Blog 14: Interview 3 Preparation

For this interview, you will prepare 10 open-ended questions that focus on your newly approved EQ (in fact, your first question can be your EQ).  Remember, all interviews must be done in person unless they are specifically approved by your house teacher.  Additionally, one person may be interviewed a maximum of two times.

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• For my third interview I plan on interviewing a Geriatric Doctor. I have been looking for doctors around my area I just need to call them to ask. If I don't get to interview a geriatrician I would try a nurse at a nursing home. 

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview? 

• I can't verify that I have called anyone because I haven't, I'm still trying to find someone who will let me interview them.

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

• Well if I wanted to look for a research for my EQ I would first ask them my EQ, and then I would ask them if they have any resources that would help me. However, my EQ really isn't a resources questions its more of talking to people who work or have a sort of connection to senior citizens.

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

• "Who else can I talk too that will help me answer my EQ?"

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ.

• "Based on your experience with older adults, what are things that you think could help an elder?"
• "What are recommendations that you give your patients that isn't medications?"
   

Blog 13: 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

1. Where are you doing your mentorship?

• I do my mentorship at James L. Brulte Senior Center in the city of Rancho Cucamonga.

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

• My contact is my mentor Laurie Portillo. Laurie is in charge of the volunteers and also helps with events that the center has. She spends a lot of time with different senior citizens. And my favorite thing about her is that she loves her job, every time I see her, she always has a smile on her face. This shows me that she actually cares for the senior citizens and wants them to be happy at the center.

3.   How many  hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

• So far, from what I have recorded I have 10.5 hours that I did during school and 20.16 hour that I did during summer, so in total I have 30.5 hours, 30 more to go!

4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

• What I do at the center is help in the gym, here I check that the seniors who come in have a card that tells me if they can be use the gym and the equipment. While doing this I get to talk to the seniors who come in and I notice the different kinds of seniors.
•  My mentor and I get along well, I can ask her anything with no problem. She's been very helpful with my senior project. 
• I plan on completing the rest of my hours by going to the center every Friday for three hours. This semester, the only time I went was when I didn't have school (expect the days I did this week), so I only did what I was required. I think if I try to go every Friday I will be able to complete more than 60 hours, which is what I want to do. 

Blog 12: Holiday Project Update

1.It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

• During the break I worked on research notebook and a bit on independent component. While researching I start to think about what I will be doing for independent component #2 and who I will be interviewing for interview #3. I wanted to go to my mentorship, however the center was closed during the break.

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

• The most important thing I learned during the break was that there are not many geriatricians, doctors who care for the elderly, they are only a few. I learned this from an article I was reading called "The Way We Age Now" written by Atul Gawande. At first I found it hard to believe, so, I looked up online how many geriatricians there were in my city, and according to vitals.com , there are only 59 geriatricians in my city compared to 526 pediatricians. 

3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?

• After I learned that there aren't many geriatricians I want to try and interview one. If that is not possible I want to interview a senior who goes to the senior center to ask them about the impact the center has had on their lives.

Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

• What I am most proud of on my first lesson is that I finished on time, I talked enough to fill up 7 minutes, and still had more to talk about. This made me feel confident that when it comes to the longer presentations I will have enough to say.

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

• I would give myself a P/AP, mainly because I talked to fast. I felt like this caused people to not understand what I was saying and that I made it hard to follow along with me. I think that everything else that is on the P column I did well. I did the basic things and did everything I was asked to do.

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

• If I can do my lesson 1 all over again I would be more relaxed, during my lesson I was nervous so I talked to fast, I got worried that the wasn’t understanding what I was saying, so that's something I would change. I would also fix my conclusion I didn't like at all how that ended, for my lesson 2 I would want to actually conclude not just say thank you and walk away. And lastly for my next lesson I want to memorize my lesson more, I looked at my paper a few times and I feel like this made me look unprofessional.
  
  

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

• When I go to my mentorship I help out at the gym, I make sure that the seniors who enter the gym are allowed to use the equipment. I do believe this task is somewhat meaningful to my topic because I get to interact with the seniors, however I do want to do more activities with them, I just have to work my way up there. 

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?  

• I found my mentor by looking online, I was looking for senior centers around my area. Laurie was the person I talked to and she introduced me to the center and has helped me get used to things. It didn't take much convincing all I did was ask her and she said she'll do it, I got lucky. 

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person

• I think my mentor and I have a good relationship, we are growing the more time we spend with each other, the more time I help out in the center. She is very kind to me, she's always open when I need her, even with my schedule. 

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

• What went well was that I got to learn more about my mentor, I learned more of the kind of person she is. I learned that she genuinely cares about the seniors at the center and thats something I find important to have as my mentor. I need to improve on my questions and how fast I come up with follow-up questions, I start to get nervous at the end of every answer because I'm trying to figure out want to say next. I need to work on this in order to make my interview run more smoothly. A way I think I can solve this is by making the questions and under those questions have possible follow-up so I have an idea of what to ask next.

Interview Audio 

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

• Currently I do have a mentor, the same one I started with, we have been in contact with each other which is good. I have not completed my interview, however I do have a day to complete it which is on next Monday around 2pm. 

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

• Looking at the research the topic that I'm guiding into is how long a senior citizen live being happy and active, not just sitting to around waiting for the moment.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

• The sources that have helped me get the most information have been articles or journal. For the next month I will probably get more of those, I would get them either from normal Google or on Cal Poly's library.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

• What are ways that an elderly person can live a longer and happier life?

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

1. Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• For Independent Component I will be working with Jocelyn Sanchez, her topic focus on the psychology of suicide and we thought that our topics could go well with each other. What we would be mainly focusing on is a blog that explains the correlation between growing older and mental health issues. We would be doing research to get the information needed. We want to interview professionals that take care of elderly people and maybe even the families of the senior citizens. During this time of looking for information and updating our blog we want to have social media accounts for Pintrest and Twitter.On Pintrest we plan to reach out to adults and young adults to give visuals to teach about the symptoms and signals that may lead to suicidal thoughts. On Twitter we plan to post “fun facts” on mental health within the elderly community to give youth a brief understanding on how to care for their grand parents and point out watch out signals they may present, and also by using hashtags.Towards the end of the component, we want to share what we learned. We want to go to retirement or nursing homes and educate volunteers about mental health issues, we also might make a pamphlets to give to the families of the elder. 

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• What we would do to show evidence of working on the component for 30 hours is mainly by working on the blog and by the way we share out, however our blog would be the main informational outlet. We would need to do research to have the information need since we are planning on updating our blog once a week. For our interviews we want to record the conversation and them post it on our blogs. We either want to interview together or we will each interview different people. We will basically do our share out on our social media accounts and hopefully get to go to retirement homes and educate volunteers and families. 

3. Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• By joining with Jocie it will help me explore my topic more in depth. By focusing on the mental health of elderly people I can learn more on how they feel, the way they think, ways to help and to prevent them from suicidal thoughts. This will help me know more ways in how a senior can live a longer happier life. 

4. Update your Senior Project Hours log.

• Done. Link