The 2021-22 school year was the City University of New York Athletic Conference’s (CUNYAC) first athletic season back from the one and a half year Covid-19 pandemic hiatus. Two years’ worth of new collegiate athletes were entering while old athletes returned after missing a couple of seasons. The CUNYAC sports scene completely changed, entire team rosters were different, some schools even had entire freshmen-based teams. At Baruch College, athletes needed to learn or even relearn how to balance school, sports, work, and life. Being a collegiate athlete means more than just showing up to practice, with it comes enormous pressure to keep up with studies, maintain strength and conditioning for the season, and lastly find some personal time to wind down.
This school year, the majority of Baruch courses have changed back to in-person or hybrid. Some students entered their second or third year never having been on campus until this year. With these recent changes comes the need to adapt, altering previous study habits, as well as prioritization of mental health. The quick changes in less than two years can make it exceedingly difficult for students to adjust without feeling overwhelmed.
I should not have any issues interviewing athletes since it would be easily accessible on campus. For this project, I hope to speak with student-athletes from a variety of sports (swimming, basketball, volleyball, etc.) about their work-life balance and how they navigated any mental health issues they may have had. I would like to interview athletes of different class standings (freshman, seniors, etc.) to observe any differences in habits or changes in mentality. I anticipate getting audio of athletes in their sports environment which would provide diverse natural background sounds based on the individual interviewed.