Observatory Notes
– messy room
– wearing jeans and a t-shirt
-humorous, seems happy
Interview Questions
1. Where are you from?
–camillus NY
-its a small town just outside syrcacuse
-Lived there all his life
2. Why did you come to Syracuse?
-Best school he got into
-Nearby family and friends
3. How has your experience at SU been so far?
-its been awesome
-a lot of homework
-a lot of responsibility
4. How would you describe the transition?
-pretty straight forward
-easier with friends around
– feels like high school
5. Do have many friends?
– yea,
– has more high school friends, but is making a lot of college friends
-friends from high school are a “different” kind of friends
-friends from high school are more like family than friends
6. How do you split your time between social and academic life?
– has a pretty even mix
– does a lot of group studying, especially in subjects like Chem and Bio where there are a lot of people in the class and many from the dorm he can work with
– goes out most weekends, but often goes to “swim house” with his high school friend
7. Do you participate in clubs or extra-curricular activities?
-no
– may rush, but is waiting to see how busy his schedule is
– spends a lot of his free time with floormates
8. Did you find the transition from high school to college easy?
– not as hard a as expected
– easier because he lives close, he does not do laundry
-can visit home whenever he wants so he does not get home sick
– has been doing well in class and often helps other students in the dorm
– feels he has plenty of friends with the even mix old friends and new friends
-has been going home less and less; did his laundry for the first time on campus recently
9. Do you feel you are at an advantage/disadvantage based on where you are from?
-feels he has a slight advantage
-knows the area/climate and often is asked about it
-smooth move in/ only partial move in as he can go back to his house whenever he wants
– has access to many more materials to help him do better in school; medicine from home, schools supply’s whenever he wants them, a car if he needs one
Reflection
The interview was a different experience than anything I have done before. I started the assignment thinking it would be easy as I had done many interviews in the past and had an entire project dedicated to interviewing senior year. I learned that everyone is different when interview. When I interviewed an adult for my oral history project, it was fairly easy to keep her on track and I was able to direct her to answer the question more thoroughly using follow-up question. When I tried doing this with Kiernan, its was much harder. I had to ask more follow-up questions just to keep him focused on the question. When I was finally able to get Kiernan to answer the question I had asked, his responses were short, and somewhat boring. I really struggled to get Kiernan to talk, but as the interview went on he began to open up and talk more and more. I am happy I did the short interview first , as I now know what questions to ask to get people talking and have refreshed my interviewing skills. I was surprised by Kiernan;s honesty, he admitted to man things, often in a humorous fashion, that I would never have expected him to admit to. For example Kiernan admitted that he did not have a ton of friends, but stuck to a small core group of friends. Kiernan could have been criticized for this, but still chose to admit it.
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