I have to say I’ve never considered any type of blogging or field notes before. I also didn’t think that I would get anything out of watching how people interact with each other.  Out of all the social spaces at Pace University I was most interested in Kessel because it is our only dining hall on campus. With that being said you would think that Kessel would be the place to hangout at. I, personally only sit down and eat at Kessel when I am with my team after practice. If I’m not with my team, I usually take my food to go and eat in my room or to class with me. Not only was it difficult to carve the time out to sit and observe Kessel it was also intriguing the way people interacted with each other in Kessel.

Throughout the 90 minutes that I have observed Kessel Student Center I noticed many things that I wouldn’t normally see had I just been passing through the dining hall.

When observing Kessel during breakfast time, I noticed how many students don’t actually have breakfast. That’s probably because I observed Kessel on a Sunday morning where many of the students could’ve gone home that weekend or were sleeping in. I think this could be a good topic to research as to when college students eat and what they eat. Although, this was an interesting observation I noticed many other things that could be more useful for me to research.

Throughout all of my field notes each day I observed Kessel I noticed people travel in groups specifically, athletes. On top of the athletes traveling in groups to Kessel I noticed that they also always sit in their unassigned assigned seats. When looking back at all of my blogs the one athletic group that was always in Kessel was the football team. They were located along the booths on the back of the wall that overlooked every angle of Kessel.

Since the football team was always located along the back wall of the dining hall I think it portrays a sense of the power and dominate over the school. As they sat against the wall that overlooked Kessel you could tell they too were observing the students that were in the dining hall. This type of atmosphere is very stereotypical for any school but more specifically high school. It brings up many questions such as…are they trying to portray more power then they actually have? Is this their social hangout space? Are they observing girls or everyone that walks into Kessel? Why do they only sit against the wall?

I think this would be a really good topic to research because I am a part of the athletic community at Pace. It would be an interesting topic for me to continue research in because I could see how the athletic community is viewed as a whole at Pace.

Kessel is known for it’s social atmosphere during the week, but on the weekends it is known as the ghost town. For my last field work study, I observed Kessel on Sunday October 28^that approximately 10am. It should be noted that Kessel doesn’t open until 10 on the weekends compared to 8am during the week. This is because college students are known for sleeping in after a long night out, probably from going to the local bar in town Paulies.

I will admit that waking up on Sunday to do my field work was not ideal because it’s the only day that I get to sleep in due to being in season with field hockey. I usually get up around 12 but decided to see if Kessel was actually busy on Sunday mornings. Surprisingly there was a handful of people waiting to get into Kessel when I arrived. After noticing the group of people waiting outside of the dining area I looked at my phone to see that it was 10:10 am. I then wondered if everyone’s Sundays were slow to begin because Kessel was supposed to be open and ready to serve food at 10. Behind the fenced in dining hall there was only one worker setting uop the hot food line and getting the grill heated. While waiting for the gate to open I looked around and noticed that Kessel wasn’t its usual uppity social atmosphere. It was very dark and gloomy because only half of the lights were turned on. On top of the lack of lighting there was no music which added to the emptiness of Kessel.

After getting some eggs from the hot food line I sat down at the long bench against the wall. There I watched a number of students that sat by themselves with headphones in drinking their coffee and eating. There was a gap of time until more people started to come into Kessel to get food. Slowly groups of people started to trickle in especially a large groups of girls. As they walked in some of them got in line on the grill while some of the other girls I overheard saying that they wanted to leave and go to the diner. Those girls walked out with nothing and were most likely going to the diner that is located in town. After hearing that comment I wondered if the diner in town is the place to go on the weekends since Kessel is clearly not a morning hotspot.

I found it interesting that even for a Sunday morning with barely any people in Kessel that the food still took forever to order and receive. This was because they were short staffed and only had one chef working as mentioned above. I don’t blame them because I wouldn’t want to work on Sundays nor would it make sense to have a lot for chefs working for not that many students getting food. Along with one chef they only had one cashier with one entrance ringing people out instead of the usual 4 that are available during the week. They probably don’t get enough business on Sundays to have multiple workers serving which is also the reason why the grill and hot food line are the only food stations open on the weekends.

 

 

I have heard that college students don’t normally get up and eat breakfast. After my conclusions from today I can say that some people do get up and get a morning coffee but the majority of campus was probably still not up at 10 am on a Sunday. Based off of Kessel it is irregular for college students to eat breakfast but that also could be that they went to the diner instead. The lack of choices in Kessel can also turn people away as there are only two options for food available on the weekends.

If there is one time to never go to Kessel, it’s during common hour or between the time 12-1:15pm during the week. Just from personal experience I have learned that it could take up to an hour just to get my food. I try to stay away from Kessel during common hour but today I have decided to observe common hour as a part of my field notes study.

During common hour there are a lot of activities going on in Kessel because It’s the one time throughout the day that everyone has off. As you walk in to Kessel before walking into the dining area you can find a bunch of long tables that are set up with sororities, fraternities and other organizations trying to raise money by selling baked goods. Sometimes there are official events going on during common hour such as career spotlights and club fairs.  You will know when these events are going on based off of the flash flushes that are located in the Kessel bathrooms as well as their huge pin board just outside the Dining hall. This pin board has ALL the activities going on throughout the month in Kessel. The most interesting one that I found was a sign by the Latin American Student Organization who will be running an event on 10/23 called “Fear Factor” which will showcase different flavored crickets! Some other events on the board include movie night, sports marketing career spotlight and game night.

On October 22, 2018 I decided to observe Kessel during common hour. As I walked in I wasn’t surprised by the abundance amount of people that I ran into, as soon as I stepped foot into Kessel everything was the same as my last observation except there was quadruple the amount of people. All the athletic teams were sitting in the same exact spot including but not limited to the football team against the wall, the basketball team at the round table as well as the baseball team who also sat at the high top tables near field hockey. This is the most important thing about kessel because it emphasizes the the social hierarchy still exists even though some people say its supposed to end in high school. While I continued to observe everyone in Kessel, it seemed as if the Football team was above everyone else at least that’s what they think. I noticed multiple football players cutting the extremely long lines having conversations with the Chefs to get them to make their food right away instead of waiting on line like everybody else.

The biggest event going on in Kessel on Monday was a career talk hosted by the Business Association Club. Because of this event there was a lot of people that were dressed up in business casual attire to attend the career event, this was a chance where students could expand their networking connections. Even though this event was going on there was still a ton of smaller events  happening especially the baked goods sale and sock drive. Kessel is a great place to meet up with clubs in between classes. It also serves as a great social place for everyone to go hangout.

The focus of todays observation was to see the interactions between all the students in Kessel as well as how long people stood in line for. I observed one girl who stood in line for 45 minutes… Common Hour is the loudest and largest amount of people together at once at the same time. One thing I’m starting to see a trend in is some of the athletic teams tend to sit around for a while well the non athletes tend not to stick around in Kessel unless they are attending a special event.