Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

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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...)

For the most part, our mentors always find something for Clerisse and I to do; while shadowing is certainly is one of those choices, we've done much more already. It's not routine, so there's always something new and different. We've helped brainstorm ideas for a new video game at its primordial state, play-tested some of our mentors' work-in-progress games, attended a very sophisticated assembly meeting pertaining to the economic affects of video games in our country, listened in on their meetings, completed an assignment that all USC game design students have done (which is to make a game board), played some of the games designed by other students, and of course, we have interviewed them. All of these have provided us with an undiscovered aspect of video games we didn't think about before.

All of this happens in the USC campus, but mostly we associate in the Game Innovation Lab, where our mentors frequent the most. Yes, the place is populated with nothing but experts, given that they are mostly the teachers/professors of the subject! To be honest, I am very proud to have met so many sincere, talented adults who contribute so much to their field. They often discuss innovative ideas. They're often busy, but just listening to them in their element allows you to glean things you might never through secondary research. They try their best to have us involved to what they do, even though I feel our input is at best amateur.

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

I was very fortunate to have been able to establish my mentorship with Tracy Fullerton through e-mail. I found her e-mail address in USC's website, given her important position in her division of work, and had sent a formal request explaining what the Senior Project entailed for me and for prospective mentors. I'll admit that I was extremely desperate at the time, and I repeatedly assured her that the very least she would need to do is allow me to shadow her in her work. Despite that, I made sure to explain everything thoroughly; not only did I explain Senior Project, but also the emphasis I-Poly has on projects.

Tracy was kind enough not only to agree, but expressed great interest when I talked about our high school. From the get-go, she has done more than the bare minimum that I asked her, which has been a blessing all on its own. She was honest enough to admit that she would be very busy some days, yet still introduced us to two of her associates - Sean Bouchard and Elizabeth Swensen - in her stead. Since then, I have been so grateful to have been bestowed with not one but three mentors. 

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?

So far, I am comfortable with all three of my mentors and their colleagues I regularly come across. Since the beginning of the mentorship,  everyone at the Game Innovation Lab has been very kind and involved, often asking me questions that I sometimes forget to ask myself about our project. In fact, the entire Lab, with its gamut of encouraging experts, just automatically becomes a positive learning environment for us. If there's anything I'd wish to improve, it would simply be able to see them as well as my own mentors more frequently. While I can say that this comfort has grown from our time spent with them, it's easy to just say that the lab consists of naturally kind-hearted people. It's not just because we've visited there regularly. To be honest, I haven't been able to meet with my mentors as often as I'd like, mostly due to our schedule being cramped with assignments from our core curriculum. I would really just like to spend more time to learn from them.

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?

I was much better prepared with this interview than my last one, which had mostly been due to the fact that I was already familiar with my interviewee (my mentor). Because of this, I felt more at ease in asking her follow-up questions compared to my previous interviewee (who had respectfully and kindly asked me not to). In fact, I was able to fulfill this interview no more than a week after it was assigned to us thanks to how efficient our mentors were.

This interview did immensely in letting me feel closer to my mentor, Tracy Fullerton. In the past, we would see her much less than when we did with Sean and Elizabeth; truth be told, we might still see her less, because this interview won't change the fact that she has an important role to fulfill in the staff that obligates her to be occupied with other things on days that we visit. But in the time she manages to make for us, she is always helpful, earnest, funny, and always invites us to the most interesting events that relate to her (the assembly, for one). 

It's easy to figure out how much I was able to improve in this interview by using my first interview as a basis. However, something I realize as I was re-listening to the audio to transcribe the interview was that I often relied on my on body language and gestures to convey certain questions and comments, which can't really be detected in audio recordings.

For the most part, I made sure not to ask many follow-up questions within our 5 required questions because I was made to believe initially that we were supposed to only upload a 5-minute segment of the entire interview, and so I let Tracy know that any follow-up questions I wanted to ask during the main part of the interview would be asked later (I would jot down my question when I thought of them).