Meet Julia Irwin

Julia Irwin, a freshman at University of Minnesota: Twin Cities, my fellow classmate in Introduction to Cultural Studies: Rhetoric, Power, Desire.

Julia and I were two of the many people left at the end of the class on the day we found out who our partners for the Changing Minds Project would be, which means we were in the group of leftover neutral 4's. Julia actually received a 3 on the worker quiz, while I received 4. This was good enough for us. The closeness of our scores accurately reflected our opinions on labor and union politics; we agreed. We didn't see a problem with the concept of unions, which are an organization of workers who act together to secure benefits and rights in the workplace. The first thing we asked ourselves: "How the heck are we supposed to change our partners mind if we already agree?"

Julia and I exchanged phone numbers and met on Thursday at 2:20 PM at the tables outside of Starbucks at Coffman, which I noticed, after reading a few of my blog community's posts, is where a lot of people met up to talk. When I arrived, I realized I couldn't remember specifically what Julia looked like. After a quick "Are you here yet?", "I'm walking on the bridge right now" texting conversation, Julia came walking down the stairs. Where do we start? We discussed what we should specifically get to know about each other, and I started off by telling her a little bit about what I had already been thinking about as far as what she should say about me, regarding my views on work. I talked about how I feel about my current job at Burger King and how I am paying for college without any help from my parents. These two items provided Julia with about a page of notes about me, along with other useful information about my parents, siblings, and where I came from. After about 20 to 25 minutes, it was my turn to ask the questions and get to know Julia.

Julia is from the suburbs in Bayside, Wisconsin, which is not far from the city of Milwaukee. For some reason, I assumed that Wisconsin was strictly farmland. I clarified later in an e-mail that she really was from a suburb and it was not farmland. She has a mom, a dad, and two sisters. Julia, who is 18, is the middle child while her older sister is 21 and her younger sister is 14. Her sister is a senior in college of University of Wisconsin: Madison and is very religious. Julia says that her sister made this decision on her own and that their family was not raised like this. I told Julia how I look up to my two older sisters, which is part of what has led me to the U of M, and I asked her if she looks up to her sister. She admitted that her and her older sister are not too close (but they do get along!) and she tries to do the opposite of her sister, hence why she currently attends the U of M. Julia's first visit since she left for college will be during Thanksgiving break, which she says she cannot wait for.

While Julia has done a variety of work as a babysitter, nursery attendant, and camp counselor, she has not had an official job yet. She has applied at many places on the U of M campus, but has not had any luck yet. Julia plans on going home for the month of winter break between fall and spring semester and she says that places do not want to hire her for this reason. She has been trying to find someone to babysit for around campus, since she has been babysitting for many years. When she was 10, she started off babysitting her cousins and by age 13, she was babysitting for families in her area that got her phone number. A family from her congregation at church became her regular family and she babysat their kids for about two and half years. Her camp counseling experience was this summer for 9 weeks at a camp she had been attending for a while prior to becoming a counselor. This job required her to work on a strict schedule with 1 hour of rest a day. The camp kids were her first priority no matter how she felt. Based on this experience, she knows she is fully capable of being dedicated to a job no matter what the circumstances may be. Julia and I had a huge characteristic in common- we both take school very seriously. She doesn't blow off assignments and will stay up late to make sure they get done. I believe that Julia is a hard-worker and will do excellent when she finally receives a job.

Julia and I seemed to open up to each other right away, which was very helpful when it came to this assignment. Something that I took a lot of interest in learning more about was the divorce between her parents two years ago that Julia told me about. Julia told me that one of the reasons why her parents got a divorce was because her dad lost his job. He was a computer programmer but was unfortunately unable to keep up with the advancement of technology. The knowledge that he had of computers became outdated. Her mom has been and still does work as a teacher with special education students at a school. When her parents divorced and her dad moved out of the house (he only lives ten minutes away now), her sisters were worried about money. Julia says that teachers do not get paid very much and this was the family's only income, so money was tight. Julia says that her mom is often at work until later in the evening like almost every teacher, especially because she works with special education students. Her mom encourages Julia to get a job that is self-sufficient and not be a teacher. Schools are currently hiring inexperienced college students because it is cheaper for the district. It is hard for experienced people like her mom, with a masters degree, to find work. Julia wants to find a job with regular hours so that she will be able to go home and eat dinner with the family that she has someday. She believes that hard work in school is important, but she shares that she also knows people who worked very hard in school and still do not make enough money to pay the bills and support their family.

Julia is currently paying for college with a college fund that her parents have saved for her, along with scholarships that she earned herself. Julia currently lives in the dorms and is apart of the University Honors Program. The Honors Program students live in Middlebrook and Julia told me that she assumed she would be living with anti-social nerds, who were pretty quiet at first, but eventually opened up. She shares her dorm with a roommate and seems to enjoy dorm life. I am jealous. :-)

I feel happy that Julia and I had so much in common and did not struggle at all with finding things to talk about. We even discovered that we are also classmates for Introduction to Psychology and will hopefully become study buddies for the upcoming exams in that class and for the final exam for Cultural Studies. This has been such an interesting assignment for, I think, the both of us. I really enjoyed getting to know so much about someone that I had just met. I am excited to work with Julia throughout the remainder of the Changing Minds Project.