. I feel more embedded in, you know, my space, and my house and my community and I have dogs and that's great and make everything a lot better. But at the same time I also feel a bit of that disconnect right I can be very rooted here in Champaign in my home, and also feel some of that disconnect from, that I think we're all feeling, of not being with the people that we love that are far away. And for me that's what the Burning Man community is and it turns out from my research, that's what the Burning Man community is for many, many people it's the people who, people have experienced Burning Man with and now feel some sense of community and belonging with that they almost consider family, so I definitely had a lot to think about related to home over the last year.
Shelby:Yeah, we've all had to make big adjustments I'm sure a lot of people are feeling the same way as you would be more comfortable in their own physical home.
Abby:I think comfortable but also uncomfortable becuase its just so, just to wrap things up what lessons do you feel like you took away from this experience and do you have any advice for anyone going through something similar?
Caitlin:That's hard I don't want to turn COVID into like a soundbite of advice you know that that doesn't feel super good, but there are lessons and like I'm a very, very positive person. Overall, and so I think that there certainly are things that we can take from this experience. One of them is that as a tourism scholar, we never thought the tourism industry would like tank, we didn't see this coming, right? Could anybody have predicted that people just wouldn't travel for an entire year. That's a lesson in and of itself like none of our institutions are infallible. There will always be things that can happen, that can fundamentally change the world as we know it, and I think that we all came to understand that really clearly this last year. And so if you want to be you can't, it can't ever be fully prepared for that. Nor should you be I think you would live your life in fear, if you were fully prepared for all of those contingencies. But when you meet those things when those things happen in your life, taking them as an opportunity to reframe some of the ideas that you're working on or the way that you're going to do work to keep moving forward, if that's possible. And I was in a really lucky position where I could shift my research online and I could stay on my timeline. And so having the chance to do that was excellent. I know that's not the case for all grad students so...
Abby:Good things to reflect on.
Shelby:So, thank you so much for joining us Caitlin, it was great to hear your story and we hope you can do Burning Man again at some point in the future.
Caitlin:Thank you. Me too. Thanks for having me today.
Sebastian:Again, we just want to thank Caitlin for her time and for her great answers that was a great interview guys.
Cat:Now it's time for our final segment for this podcast episode.
Sebastian:And we posed this simple prompt to fellow graduate students across campus. "How have you navigated this past year and do you have any tips for those who might be going, or who might be going through a lot during this pandemic?" So let's get to it.
Cat:Our first answer comes from Jay Lopez who is an online student living in San Francisco. He's a recreation, sports, and tourism graduate student and Event Manager for the City of Long Beach, he said, "It's going to sound weird but COVID helped me balance work, family and personal life, it gave me additional time to complete my studies since I didn't work nearly as much as I would have in a normal year. Additionally, we didn't have nearly the amount of commitments, such as birthday parties, friend get togethers and other social activities, given the COVID restrictions so that freed up time for my studies."
Sebastian:I mean, I like it I think. I think it's good to, you know, sort of look at the positives, I think that, to be honest I can relate a lot because I can be very calendar oriented. And I think that the lack of having to go from like, for instance, for something that I think that relates to what he said is, you know, you don't have to worry about how long traffic's going to take or if the train is going to be canceled or you know, you know something's going to get delayed in any sort of way. So just being able to... it really helps you sort of stick to the schedule that you have laid out for yourself. It also allows you to take on more which can be a good or bad thing but I know that some people have the polar opposite where it's really shifted in the opposite direction.
Shelby:My leisure time went up quite a bit. It's a mindset of like, "Oh, I won't be commuting oh I don't have to worry about arriving 15 minutes okay meeting and volleyball, so I was like, thinking of reasons why I should just keep watching TV". And I think he makes a really good point about not having things like birthday parties and get togethers and social activities while those were like, people still try to do those via zoom, they still were, you know, a little bit shorter, you still don't have to commute and all that stuff so for me it wasn't more time for my study but unfortunately, I hope my advisor is not mad at me for that but I was definitely binge watching so much.
Cat:I'll agree with Shelby on this one, it's like, it's a nice positive spin on stuff, I did not have this experience of, I guess, it gave me more time but I like having my schedule. I love the schedule I was like running before the lockdown were like I go to work, at like, eight, make a cup of coffee, the same place every day, sit that my desk work, go to the gym I feel like I love my schedule. I love being able to like go to places and do things.
Shelby:I agree. I'm more of a, I like to go places as well. Some parents looking forward to getting back in person. Our next submission comes from Ave Alvarado, the Executive Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Graduate College here at Illinois. So she said, "I treat every day like it was normal, I get up, I shower, I put on makeup, I get dressed as if I was coming into work, I go to work right on time like I normally would and finish working at around the same time I normally would. Sometimes working from home we can lose track of time, when we go to work physically, our bodies tell us, it's time to go home and stop working. So this method helps me at least resemble that feeling."
Sebastian:Yeah, I think, I think definitely so. I know a few people that have had a really, really tough time segregating work and life because the physical segregation is not there anymore. They just work all hours into the night and it's really difficult especially if you're, you know, a student at, like, you know, pretty early in your life and you're probably not living in like this huge house where you have a home office and you can sort of just shut everything out. So like if you're like me you're probably living in a smaller apartment where you know you, it's all sort of one space. And it's really difficult for me to translate from work to home and then to feel like you know I can just crack open my laptop and just start working. It's not like I have to leave it somewhere, which is sort of always the deal when you're in graduate school, but I can't imagine what it's like for somebody that's just working as a professional, all the time every day.
Cat:And I definitely feel this it's kind of I was saying in the previous response to the other reply that we got, it's like I like having that division and like I also live in apartment it's a decent size but I did have to move my desk was my bedroom. I had to move into my living room because I was just like seeing my bed behind me and just like, oh I can go lay down, or I'd be trying to fall asleep but I'd see my computers and I was like, oh I could work so I'm just like, I had to physically block my view of my bed, or else I was getting nothing done.
Shelby:Now this is, I resonate with this a lot like early quarantine, I wasn't really doing this, it was kind of like just get up and start working when you're ready, but I'm in this unique living situation which we could talk about on another podcast but I live in a sorority house. And so, that's like my second job. And so, in the fall in the students came back my house mom duties, kick in, and so I was actually having a really hard time separating house mom stuff from work because I was working in the house. So I started going into the lab. A few days a week, so I could separate out and like, I would do exactly what Ave said like, Get up, shower, get ready. And then, I was lucky that I had a place to actually go to. And it's just across the street but having to separate out like work and home. If you have another job, other work was difficult for me so I resonate with what she is saying a lot.
Sebastian:My friend, she watches this... I think it's still on Netflix but it's essentially just a video of a moving train. Like you're on the train and it's like going past, she's like "I feel so weird not having my commute" because she would get on... She lives in London. She was like, "I would get on a train, I would commute like all over England and the train rides are only like two hours so only", only two hours but...So she was totally like, you know, thrown for a loop and she didn't have to do that for you and she's like, "I honestly put it on like for 15 minutes in the morning and just eat breakfast because otherwise, I feel like I get a stomachache or I get a headache or something just not seeing, you know my day to day" so people are people are trying.
Shelby:That's on Netflix?
Sebastian:I think so. I forgot what it's called, if you just Google like "train video Netflix" it'll pop up.
Cat:There's YouTube videos for cats and so Im sure there are those like videos for humans, very calming.
Shelby:Yeah, the internet. It's nice to have the internet during quarantine, you know like 100 years ago when the, they had to do this when Spanish flu. Well, what they do, they didn't have Netflix?
Sebastian:Churn butter and make candles or something. I'll go to mine, I talked to a few people and I thought it was interesting what they said because it all sort of blended together. They had similar things to say. So this comes from Liz Yala and she's a graduate student, or one of my cohort so she's studying human resources and industrial relations in the School of Labor and Employment Relations, and she said, "What helps her is not constantly thinking about the pandemic and she said "yes there are changes and we should take everything involving the pandemic very seriously, but trying not to live in fear constantly" because that sort of feeds, anxiety and sort of depresses you so you can take control of the things that you, You know, let you know that you can take control and just take the the basic precautions that you know you're supposed to take and be there for your loved ones, and check in on yourself so you know tax that friend that you might not, that you think you're already texting you know text that maybe one more time or reach out to your mother or your aunt or something, people that you feel like you already talked to you enough, maybe give them a little extra nudge because you're, you know, we're all stuck at home, I sort of liken what she was saying to sort of, you know, putting your own seatbelt on, you know, take that precaution, make sure that your passengers are doing the same and just be patient because you're, you're basically sitting in traffic and it won't last forever. Everybody else also mentioned some sort of exercise so whether that's just walking outside getting sunlight because it's really easy for us to just stay inside for four days at a time, and sort of see the sunrise and sunset and that really messes with your sleep, which probably contributes to a bunch of other problems
Cat:The whole like "not diving too deep into like the anxiety of it." I definitely feel that I actually also I talked to some people about this question, and I had a number of similar responses but they were about like getting into baking and cooking. And one of the people I talked to you they said that they have really liked baking because it gave them a sense of control and it was almost cathartic to be able to like sit down, take these pieces, put them together and like have control over this thing and have a finished product because I feel like especially back like last March and April, just felt like there's no control over anything and it just like all these scary news articles and like you couldn't see your friends was like I can control this loaf of bread that I'm making. Move forward.
Shelby:I totally agree that not having to think about it all the time is definitely a good strategy and giving yourself something to do especially when we are on, like, really really strict lockdown like a year ago. And then like, it also once things started to slowly open up, it kind of made me appreciate the very little things like, I love, I love, love going out to eat now, like, even like even though it's not that often. It's like, hands down one of my favorite things to do now, like knowing how it makes you appreciate people and, yeah, like I haven't done that in a year like, oh, in my backyeard.
Sebastian:Yeah. Um, so yeah you guys should have seen me the first time that me and my partner ordered takeout. When it came, it was very, we approached with a huge sense of caution and sort of almost fear because it was this thing coming from the outside world that somebody else had touched and, like, also, you know precautions were taken, like we were wiping everything down even like the cardboard box that it was coming in. So I've never Yeah, I have forgotten what it's like to run into a restaurant on your way home and then just pick something up and then just start scarfing it down, because you're hungry now there's all this stuff that goes into it so I definitely feel. But now I feel that I like. Thankfully I live in an area where people just, they wear masks and it's not like a debate. So I think that definitely helps contribute to, like I can go out and see a mask and not really think so much about the pandemic anymore it's just sort of part of life as if you were traveling in China like they always have had masks on so kind of like that.
Shelby:So I'll say that living in Champaign, where testing is so, like, widely available, has made things I think, a little bit better for us because I know that like I went and visited my parents over the summer, and they were just obviously they're older, so they're more cautious anyways but not having that testing, you know, makes you feel a lot less comfortable like just being where my parents live knowing that like I could be in the store and no one has been tested and just made me feel a little bit weird whereas like here I walk into a building on campus and I'm like I think everybody's been tested at least in the past week, and that just feels really good. So that's all that's been really helpful throughout this entire pandemic and we've been really lucky that we've had that. Yeah, definitely.
Cat:Also going back to what Sebastian said about the takeout and the beginning, like the remember before the pandemic when you actually like talk to your Uber driver and they didn't just like leave the bag and run up to pick delivery?
Shelby:Yeah, that's weird. Now we have not, there's nobody there. When you get your food, like something from like Uber Eats or something
Cat:I'm usually like a little Gremlin like they like leave it by my door. I was like, come out like grab it and go so it feels like a cave.
Shelby:Yeah, your food just like appears.
Cat:And it's like on my doorstep.
Sebastian:It's kind of like those I don't know if anyone's gonna know what I'm talking about but like back in the 50s you could go to these restaurants and like, there would be a little window and it was like a hand but just like sort of push it out and just appear. That's kind of reminds me of, because you just you just open the door. Right. It's weird.
Cat:Okay, so I guess we will wrap up. Alright, this has been very insightful and we just want to thank those who submitted answers for our prompt on handling COVID-19 restrictions.
Shelby:It's been a wild ride and we still have to stay the course with safety guidelines to keep us all safe.
Sebastian:Yeah, but it's conversations like these ones that we had today that allow us to reflect and learn and grow together, even when we're apart so we want to thank everyone for listening to our podcast and we hope that it's been as helpful for you as it has been for us.
Cat:If you want any further information about the podcasts or anything graduate college related. Visit grad@illinois.edu for more information.
Shelby:Until next time, I'm Shelby.
Sebastian:I'm Sebastian.
Cat:I'm Cat, and you just listened to the Graduate College podcast.