ACR Students Stories

Usually, in a class, you know exactly what you are going to do and exactly the content you are going to analyze, but in this class, we had to decide for ourselves what we wanted to research and the ideas we wanted to propose…This class has made me more confident in my abilities to collaborate and has caused me to care deeply about Appalachia in a new way. - - Julia Greenman, senior, International Studies and Humanities for Public Service Double Major, Spanish Minor, Fall 2021, Alexandria, VA

I believe everyone should have the opportunity to take a course such as Appalachian Community Research that allows them to engage with their community while also giving back and using the knowledge they’ve learned in their courses to positively impact their community as so many students who come to Virginia Tech never truly engage with Appalachian culture despite spending 4 years within the region. - -Amanda Ljuba, junior, Criminology and Sociology with a concentration in Social Inequality double major, Psychology and Public Health minors, Fall 2021, Lorton, VA

After this course, I feel more comfortable participating in community-based participatory research. I have become more open to interdisciplinary team projects as well. At first, the different skill-sets and perspectives were a challenge, but eventually, our skills began to help us construct a valuable deliverable for the community. I feel more open to working with others with different maturity, politics, and skill-sets. By the end, I think we all found out that this work is serious and calls us to be our best selves in the classroom and outside the class. 

The engagement with the community made the biggest impact on me because it made me understand just how important professionalism, compassion, and sincerity is in research because it shapes how much communities will trust you and value what you have to share with them and what information they are willing to share with you. - -Senior, Geography & Sociology Major

I must admit, with some shame, that this project was the very first time that I have ever engaged with the people living in this area who are not associated with Virginia Tech. Part of what drew me to this class was that I was wholly unaware of the community outside of campus and of the social, political, economic issues that they deal with, and I was so fortunate that this class provided to me the opportunity to get to know this area in an intentional and intimate way. My research and experience in this class, first and foremost, taught me to center the community affected when tackling any type of issue, especially when it concerns public health. Thank you so much for such an informative, comprehensive, and thoughtful class. - -Senior, Biochemistry

I learned through this course that the Appalachian people are passionate about their community and also very welcoming. Seeing so many students at the Appalachian Regional Commission conference who were passionate about their projects made me realize that we were a part of something bigger than I imagined. In all honesty, this course made me realize that a career in research, or something similar, is something I am extremely interested in. This course has given me excellent experience in all parts of conducting research and I am excited to pursue a career in the same field.- - Senior, Sociology and Criminology