Carrington Fastelin Oral History Interview

Carrington Fastelin begins the interview by talking about her past and what brought her to attending Oregon State University starting in the fall of 2019, as well as her current major and minor. When she first started attending OSU, she was majoring in Biology, but found that it did not actually serve her interests, so she changed to a major in Public Health and added a minor in Environmental Studies. She explains that when choosing her major and school, she was initially motivated by finances as she bears sole responsibility for paying for her education.

Fastelin then goes into her Honors College experience. Equating it to her high school experience with the International Baccalaureate program, Fastelin notes that the Honors College affords her the opportunity to engage with education in a different way, one in which she feels more freedom to explore. Fastelin also talks about how she believes that the honors program will help her professionally as she gets further into the thesis process. Through her thesis, Fastelin is looking forward to learning more about research and how to interact with professionals at various levels.

From there, Fastelin discusses her experience as an RA on both the Corvallis and Cascades campuses. At Cascades, she learned that she needs to become fully invested wherever she is in order to get the most out of it. She served a small community and felt that she was able to become close with her residents as people and not just as students. Now that she is on the Corvallis campus, she finds that she is not as able to be their friend because of increased conduct problems, but that she can serve as a better support system for her residents. Through her position, she has found support from other RA’s on her team.

At the end of the interview, Fastelin talks about her advice for future RA’s, her insight into what she has learned from transferring campuses, and how she views the opportunities available to her.