Alyssa Rogers, Newcomb College, Class of 1993

Alyssa Rogers entered Tulane University in 1989 and graduated in 1993. Her love of the city influenced her decision to go to Tulane. She was interested in pursuing a career in public relations, so she declared a major in communications, specifically mass media communications. She went on to work in public relations for ten years and is now a teacher in Boston. She didn’t graduate too long ago, so she thinks that the campus and school haven’t changed too much. She visits the city every now and then, mainly to go to Jazz Fest and she said it seems relatively the same.

Her main interest while she was in New Orleans, aside from all of the delicious food, was all of the music. She would go out with her friends every night and see as many different bands as possible. She said she took morning classes so she could eat and then study until ten or eleven and then go out all night. But she made sure to still have enough time to sleep and recover to repeat the process the next day.

Despite New Orleans having the highest murder rate in the United States at the time, she said she and her friends felt relatively safe because it was general knowledge that these crimes happened in the bad areas of town, so they steered clear of those places. She frequented Tipitina’s, The Maple Leaf, and French Man’s Street to hear the latest bands, but she and her friends would look in Off Beat Magazine to find out where other bands they were interested in were playing.

She participated in many after school activities such as field hockey and coed basketball, though she couldn’t remember the other activities she participated in. While she was not actively in a sorority, she was a little sister for the ATO fraternity. She met many people through this and went to the activities and events they held. She of course mentioned the parties she got to attend and joked about how she went in order to drink their beers. She said that she enjoyed the festivals that happened pretty much every day in the city but she remembers the one festival that happened maybe once a semester where the different fraternities and sororities would pick a theme and decorate their houses from top to bottom and go all out to celebrate.

It seems like most outside news didn’t affect the students directly until after they graduated. She told me that during the recession of 1991 the only thing that was affected was the student’s plans after college. Most decided that they could not stay in the city due to lack of jobs, even though most wanted to. 1991 was also when Desert Shield and Desert Storm happened.

The only big topic of conversation this brought up was whether or not to continue on with Mardi Gras. She said it did continue with a few floats themed around the event.

She is looking forward to coming back for Jazz Fest again sometime with her friends and hopes to see the campus and this time look for what is different and what is the same.

[Editor’s Note: This article was captured as part of the class “Media Histories” taught by Vicki Mayer in collaboration with the Office of Alumni Affairs at Tulane University.]