Skip to content

RamStories:

An Oral History Project to Record the CSU Experience

Bruce James

Watch the interview: Size: 3.952 MB Duration: 5 Min 41 Sec

Interviewer: "Could you say your name, your year in college, and where you're from?"
Bruce James: "Bruce James, I am a freshman and I am from Littleton, Colorado."

Interviewer: "And could you let us know what's going on tonight? Why you're here in Lory Student Center?"
Bruce James: "I'm getting free stuff-free popcorn, meeting a lot of new people, and I got a really cool teddy bear."

Interviewer: "Thanks."
Bruce James: "I kind of stuffed him myself, too."

Interviewer: "Good. And it is August 18th, 2006. And it's just coming on 11:00 right now.About five minutes to 11:00. And we're in Room 24 of the Lory Student Center.Just putting that on the record. So first generic question is: Why did you choose CSU as your place to go to college?"
Bruce James: "There was a couple reasons. I wanted to stay in-state for tuition, of course-it was way to expensive, unless you go to Hawaii. Hawaii's our sister-state, which I found out, so you get in-state tuition there. But I wanted something in-state. I'd been going to the State Fair for four years, and CSU was always there and I liked the Suicide Trombones. I'm in the band and I'm a trombone-player. Trombone players are actually known as 'The Bruces,' and my name is Bruce, so it's even more interesting. You know, after a Monty Python skit which we got to see last night, it was really cool. I also went to UNC to check them out; they're a very good music-school, so I might transfer there if I really want to get into music, but I might just stay here 'cause you guys have a really good one here, too. But it [CSU] has a lot of other options for majoring and minoring."

Interviewer: "Nice. So, what is your main goal for the CSU experience? What do you want to get out of coming to CSU?"
Bruce James: "I wanted to get to know as many people as I possibly can. Like they do say, yeah, it's kinda boring when people say 'Oh! Get to know people! Network!' and all that kind of stuff. But it's a whole new phase of your life. You get to meet a BUNCH of new people, like, I've met about 400 new people-I don't remember any of their names-but I've met everybody in Band, I've met just about everybody in my dorm (on both sides). I live in Allison Hall (good place but the food sucks). They have a buffet, which isn't very good. There aren't a lot of choices."

Interviewer: "Do you remember what the first thing you ate was? That's actually one of our questions."
Bruce James: "That I ate in the dining room [hall], or that I ate here?"

Interviewer: "In the dining hall."
Bruce James: "In the dining hall I had a bagel, cream cheese, banana, and a milk-chocolate milk."

Interviewer: "And you said that you're in Allison Hall?"
Bruce James: "I'm in Allison Hall."

Interviewer: "And your first impressions of your dorm?"
Bruce James: "Small. Um, the people before had left a lot of little sticky stuffs on the wall. So you see all these little white dots. Someone had decided to draw on it with chalk, I think that's still there.probably covered up with posted by now. Small.I was wondering where I was going to put all my stuff because I hadn't gotten a loft yet. Lofts do help, if someone ever watches this I recommend getting one. Um, but yeah, it's home away from home, I was ready to move out."

Interviewer: "Good. How about campus in general? What kind of impressions do you have of the place?"
Bruce James: "Beautiful."

Interviewer: "Beautiful? Good."
Bruce James: "I love the old trees, um. Campus in general, it's not like, real harsh, you can walk around, you can actually enjoy where you're going. It's not rushing from class to class. You're here for the education, a new environment, a new place to live. Not like a high school where you go there during the day and you don't really want to be there. Here, most people want to be here. I've figured that out, and it's a lot of fun. You can meet new people, and I get to wear this crazy hat."

Interviewer: "Is there anything you miss about being at home? So far, or anticipate missing about home?"
Bruce James: "Two things: My waterbed, especially after sleeping on an uncomfortable dorm-room bed-I did not sleep much the first night."

Interviewer: "And you're tall. How tall are you?"
Bruce James: "I'm about 6'4"."

Interviewer: "I was going to say that that's probably part of it."


Bruce James: "It's close to mattress-size. I intend to curl up, just because I was used to having my feet hang off at home. And when it's waterbed, and then you've got wood.not very comfortable. And I'm going to miss my dog. I've got a year-old weimaraner, and I'm going to miss him. He snuggles, plays fetch-he's a really good Frisbee-player. Except that he catches it and doesn't like to bring it back sometimes."

Interviewer: "It's hard to leave a pet. Ok. So here's the big question: For your future self: Any advice?"
Bruce James: "Be crazy. Be different. Because, like, you've got the general person, 'Oh, hi, my name is [whatever]," most of the time you forget them. If you're loud, as long as you're not obnoxious, as long as you're loud, crazy, do weird stuff, just be different, and people for the most part will remember you. Most people in my dorm know my name, [but] I can't remember most of theirs. Because it's 'Hi, I'm Bruce,' or I'll bounce down the halls and knock on both doors at the same time and meet random people. But I don't remember most of their names because.just make an impression."

Interviewer: "Ok. Very good. Thank you so much."
Bruce James: "Cool!"



END