People of Rochester - Tatianna

When I met Tatianna on the Memorial Art Gallery lawn, she said she was finishing up her undergraduate degree at Nazareth College. She has a double major in public health and international studies, and global relations, with a double minor in German studies and sociology.

Tatianna said she never expected to graduate during a pandemic. “Going to college online has not been very fun, especially when you have classes that require you be there in person, like labs,” she said.

She offered her microbiology class as an example, and said, “you can’t really grow bacteria on the Internet.”

The upside of the pandemic is that it’s brought her friends and her much closer, “because you have to limit who you hang around with,” she said. She has two close friends who have dogs, and “we go on walks and hikes, and it’s really lovely.”

The pandemic has caused Tatianna to think about what life is and what she really values.

“Materialistic things really aren't that important, when you think about your life, and you think about what you want to leave rather than what you have.”

Tatianna has travelled to Europe and she misses traveling. She’s studied abroad and spent a semester in Berlin. She spoke at an international conference in Hungary during her freshman year, giving a presentation on what she calls the fast-food epidemic. Tatianna is interested in nutrition and global health.

She said Nazareth has “a really cool public health program.” She didn't really know what public health was at first, and now she’s passionate about it. “The cool thing about public health,” Tatianna said, “is doing the smallest thing and getting the greatest result... it’s more about preventive action.”

When I met her, Tatianna had already received her first COVID-19 vaccination. She said her arm had been sore, but otherwise she felt fine.

She sees a lot of young people, ages 18-45, who are resistant to getting the vaccine.

When I asked her why she thinks this age group is resistant, she said, “I think we think that we’re invincible, and I think it’s just very much a young-people thing. We don't think we’re ever gonna get a disease; we don't think we’re gonna get into a car accident…”

“There was this initial perception that it only attacks old people, and old people are dying. But now we see that the majority of people who are dying from it—now that the elderly people have been picked off (or vaccinated)—are people who are like, my dad’s age, who are millennials. So I think we need to remember that it’s a disease, and it pays no mind to who you are, to what status you are.”

Thanks, Tatianna!