Six students chosen by ASU will write, take pictures and film their lives to share on blogs hosted by the University as part of a Time Capsule project.

The students were chosen from a pool of nearly 200 freshman, Assistant Vice President for the University Technology Office Kari Barlow said.

ASU is excited to see what university life is like from the perspective of a student through the blogs, she said.

“They tell their story how they want to tell it,” Barlow said. “We’re hoping that these students tell their story, that other students see their story and participate in the conversations about their experiences and that we can learn how to make ASU a better place because of it.”

Ty Winder, a communications major at the Tempe campus, said he wants people to see the full aspect of college and his life through his blog.

“I want people to see my music and my point of view on everything from college stuff, ASU-based things and then my personal life,” Winder said.

ASU students following the Time Capsule project will be able to relate to at least one person out of the six students, he said.

“You have some [students] that are older, some that are really intelligent and you have the party type of kid, so they picked people from different backgrounds so there can be a different variety of people,” Winder said. “So if [students] want to view the blogs they should probably check out all of ours, because you’re not necessarily going to relate to every single one of the time capsule kids.”

The six freshmen were able to get along well, said Jessica Goldberg, a journalism student at the Downtown campus. She said it’s the groups’ differences that bring them together.

“When you have friends who are in the same major as you, they have similar viewpoints to you,” Goldberg said. “In this group, rather than relating and having similar viewpoints, we actually complement each other because of our differences. It’s cool to have someone who’s not in the same situation as you are.”

Tempe-campus student Drew Richardson, a mechanical engineer and member of the Arizona National Guard, said he keeps a book to write blog ideas and tries to blog about two or three times a week. He said he expects the blogging to become easier as more people begin to read.

“People are supposed to read a blog,” Richardson said. “So people giving feedback and commenting on the blog … just [knowing] that people like it makes it much easier to write because otherwise I’d just keep a journal.”

Jan Jorgensen, a computer science student at the Tempe campus, said he thinks it would be great if the program extends beyond that.

“While it’s neat to see the freshman experience, I feel like it would be more helpful to see the entire ASU experience,” he said. “It’s usually later on, after freshman year, that people start to get jobs, take on a lot of commitments and then eventually either look at entering the work force at the end of college or going on to grad school. There’s so much more to college than just the first year.”

Verizon, Dell and Google have provided the Time Capsule students with a Blackberry Tour phone, a tablet laptop and a flip camera. Ryan Isemeyer, a management technology and professional flight student, said he uses the camera to show his flight adventures.

“I mount the flip camera on the top of the panel and click record, and it’ll show my facial expression, my hand movements and me talking to air traffic control,” Isemeyer said. “I’ll get three or four different videos, put them together and make a video mash-up to post on my blog.”

As well as documenting his flights, Isemeyer said he uses his blog to share both his freshman and Polytechnic-campus experiences. He said he wants to show future ASU students that the Polytechnic campus is more exciting than they think it is.

“It’s not all desert,” Isemeyer said. “It’s not all bland. We do have fun out here and it does get busy as well, so I’m just trying to show the people what goes on at Polytechnic, what to expect when they come over here.”

Andrea Ricci, a business tourism student at the West campus, said she’s grateful for the gadgets and opportunities she’s received through the Time Capsule project.

“I hope that whoever goes on and reads all of our blogs … [learns] from the mistakes that we’ve done and that we’ve put on the Web site,” she said. “We have a voice and people can read what we have to say, and if any of our stupid quirky things help people then that’s awesome.”

Reach the reporter at salvador.rodriguez@asu.edu.