“I don’t think I would be in the place that I am without my friends and family.”

UWM senior Matt Gotch reflects on how his friends and family have helped push him to graduate this winter.

(Grayson Sewell) With how crazy this past year has been, what has impacted your time as a student the most?

(Matt Gotch) I was living in Milwaukee before the pandemic started, I was going to school full-time and I was officiating sports up here. When the pandemic hit, I lost my main source of income which made me, and classes went online, so that forced me to leave Milwaukee and move back in with my parents, because I couldn’t have a job and go to school. I lost my source of income, and from officiating I was able to pick my own schedule around school and was making decent money. On top of that other events that had happened during [the pandemic] like the Black Lives Matter movement, the protests. You know, you want to go and support the community and support people who align with your beliefs, at the same time there is a right way and a wrong way to do those things, especially with not knowing who was covid positive. It forced me to stay in a lot more than I wanted to. It forced me to not see my friends and to not hang out with family, because I was worried I might, or somebody else might, get sick because of it. There was great fear at the beginning, and I think there’s still some. After my experience with Covid I’m happy I had some immunity built up, but it still effects my day-to-day. Everything is not back to normal.

(Sewell) What do you think was harder for you this past year, was it leaving campus or coming back since everything isn’t fully back to normal?

(Gotch) You know, I truly believe coming back to campus was harder. Because I was planning on finishing my degree, I graduate in December, and planning on not being back in person. The only class that I am taking that’s required is my ASL, my sign language three, and that’s online. So, I wasn’t expecting to be on campus, but the newscasting class sounded like it was right up my alley and would help me in my future endeavors. That’s the only reason I came back to campus. It was much harder coming to class than going to online class.

(Sewell) What was different about the two?

(Gotch) That’s actually a good question. Like I said, I wasn’t even expecting to be on campus. But, going from campus to online classes kind of made it where you could have some autonomy and freedom in being able to get your classes done and not have to wake up early for a 9 or 10 A.M. lecture. It kind of gave me the sense of what I used to do before I got back into school where I could have some freedom in my schedule. The amount of work I had to do mixed with not having to have to drive to class, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I like sleeping in, I guess.

(Sewell) Does campus feel like it’s changed at all to you now that we are back, or does it feel the same as before we left?

(Gotch) No, it does not feel the same. The Union was bustling before the pandemic. The plaza outside the Union was always busy, there was always something going on there, even in the wintertime. People were having events out there, sitting out there in the cold, and I think that’s crazy, but you would see the dedication of the older students. When I was a younger student, you would see that they were facilitating and hosting events, and doing a lot of stuff. Since we have come back, we still haven’t been able to do that. We still haven’t been able to get going at full capacity. We have our journalism meeting once a week, but we are still spread out, we are still wearing masks and I think you lose a lot of the one-on-one and the group work as well. I haven’t had a group project in almost two years. It’s kind of crazy, and I used to love those. I’m the workhorse, I’m the writer, or at least the typer my handwriting is terrible. In our field of journalism there is a lot of autonomy, but a lot of what we do is collaboration and working together. We just haven’t had any of that. I think that’s what I miss the most about pre-Covid UWM versus current-Covid UWM, because we are still not out of it yet. I would take a good group over working alone any day, because you got to know people on a personal basis and I think we are still missing that.

(Sewell) With not having that same experience on campus that you had before, what have you been able to do to stay motivated in your classes?

(Gotch) I’ve been relying heavily on my family and friends. Instead of working with a group where I can bounce things off another classmate, I will just tell my friends, if I’m hanging out with them, I’ll tell them what I’m working on and bounce different ideas off them. Some aren’t college educated, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent, and they bring a different perspective. It’s kept me in it with classes. You can read something or hear something and understand it to be able to do the assignment. The true mastery is to be able to take in the information and actually regurgitate it and be able to explain it to someone else, because you understand the material. To be able to spit out the information so well that you can get someone else’s feedback right away and they don’t need to read the 20-minute-long paper or listen to the hour-long podcast. So, I’ve been trying to basically bounce some ideas off of friends and family, people who are in close proximity to me since I’m only on campus one day a week.

(Sewell) Is there anything you would change about how we have come back to campus?

(Gotch) The drive has been a real pain, but I am glad that I am back in person in at least one of my classes. I personally, if I was in charge, I wouldn’t have had classes come back. Although, I do understand that certain classes need in-person communication, especially since I’m a communication major. I’ve felt that for the semester where we went for half of it and a fall of 20 and spring of 21 that we were certainly missing something and I do believe that it is the human interaction. Which I think we are limited on nowadays anyways, because of our over-reliance on technology. So, it has been a nice breath of fresh air to go to class, but there is policies and procedure in place to have classes on campus for a reason and the pandemic is still going on. Being mindful is one of the biggest things we can do to protect ourselves and others around us. For example, in my television reporting class we are sitting at computers, but I don’t see them getting wiped down before or after class and I don’t know who has sat there and used it before I have. There are some things where we can definitely go further.

(Sewell) Has this past year, year-and-a-half, changed your future plans?

(Gotch) Surprisingly no, because I actually declared my major just before the pandemic. I could have gone in a number of directions, but for ease and just to get done I declared as a communications major and a JAMS minor. That was the majority of my study, and that’s where my studies were leading me. I had an idea of where I wanted to go, and I still was focusing on writing comedy and going into news. I was probably only six months before that I thought I could go into journalism. Why not? I’m a good writer, I’m personable, I’m not camera shy and it just made sense. The culmination of everything I had done in school and university had led me to this point. So, I worked my rear end off this past year to make sure I was still on that path, and really stuck to my guns. I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way or set me back from accomplishing this.

(Sewell) Is there anything that has failed you over the past year? Is there anything that has helped you?

(Gotch) Me personally, no, nothing has failed me. I understand my position and who I am. Say I was a part of a different race or a different ethnicity or background I might have something different to say about that. Because I do see that the system has failed a lot of people around me. While it hasn’t failed me or bothered me personally, I can still stand and support people it has. Any system created by man is not going to be a perfect system. Even the judicial system with as much as they try to be perfect, you can’t be. You just can’t be, it’s inherent in being human, we’re just not perfect. So, has it failed me personally? No. Has anything really helped me? I’d say the support of my friends and family, and the support of my professors, has helped me immensely over the past year-and-a-half that the pandemic has been going on. I don’t think I would be in the place that I am without my friends and family. Especially my parents. They have just been so supportive and so helpful throughout all this. When I lost my job, was spending too much time with my ex-girlfriend, which led to us separating, where did I run but back home. I couldn’t have done it without them. I wouldn’t be close to graduating without them and I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in right now. They just really have gone above and beyond. The older I get the more thankful I am to have people like that in my life.