Students talk about how music affects mood

KAYLEY BRADY-ESTES reporter collegian.editor@tccd.edu

The music people listen to can impact their outlooks on life. TCC students are talking about what they’re listening to and what headspace it puts them in.

Connect student Selena Cruz said she loves listening to rock, metal, screamo, alternative indie and sometimes pop. She listens to Papa Roach when she cleans, specifically the songs “Help” and “The Fire.”

“My favorite artist is Pierce the Veil because I enjoy the melodies they put together, and they bring back many good memories of when I was growing up in the 90s,” Cruz said.

She believes music and people’s emotional states correlate. Like when people work out, they listen to upbeat music to give them more adrenaline.

“My thoughts on mainstream music is that it is trash,” Cruz said. “Music today is fluffed with unrealistic expectations and violence, and it’s hard to relate it to everyday life. The message the artist put in their work set the younger generation to have a certain expectation that forces them to compromise their morals for the sake of being cool and fitting in.”

Connect student Meaghan Butler said she listens to a little bit of everything when it comes to music, but R&B is what she listens to the most.

“I don’t have specific songs for occasions or moods, but for me, it’s all about the setting,” Butler said. “For example, if I’m on a road trip, country music is what’s on as a great way to jam out. Or on rainy days, I want soulful music with a woman with raspy vocals.”

Butler said she constantly discovers new artists and always looks for new music to enjoy.

“If I had to pick a favorite song, it would be Yamz by Masego and Dave Morrison,” she said. “That’s because the music video brings a new meaning to the song and simulates togeth-

Indigenous (continued from page 1) long Indigenous people have been misrepresented, Yellowfish said.

“Pocahontas was one of the earliest and most famous missing and murdered Indigenous women who disappear from Native American communities every year,” Yellowfish said. “This history has been really romanticized.”

The Disney movie “Pocahontas,” glorified John Smith and romanticized his and Pocahontas’ relationship, Yellowfish said.

“She was a child when she met him,” she said. “She was trafficked to Europe. She never returned. She died alone, not ever coming back to her tribal lands.”

Yellowfish wants people to try to understand how mistreatment of Indigenous people has led them to where they are today.

“We are only 2% of the entire population, but we’re indigenous to this country,” Yellowfish said. “We have to get that historical context or you can’t understand our present-day struggles.”

A contributing factor to violence against Indigenous people is camps that spring up because of energy extraction, Yellowfish said.

“They are extremely close to tribal lands,” she said. “There are stories of people having slaves at these camps and people being tortured and never leaving.”

Yellowfish said these horror stories are hard to hear, but they need to be talked about.

“We fight pipelines not just to protect the water but to protect the people,” Yellowfish said.

This was in reference to people from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Another factor that puts indigenous people at risk is not being able to assert tribal sovereignty, Yellowfish said.

“If a non-Native comes on to tribal land and commits a crime, tribal police and government cannot prosecute,” Yellowfish said. “It’s understood that you can basically go in there and do what you want.”

She said that when these crimes do happen there is confusion as to what authority will be able to prosecute. This can leave affected families waiting to see if anything will be done at all.

“That’s when organizations like ours come into play,” Yellowfish said.

She said that MMIW helps people with health issues, domestic violence and missing persons cases.

“Our mission is to help MMIW families,” Yellowfish said. “A lot of times it is to help them heal.” erness with the ones you love and being the best version of yourself.”

Yellowfish said her organization will continue to be there for those Indigenous people in need.

“I hope you do not ever need my help in those situations but we are here if you do.” she said.

Butler said she believes music and emotional state correlate because if people listen to something that matches their mood, it can either uplift or leave people stagnant.

“Music that kids listen to now differs from when I was growing up,” she said. “Music today only excites me if they tap into the 90s era of music. It’s a bit raunchy, and I think it desensitizes kids to adult themes they shouldn’t be concerned with.”

NE student Janisty Brown said she listens to multiple genres, mostly R&B. Brown doesn’t listen to any particular songs for specific occasions or moods but lets her playlist dictate the mood.

“My favorite two artists are Raveena and Sabrina Claudio,” Brown said. “I love Raveena since her music takes me out of this world into a trippy fantasy land, and it relaxes me. I enjoy Sabrina Claudio because of her stories, and I always seem to relate to them.”

Brown said her favorite songs are “Petal” by Raveena and “IOU” by Claudio. She said that Petal makes her want to daydream, and that “IOU” reminds her of her past.

“‘IOU’ talks about how the artist felt she owed her man in a relationship because he loved her. The guy in the relationship was a terrible person to the artist,” she said. “That’s how I felt in my early teenage years, but people who make you feel that way don’t tend to be good for you. It reminds me to know my worth and my limits.”

Brown said music and emotional state correlate strongly due to good artists putting emotion into their craft. The emotion in a song can trigger a good or bad memory, and when a song comes on, it can give the listener nostalgia.

“Mainstream music now is overly sexualized and overly violent,” she said. “There is much more to life than sex, partying, drugs and violence. Glamorizing that lifestyle puts kids in a stronger position to think that behavior is OK. I wish more meaningful messages in music were what makes the tabloids.”

Ariel Desantiago/The Collegian Jodi Yellowfish gives a lecture about the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women event at TR. She shared not only personal anecdotes but also historical examples.

Health

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“This is a problem for the students that have small children at home, and for the classroom teachers that are taking care of the young children in the Children’s Center,” NE Child Center MSTR teacher Barbara Smith said.

Focusing on school work while having a sick child can be difficult, especially when one needs reliable child care to attend classes.

“Students with children may struggle if their child gets diagnosed with RSV because of lack of child care for a sick child and or accompanying parental illness,” TR associate nursing professor Alison Carmona said.

Carmona said what RSV is and why it can be specifically dangerous for children.

“RSV is a cold virus, but it produces a lot of thick mucus and boogers, and that affects children under 2 with small airways much more significantly than bigger children and adults,” she said.

Although NE Child Center hasn’t had many RSV cases, the incubation period is something the staff is well aware of.

“We have not had many children diagnosed with RSV at the Children’s Center; however, we have been told that if a child is diagnosed with RSV, they can be contagious for 3 to 8 days,” Smith said.

In order to keep students and their children healthy at NE Child Center, precautions are in place.

“We recommend that the parents have their children tested for COVID, Influenza, and Strep when we send them home from school with a high fever,” Smith said.

With many getting sick this fall, Carmona said ER staffs’ have been struggling to tend to all of their patients.

“The high number of children visiting the ER is causing a strain on a healthcare system that is already struggling,” she said. “In 2021, around 100,000 nurses left the workforce, the largest decline in over 40 years.”

Surges of sick people in hospitals can not only be stressful for nurses, but may make it difficult for them to take care of themselves as well.

“Personally, so many of the nurses I know and work with are struggling, especially those in the Emergency Department,” Carmona said. “Many nurses are missing their breaks and lunches, and sometimes there is not enough time to stop and breathe before the next sick patient comes through the door.”

Aside from the stress of having a sick child, students can have a hard time overcom- ing their own illnesses and staying on track in classes.

“I think that being sick in college is probably one of the hardest [things] to bounce back from, if the teacher isn’t helpful or you just don’t know people,” SE student Abi Cliff said. Preparing students for finals can also mean more assignments and studying.

“Having finals around the corner – so much information is piled onto us,” she said. “Just missing one lecture can set you back really far if it’s just a lecture-based class.”

It can be important for students to remember that experiencing stress is normal, and that some staff understand this.

The high number of children visiting the ER is causing a strain on a healthcare system that is already struggling.

Alison Carmona TR Associate nursing professor

“I think most of our students are stressed about their grades right now,” Carmona said. “The semester is coming to an end and this is a natural feeling.”

Cliff said how she thinks we can keep each other healthy.

“I think we can help prevent sickness by staying home if you aren’t feeling well, wearing a mask or a face protector, and constantly washing your hands or using hand sanitizer to kill germs,” Cliff said.

Carmona said what she’d say to a student who’s sick or has a sick child, and is experiencing stress when it comes to maintaining their grades.

“So many times as a professor, when things are going wrong with students, I could have helped, but most of my students don’t reach out to me and I can’t help if I don’t know,” Carmona said.