Harnit Mahal Oral History Interview

Harnit Mahal’s interview focuses on the role that education has played throughout her life, along with several obstacles that she has encountered. She begins by discussing her early childhood memories, including pending summers with her grandmother and two older brothers. Through reading books such as the Harry Potter series, Mahal discovered a passion for learning. Although she didn’t particularly enjoy school, programs such as Avid and Upward Bound helped Mahal realize her desire to pursue a college education, and she did so at Oregon State University studying Psychology. Her time at OSU was, as she described it, quite the roller coaster, in part because of the culture shock that she felt upon moving to Corvallis from her hometown in California.

From there, Mahal talks about how the Equal Opportunities Program was a vital part of her success at OSU; shares the negative impact that the COVID-19 pandemic made on her later college years; and discusses how that impact helped shape her college experience.

Towards the end of her time at Oregon State, Mahal discovered a passion for Communications and added it as a second major. She notes that, after graduating in fall 2022, she worked as an academic counselor for the Equal Opportunity Program before deciding to continue at OSU as a graduate student. The interview concludes with a discussion of Mahal’s graduate research as it stood in Winter 2024.