My first big project was to do transcription work for a larger project done by UCI's Medical Humanities department. The program performed interviews with people of color living in Orange County who experienced discrimination when receiving medical care. I had to go through several of these interviews and record all of the dialogue in a form that would make the content accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. My transcription would also be used to make searching for select keywords or interviews easier to perform for future research.

You can read all about the project itself and all of the important work they are doing here.

The other major task I had in the first few weeks of the program was getting acclimated to the duties of the archival department. I was given permission to sit on on meetings performed to coordinate tasks between the team and get to know how responsibilities are managed. My mentor walked me through the workflow system that the department used, where every step involved in uploading new materials is meticulously laid out to streamline the process. I got to learn how these systems are developed and refined to work in a remote setting as a result of the pandemic.