Grant LeVasseur, August 19th, 2024
Title
Grant LeVasseur, August 19th, 2024
Description
In this interview, Grant LeVasseur discusses how his lockdown experience was a time for studying rather than a time of rest.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Grant LeVasseur
Interviewer's Name
Taylor Claybrook
Date
8/19/2024
Interview Length
17:19
Transcription
Taylor Claybrook: Today is Monday, August 19th. My name is Taylor Claybrook and I'm sitting down with.
Grant LeVasseur: I'm Grant Levasseur.
TC: Thank you. Grant. So my first question is what was your initial reaction to hearing about Covid, both when it was spreading and then when the lockdown finally happened?
GLV: So my first reaction I felt like was. Fairly in line with, a lot of the country's, like, kind of nervous about what might happen and taking it fairly seriously. I wasn't. Necessarily scared for myself as I was 26 years old at the time, was fairly healthy. But I was scared of how I might be spreading it, other people. And so I was masking right away and trying to, to stay away and kind of just nervous about what might happen is very uncertain for what the future might hold.
TC: Okay. And that applies to when the lockdown happened. Like, were you were you surprised when the lockdown finally came around or?
GLV: A little surprised? I had heard some like rumors that it might be happening in like the weeks prior, and I'd been following the news a little bit for like, oh, coronavirus is coming up, this might be serious. And you hear about outbreaks and, like in China and then in Europe and how it was spreading very rapidly. And. Yeah.
TC: Okay, so you are at Wayne State right now. What program are you in?
GLV: Yeah. So I'm at Wayne State. I've been here since summer of 2018. I'm in the MD PhD program there. So this is my start of my seventh year. In a week. We're starting this semester. Meaning I do both. I'm working on my medical degree and, my PhD as well. In the PhD, I do. I'm working on neuroscience research in the translational neuroscience program. I broadly study PTSD.
TC: And how was your academic career impacted when Covid started or when when the lockdown?
GLV: Yeah, I feel like it was. Impacted quite a bit. So right when right around March, when that was happening, I was scheduled to take my first board exam. So in medical school we have to take a few board examinations in order to make our way through the medical program and then apply to residency. So what I was studying for at that time is called the step one Usmle step one, which is a pretty important test. What we had is from December to March was what is called our dedicated period. So we get time off from school essentially to just full time study review. Everything that we had learned from the past two years in medical school and then take this big eight hour exam. So my exam, I think was scheduled originally for like March 23rd, March 27th, something like that. And if I remember correctly, lockdown half, it was like March 17th, something like that. So all of the examinations were getting canceled. All the Prometric sites boom, they're shut down, dates are moving back, and then they just canceled them indefinitely. So I had already been studying like just in my little study silo for about like three months, waiting to take up this test, gearing up for it. So feeling good about it. And then boom, tests canceled. And so I'm just waiting there for for three months. And so it was, I don't know, it was a really bad time because I had already been in a little bit of a quarantine myself beforehand, just, you know, going to the library, studying all day. I would see a few friends. Sometimes we'd go to the library together and study, but, that was already fairly isolating and stressful, and then I essentially had to extend it for another three months. I think I wasn't able to take my test until like, June 10th, something like that. So I had spent, you know, six months of the year studying for this one test. And it was, I don't know.
TC: So we did good on it.
GLV: I did all right. And it, I don't know. It was very difficult. It was. It was super stressful to try and stay in that, like, peak, like, test taking mode and getting ready. And at the same time. Those three months and leading up to the summer would have been used. This is when I would have transitioned into, my graduate program as well. So the way the MD PhD program works is we, we do the first two years of medical school like normal. And after we take this step one examination, we break off from our medical school class. We go on a leave of absence to start our PhD program. So during these couple of months, between March and August, when the semester starts, we're supposed to be spending time rotating through labs, working with, other professors within the university to see who we might want to work with, to see who would we would want to do our PhD with. So that was something I also lost out on. I lost what is that, about five months? Yeah. Of time that I could have been spending trying to find a mentor that I just couldn't. And once, once the semester hit and I could rejoin the graduate school. Even then, it was difficult to get a sense of how you might work with someone on research because there were so many restrictions on. What you could do in person, and what kind of things you could do in the lab. And like none of our meetings were ever in person. So you can't get a sense of like, do I really fit into this lab? Like, I can kind of talk to them over a zoom call, and then I can go in the lab and see no one and do some bench work, or maybe hang out with the rats. Right now I do animal research. But even that was very isolating, so it was very hard to get a sense of. Where I might fit in within the graduate program and where I would. Ultimately do my thesis research so that it really delayed, that process for me of starting the PhD until really essentially until the next year. I was kind of fumbling around all that Covid year trying to, to figure out who I might want to work with. And it. Yeah. It was it took a lot more time than, than I think it possibly could have had there not been Covid at all. I may have been able to do that much more efficiently.
TC: That answers one of the next questions I wanted to ask you. So the transition from in-person to online and vice versa because you were at MSU. Which I'm assuming was all in-person. Right. Yeah. And then you came here in 2018. You got to experience some of Detroit before the lockdown.
GLV: Yeah.
TC: But what what was that like going from, you know, a lively campus to everything's quiet. Everything's on zoom.
GLV: Yeah. It was quite shocking. I, I really like being in person. I like chatting with people and I really crave those, like after class chats or before class hangouts. Getting in and getting to know people. I feel like that's where I've made a lot of friends in the past, both at MSU and, in medical school as well. And I really felt like I was missing that. And so, yeah, starting grad school all online is I still learned a lot in my classes. They were good classes, and the professors really worked, with what they had. And I thought they did an excellent job transitioning it over. And I think it's a little easier because in grad school classes, the class sizes are like 7 to 10. So they're quite small. And I think it's a little easier to manage, class of that size. But yeah, I, I really didn't like the, the zoom era. It was, I don't know, and I really was missing a lot of that, that human contact that. You get a little bit of the face to face on zoom, but there's definitely something missing there. And so I was happy when I don't know when Wayne State finally went back to in-person, probably 2022 some time in, they were.
TC: Back in person in 2021 September 2021.
GLV: So that fall semester.
TC: Like a lot of you know, you still have to wear a mask, right.
GLV: To do the day screeners.
TC: So yeah, I think it was it was fall semester.
GLV: Okay. I feel like even then some of the classes were still online.
TC: Yeah. It was like a good mix.
GLV: like a hybrid of it. Yeah.
TC: My capstone was in person and we all had to wear a mask. Do the screeners and everything.
GLV: And yeah by that time people were a little more apt. you know. Do some social hangouts and small groups and. Be okay with that. So I was getting some of that that social life back, which I really needed because through all this time I was living alone. So it was, it was quite difficult for, for me to, to have that. So I was really craving that. So, I did fine, academically, it I don't think it. Impacted my. If you look at my transcripts, you know, things weren't impacted by the the transition to zoom. But yeah, I think it was more of an emotional toll of, you know, I really need these people.
TC: So what was it like interacting with your family because you said you lived alone, so I did.
GLV: And. It was difficult interacting with my family. My family wasn't taking it as seriously as I thought they should have. When the lockdowns first happened, I actually tried to move back home with my parents, so I was like, okay, this is going to be. Weeks, if not months long. I should go try to be with someone instead of locked up in my apartment. I think that lasted about ten days or two weeks before I was just. We were constantly and I was ready to get out of there. We were constantly fighting and arguing about not just the virus, but other things as well. I was on edge because of the virus, I was on edge because of my exam, and so we were just fighting and yelling. And one day I just stormed out in the middle of the night and grabbed my stuff and went, came back. I'm know I can't. Yeah, I can't do it. I had a big fight with my parents and I was like, I need to go tonight. Yeah, I came back to my apartment here and. Yeah. Stayed here for for the rest of it. I there was so I was going a long time without seeing like a saw. It was, it was quite depressing honestly. I had my my one friend Ethan, who is also in the dual degree program with me. Who? Who's also very nervous, about the virus. We were taking it seriously from time to time. We would put on our masks, maybe, like, once a week, and just go walk on the Riverwalk and try to catch up because he was similarly studying for this exam. And yeah, afterwards I. I would, I would give my parents a call, probably like, like once a week. It was it was much better to be away from them. Our relationship improved after me moving away, but, yeah, it was it was very stressful living with people who. Weren't taking it as seriously as I thought they should. And yeah, so that was that was quite damaging. So I'm glad I got away from that but also missed out on. Seeing people eating meals with people. That would have been nice.
TC: Yeah. So what kept you busy during lockdown? I know you, you were living in Detroit. You came back from your parents house, so you were staying in Detroit. So what kept you busy? I don't know. Aside from.
GLV: Yeah, doing the Riverwalk and mostly just studying for my exam, I didn't get this little vacation that I saw that everybody else was posting online about and talking about, oh, this is a good time to work on your skills, learn a new language, learn an instrument. I, I got none of that. I was just, I was sitting in, in my apartment, when I wasn't studying. I wasn't studying 24 over seven. That was a lot of it. I was playing online chess. That was a good one for me. I'm a big fan of chess, so I was doing a lot of online chess games on chess.com, which, was a lot of fun. To be honest. And good. Quarantine activity. You don't have to see anybody in person for that.
TC: How long have you been in the city? And I went into lockdown.
GLV: So first moved here, I believe in May of 2018. So I've been here for almost two years. By, the time Covid hit.
TC: Well, second part of that question. How long were you at Wayne?
GLV: So that was basically I was right when I it was like a month or so before I started.
TC: Okay. And then is there anything you wish Wayne State would have done differently during Covid, whether that's, you know, the online classes or just how they handled everything?
GLV: I feel like I had a lot more opinions on it back then, and I've forgotten a lot of it. Yeah, and it was, you know, was very front of mind back then. From what I remember, I thought Wayne State's response was fairly good. They shut things down fairly quickly and were able to, to move things, remotely as they needed to be. And they were pretty good about. Setting up like the screeners and making sure that, you know, people that were coming to campus weren't, weren't sick. And they had they had set up like, like vaccine clinics as well. And I know that on the medical side, they they had recruited medical students to come in and do like, what would it be like screeners or swabs of people to kind of help out on the medical side? So I thought that they. We're doing an okay job. And it wasn't there wasn't anything, in my opinion, that Wayne State was was doing particularly wrong. It was going to be kind of a bad situation no matter what. And.
TC: Where are you swabbing.
GLV: I was not. No. Unfortunately, no. I told myself I needed to study.
TC: No, that's totally fine. I know the step exams are very intense.
GLV: They are yes. They're very important for our career. So, you know, you need, need to get it right. So not I wasn't swabbing and. You know, studying in chess. That's all it was for me.
TC: Fair enough. Do you have any other thoughts or questions?
GLV: No, I think I'm set.
Grant LeVasseur: I'm Grant Levasseur.
TC: Thank you. Grant. So my first question is what was your initial reaction to hearing about Covid, both when it was spreading and then when the lockdown finally happened?
GLV: So my first reaction I felt like was. Fairly in line with, a lot of the country's, like, kind of nervous about what might happen and taking it fairly seriously. I wasn't. Necessarily scared for myself as I was 26 years old at the time, was fairly healthy. But I was scared of how I might be spreading it, other people. And so I was masking right away and trying to, to stay away and kind of just nervous about what might happen is very uncertain for what the future might hold.
TC: Okay. And that applies to when the lockdown happened. Like, were you were you surprised when the lockdown finally came around or?
GLV: A little surprised? I had heard some like rumors that it might be happening in like the weeks prior, and I'd been following the news a little bit for like, oh, coronavirus is coming up, this might be serious. And you hear about outbreaks and, like in China and then in Europe and how it was spreading very rapidly. And. Yeah.
TC: Okay, so you are at Wayne State right now. What program are you in?
GLV: Yeah. So I'm at Wayne State. I've been here since summer of 2018. I'm in the MD PhD program there. So this is my start of my seventh year. In a week. We're starting this semester. Meaning I do both. I'm working on my medical degree and, my PhD as well. In the PhD, I do. I'm working on neuroscience research in the translational neuroscience program. I broadly study PTSD.
TC: And how was your academic career impacted when Covid started or when when the lockdown?
GLV: Yeah, I feel like it was. Impacted quite a bit. So right when right around March, when that was happening, I was scheduled to take my first board exam. So in medical school we have to take a few board examinations in order to make our way through the medical program and then apply to residency. So what I was studying for at that time is called the step one Usmle step one, which is a pretty important test. What we had is from December to March was what is called our dedicated period. So we get time off from school essentially to just full time study review. Everything that we had learned from the past two years in medical school and then take this big eight hour exam. So my exam, I think was scheduled originally for like March 23rd, March 27th, something like that. And if I remember correctly, lockdown half, it was like March 17th, something like that. So all of the examinations were getting canceled. All the Prometric sites boom, they're shut down, dates are moving back, and then they just canceled them indefinitely. So I had already been studying like just in my little study silo for about like three months, waiting to take up this test, gearing up for it. So feeling good about it. And then boom, tests canceled. And so I'm just waiting there for for three months. And so it was, I don't know, it was a really bad time because I had already been in a little bit of a quarantine myself beforehand, just, you know, going to the library, studying all day. I would see a few friends. Sometimes we'd go to the library together and study, but, that was already fairly isolating and stressful, and then I essentially had to extend it for another three months. I think I wasn't able to take my test until like, June 10th, something like that. So I had spent, you know, six months of the year studying for this one test. And it was, I don't know.
TC: So we did good on it.
GLV: I did all right. And it, I don't know. It was very difficult. It was. It was super stressful to try and stay in that, like, peak, like, test taking mode and getting ready. And at the same time. Those three months and leading up to the summer would have been used. This is when I would have transitioned into, my graduate program as well. So the way the MD PhD program works is we, we do the first two years of medical school like normal. And after we take this step one examination, we break off from our medical school class. We go on a leave of absence to start our PhD program. So during these couple of months, between March and August, when the semester starts, we're supposed to be spending time rotating through labs, working with, other professors within the university to see who we might want to work with, to see who would we would want to do our PhD with. So that was something I also lost out on. I lost what is that, about five months? Yeah. Of time that I could have been spending trying to find a mentor that I just couldn't. And once, once the semester hit and I could rejoin the graduate school. Even then, it was difficult to get a sense of how you might work with someone on research because there were so many restrictions on. What you could do in person, and what kind of things you could do in the lab. And like none of our meetings were ever in person. So you can't get a sense of like, do I really fit into this lab? Like, I can kind of talk to them over a zoom call, and then I can go in the lab and see no one and do some bench work, or maybe hang out with the rats. Right now I do animal research. But even that was very isolating, so it was very hard to get a sense of. Where I might fit in within the graduate program and where I would. Ultimately do my thesis research so that it really delayed, that process for me of starting the PhD until really essentially until the next year. I was kind of fumbling around all that Covid year trying to, to figure out who I might want to work with. And it. Yeah. It was it took a lot more time than, than I think it possibly could have had there not been Covid at all. I may have been able to do that much more efficiently.
TC: That answers one of the next questions I wanted to ask you. So the transition from in-person to online and vice versa because you were at MSU. Which I'm assuming was all in-person. Right. Yeah. And then you came here in 2018. You got to experience some of Detroit before the lockdown.
GLV: Yeah.
TC: But what what was that like going from, you know, a lively campus to everything's quiet. Everything's on zoom.
GLV: Yeah. It was quite shocking. I, I really like being in person. I like chatting with people and I really crave those, like after class chats or before class hangouts. Getting in and getting to know people. I feel like that's where I've made a lot of friends in the past, both at MSU and, in medical school as well. And I really felt like I was missing that. And so, yeah, starting grad school all online is I still learned a lot in my classes. They were good classes, and the professors really worked, with what they had. And I thought they did an excellent job transitioning it over. And I think it's a little easier because in grad school classes, the class sizes are like 7 to 10. So they're quite small. And I think it's a little easier to manage, class of that size. But yeah, I, I really didn't like the, the zoom era. It was, I don't know, and I really was missing a lot of that, that human contact that. You get a little bit of the face to face on zoom, but there's definitely something missing there. And so I was happy when I don't know when Wayne State finally went back to in-person, probably 2022 some time in, they were.
TC: Back in person in 2021 September 2021.
GLV: So that fall semester.
TC: Like a lot of you know, you still have to wear a mask, right.
GLV: To do the day screeners.
TC: So yeah, I think it was it was fall semester.
GLV: Okay. I feel like even then some of the classes were still online.
TC: Yeah. It was like a good mix.
GLV: like a hybrid of it. Yeah.
TC: My capstone was in person and we all had to wear a mask. Do the screeners and everything.
GLV: And yeah by that time people were a little more apt. you know. Do some social hangouts and small groups and. Be okay with that. So I was getting some of that that social life back, which I really needed because through all this time I was living alone. So it was, it was quite difficult for, for me to, to have that. So I was really craving that. So, I did fine, academically, it I don't think it. Impacted my. If you look at my transcripts, you know, things weren't impacted by the the transition to zoom. But yeah, I think it was more of an emotional toll of, you know, I really need these people.
TC: So what was it like interacting with your family because you said you lived alone, so I did.
GLV: And. It was difficult interacting with my family. My family wasn't taking it as seriously as I thought they should have. When the lockdowns first happened, I actually tried to move back home with my parents, so I was like, okay, this is going to be. Weeks, if not months long. I should go try to be with someone instead of locked up in my apartment. I think that lasted about ten days or two weeks before I was just. We were constantly and I was ready to get out of there. We were constantly fighting and arguing about not just the virus, but other things as well. I was on edge because of the virus, I was on edge because of my exam, and so we were just fighting and yelling. And one day I just stormed out in the middle of the night and grabbed my stuff and went, came back. I'm know I can't. Yeah, I can't do it. I had a big fight with my parents and I was like, I need to go tonight. Yeah, I came back to my apartment here and. Yeah. Stayed here for for the rest of it. I there was so I was going a long time without seeing like a saw. It was, it was quite depressing honestly. I had my my one friend Ethan, who is also in the dual degree program with me. Who? Who's also very nervous, about the virus. We were taking it seriously from time to time. We would put on our masks, maybe, like, once a week, and just go walk on the Riverwalk and try to catch up because he was similarly studying for this exam. And yeah, afterwards I. I would, I would give my parents a call, probably like, like once a week. It was it was much better to be away from them. Our relationship improved after me moving away, but, yeah, it was it was very stressful living with people who. Weren't taking it as seriously as I thought they should. And yeah, so that was that was quite damaging. So I'm glad I got away from that but also missed out on. Seeing people eating meals with people. That would have been nice.
TC: Yeah. So what kept you busy during lockdown? I know you, you were living in Detroit. You came back from your parents house, so you were staying in Detroit. So what kept you busy? I don't know. Aside from.
GLV: Yeah, doing the Riverwalk and mostly just studying for my exam, I didn't get this little vacation that I saw that everybody else was posting online about and talking about, oh, this is a good time to work on your skills, learn a new language, learn an instrument. I, I got none of that. I was just, I was sitting in, in my apartment, when I wasn't studying. I wasn't studying 24 over seven. That was a lot of it. I was playing online chess. That was a good one for me. I'm a big fan of chess, so I was doing a lot of online chess games on chess.com, which, was a lot of fun. To be honest. And good. Quarantine activity. You don't have to see anybody in person for that.
TC: How long have you been in the city? And I went into lockdown.
GLV: So first moved here, I believe in May of 2018. So I've been here for almost two years. By, the time Covid hit.
TC: Well, second part of that question. How long were you at Wayne?
GLV: So that was basically I was right when I it was like a month or so before I started.
TC: Okay. And then is there anything you wish Wayne State would have done differently during Covid, whether that's, you know, the online classes or just how they handled everything?
GLV: I feel like I had a lot more opinions on it back then, and I've forgotten a lot of it. Yeah, and it was, you know, was very front of mind back then. From what I remember, I thought Wayne State's response was fairly good. They shut things down fairly quickly and were able to, to move things, remotely as they needed to be. And they were pretty good about. Setting up like the screeners and making sure that, you know, people that were coming to campus weren't, weren't sick. And they had they had set up like, like vaccine clinics as well. And I know that on the medical side, they they had recruited medical students to come in and do like, what would it be like screeners or swabs of people to kind of help out on the medical side? So I thought that they. We're doing an okay job. And it wasn't there wasn't anything, in my opinion, that Wayne State was was doing particularly wrong. It was going to be kind of a bad situation no matter what. And.
TC: Where are you swabbing.
GLV: I was not. No. Unfortunately, no. I told myself I needed to study.
TC: No, that's totally fine. I know the step exams are very intense.
GLV: They are yes. They're very important for our career. So, you know, you need, need to get it right. So not I wasn't swabbing and. You know, studying in chess. That's all it was for me.
TC: Fair enough. Do you have any other thoughts or questions?
GLV: No, I think I'm set.
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Citation
“Grant LeVasseur, August 19th, 2024,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed December 6, 2024, https://oralhistory.detroithistorical.org/items/show/1055.