FIVE WITH A FALCON: Anna Gauvin, Engineer, Tour Guide, & Improv President (ENGT '25)

In this episode of FIVE WITH A FALCON, Anna Gauvin (ENGT ‘25) talks about her college career as an Engineering major and how it was affected by the COVID pandemic. Despite this setback, Anna shares her appreciation for the sense of belonging and community she found with being a Fitchburg State University campus tour guide and being a member of the Improv Club.

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Episode transcript available here.

Recorded in May 2024, this episode was produced by McKenzie Calvao and edited & sound mixed by Adam Fournier.  Both are members of the Perseverantia staff, and film/video production students in the Communications Media department.

Click here to learn more about Perseverantia. Join us for programming updates on Instagram. Or reach out with ideas or suggestions at podcasts@fitchburgstate.edu.

Transcript

[Five With a Falcon theme fades in] 

Mckenzie Calvao (Host):
So can you introduce yourself for the podcast? 

Anna Gauvin:
Hi, my name is Anna Gauvin. I am a fifth year engineering student here. I've been engineering the whole time. I've also been a residential student here, so I've lived on campus all five years. 

[Five With a Falcon theme fades out]

It's gonna take me a sixth year, and I'll be living on campus again next year. So, if you see me around, you see me around. I'm also going to be president of Improv next year, and I've been a tour guide on campus for two and a half years, I believe. 

Mckenzie Calvao (Host):
Awesome. So tell us a little bit about your career at FSU. 

Anna Gauvin:
So, back in fall of 2019, I came here as a freshman, made a whole bunch of friends, joined the improv club, and then the very next semester, the world ended.

And so that made things a little tricky, going online all of a sudden. I was really struggling in a lot of online classes. I failed a few, I wasn't able to fully pay attention or get the most out of those classes because it was all so sudden and everyone was learning at the same time, both how to teach and how to take online classes, hence the whole I've been here for five years, and I'm gonna need another.

But throughout that time, I've learned a lot about myself through classes, whether those be my classes for my engineering major, or my deaf studies minor, I've been learning ASL and a lot about deaf culture, and through my time as a tour guide, I have gained a lot of knowledge about the campus itself and about like various kinds of clubs we have on campus and it's just been a massive fun time getting to know everybody and stuff.

Mckenzie Calvao (Host):
So where do you find a sense of belonging at Fitchburg? 

Anna Gauvin:
So, I would say the two places that I find a pretty big sense of belonging are the admissions office where I work. So, I've been a tour guide for two and a half years. So, doing that you kind of get to know everybody. I have gotten to know several of the admissions counselors.

I've gotten to know a bunch of the other tour guides. 

And it's gotten to the point where I'll go into work and just ask people like, hey, how was your weekend? And it's just a really genuine, pleasant conversation. And it feels like a really good sense of community there. And the other place that kind of feels like home to me is the improv club. It was literally the first club I joined on campus. 

So my older brother and I are very awkward and very similar ways. And when he went off to college, he joined the improv group at his college and I saw how much confidence he got from that and he just burst out of his shell. He became so much more of a, like a bright and vibrant person and a lot more extroverted through that.

So I was like, hey, maybe I can break out of my shell if I join improv here. And so having an improv club was a huge selling point when I was considering coming here and It really has become a second home for me. Not only do I, like, actively participate in the club on campus, my boyfriend now lives with two of the friends that we made through improv back in 2019. So I still have that, like, connection to the old club and the investment in the new club seeing as I'm gonna be president next year. So that's pretty fun, pretty big. 

Mckenzie Calvao (Host):
Yeah, that's awesome. So, what do you think your greatest accomplishment has been here so far? 

Anna Gauvin:
So there's been the breaking out of my shell that came with having joined improv and recently joining musical theater club, which have been pretty, pretty big for me. I used to do community theater back home when I was in high school. And I realized this past year that it had been seven years since I had done a performance on stage that like was scripted. 

And being able to get into musical theater club and get active in that was a pretty big achievement for myself because it was, again, my first time scripted on stage in seven years. And the other kind of crowning achievement for me was actually being in a student film. I may be an engineering major, but I'm constantly mistaken as a film video major because so many of my friends are in the film program here. And I just find it really funny that it took this long to end up being in a friend's student film. And it was such a blast.

It was really big for me because it was one of those things that I saw from the script writing, from the very first table read. Like, it's almost done now, and it's so cool to see that whole project come to fruition. And I'm so, like, proud of myself, proud of all my friends. It's been really big, yeah.

Mckenzie Calvao (Host):
That's really nice, yeah. So, in what ways have you grown or transformed during your time at Fitchburg? 

Anna Gauvin:
I think one of the biggest ways that I've grown and transformed is my social skills. I always grew up being that kind of weird kid that like, I was always picked last in gym class. I'm realizing that I do have that charisma that I didn't think I had before.

And learning that, things like charisma and being charming. They're not innate. They're like a muscle. You have to work it out. You have to keep practicing at it. And I feel like that's something that I can see thinking back through my time as a tour guide. Because when I was first giving tours, I was very formulaic about it.

I was very much like, this is the list of information about this building. And now it's more like, so this building does this. And this is my favorite part about the building. It's like, a lot looser, a lot more, like, free flowing. 

[Five With a Falcon theme fades in]

And I find that I'm now able to make a more personable connection with the families I give tours to. And so that's, it's a pretty big thing to see that growth in myself. 

Mckenzie Calvao (Host):
Awesome. Yeah, that's so fantastic to hear. So thank you so much for joining me today and thank you for listening.

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Adam Fournier:
This is Adam Fournier, a senior in the film and video program, and one of the producers and editors for Perseverantia, the Fitchburg State Podcast Network.

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