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Okay. My name is Alex J.

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Bolts. I'm originally from Velva, North Dakota. 

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The Star City as its known I actually I've 

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received my Bachelor's of science as well as my

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master's and doctoral degree here at UND.

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I'll be graduating with a PhD this spring in

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general experimental psychology with

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the certificate in quantitative research methods.

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How did COVID affect you as a graduate student?

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I would say in general,

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just the just the change

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to the new normal was

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very I think that's something we all had to do.

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But I would say as the graduate students,

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one of the things we really pride ourselves on with my,

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my program is we're very much, We're a cohort,

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were very much a team we've seen when you go

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from not seeing people every day,

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you really have to change things up a bit to kinda

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maintain that communication with others.

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In terms of my courses,

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I have had the luxury

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of most of my courses already being online.

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So I didn't really have to make much of a change there.

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But when it comes to my research,

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I was gonna do an in-person research study that I

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now magically had to convert to being online.

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And that was definitely a challenge,

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but we made it through that.

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Try and think of other ways.

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Um, another, another way that really affected a lot of

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graduate students, not me necessarily,

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but a lot of my colleagues,

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they would have to do

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their dissertation defenses through Zoom.

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A lot of them missed out on having a commencement

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for their doctoral degree or master's degrees.

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If all hold steady,

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I'll think it'll be the first one was in my group

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of friends have a commencement.

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First one in awhile.

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So I just I feel bad for a lot

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of them because a lot of them a lot

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of them do live pretty far away.

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So they can't just come back to Grand Forks

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and you have a commencement ceremony.

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Unfortunately, I also think about the parents

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and their family members

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who would have wanted to be there with them?

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I know that would have been

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something they would have liked to mail to see,

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but ultimately,

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I think the university didn't make the right call.

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Not having a commencement ceremony is

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this unfortunate casualty of the pandemic?

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Was not having those commencement ceremonies.

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Did you learn anything about

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yourself through the pandemic,

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your resilience, your flexibility perhaps I would,

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I would say it was definitely

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kind of a big confidence builder.

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I was doing my comprehensive exams this last year.

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So that's pretty much like in my opinion,

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it's more daunting than the dissertation defense.

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It's for my program is basically

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a year long process of doing

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different projects independent of any help.

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So I would say being able to

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simply pass that ban itself was big confidence below.

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But being able to manage literally a once in

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a century pandemic at the same time. That's all.

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So it really kind of provide me an understanding of

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what I'm capable of and when things get difficult,

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you can think, Well, hey,

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we've had tougher times before.