My critical question is about how someone’s first week or
first experiences in college affect their overall time in college and
after. In my first project I talked
about my experiences in the first week through the eyes of my backpack,
stepping back and looking at the bigger picture.
For this project I want to study Morgan who is a swimmer
here at Nebraska. I think that she would
be good to observe because she does a different sport than I do so I will get
new answers. Also, I can look at how
being in a sport either makes the first week easier or more difficult with the
schedule, along with the interaction differences between her and her teammates
in study hall compared to on the deck and competing.
I kind of already explained this earlier but I just want to
see basically from a different sports perspective on how the first experiences
are going, along with comparing it to maybe a counselor here in the academic
center. It’s really rough and I’m not
sure yet, but I might even talk to an counselor in athletics and get their
opinion on students going through the first week, especially when most are from
out of state.
This will go with my critical question will since my
question is about being new to everything and going through all lot in the
first week and when I observe and talk to Morgan I can compare her experiences
with my own as well as those thoughts of a counselor either speaking about her
in specific or all the new athletes in general.
I am going to specifically study the interaction between
teammates and what that looks like in an academic setting compared to an
athletic environment.
I don’t really know Morgan very well since she is from
Ohio. She just moved here and for
swimming and summer classes and since I’m from Lincoln about a week ago was the
first time I met here. I see her around
occasionally but I don’t know anything about her family or her past experiences
in school.
I am going to talk to Morgan when I see her at study hall
sometimes and talk to her about this project.
We can either talk there or later at the Union or somewhere else. I don’t know when I will watch her but it
will probably be later in the day at the night study hall session since that’s
when she has it, been I will make sure that she is ok with it first.
Interview Questions:
What was your favorite experience from the first week of
college?
What was the worse thing you did in your first week?
How did you first college swimming practice go?
Were you nervous coming to a big school and traveling away
from your home state?
Why did you pick Nebraska?
How many times do you practice now and how does that compare
with your old practice schedule?
What does your schedule look like for a week?
Do you have time to do anything social or relaxing?
Did you get lost or forget something during the first week?
How many new people are on the swimming team?
What is the number one thing you miss from home?
What do you not miss from home?
Are you adjusting to the busy schedule quickly or is it
still a rush?
Tell me about your past school experiences and how do they
compare to what you are going through right now.
Have you caused any
problems or got in trouble yet?
How is time management different than it used to be?
* I will be using my cell phone or computer to record to
create an audio recording of my interview.
Shelby,
ReplyDeleteIn general, I think you have a good idea here! I'm torn, though, on whether or not you should do a profile or more of an ethnography. Given your question, it seems like to find good results you'd need to study a group of people so that you can see how your question affects more than just one person. On the other hand, I can see the challenges of doing a larger group. Could you do two smaller profiles and incorporate them together in the paper in a sort of comparison contrast? So interview Morgan and then interview another older student so that you can compare their two stories? So it would be something in between a profile and ethnography. You could do l30 minute observations and interviews with each. What do you think?