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...)

For my mentorship, I attend the Family history center on Grand, north of the 10 freeway and south of Rowland. While at my mentorship, I do research on my personal family history. The tasks I do complete are meaningful to my topic because the idea of family history is tracking down said persons personal bloodline. There are other people that can help me. I know where to find these people because I already know many of the people that work with it on a regular basis.

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

I found my mentor because I regularly attend church on Sunday with my mentor. I was able to convince my mentor in a simple manor because I know she is passionate about family history and she was excited to see that someone wanted to work with her on it.

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 have gotten a lot more comfortable with my mentor and this relates to the time I have spent with them for mentorship because before I found this person very odd and not very exciting, but the time I spent with my mentor, I have gotten close and have discovered they are a truly nice person, but are just socially awkward in a sense.

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?

With my interview, things went well because once I got to my third question about finding missing information such as census', birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage licenses that's when the interview truly took shape and became more than a get to know you interview. I think it went well because my third question was a lot more than just tell me about yourself and about their experience. I need to improve my questions because until I changed my third question, all five of my questions were about my interviewee and not really about their experience. I will ask for help from the senior team because even though no one else is doing my topic, the senior team could still possibly point me in the right direction.

Blog #3 Interview Prep

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

I plan to interview my mentor because I don't know who else to talk to about family history and where else I could go for advice and for places to go for more research.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?  Ask open-ended questions.  What are open-ended questions? Click here! 

I plan on asking my mentor on why family history has exploded and why everyone wants to do it so suddenly. I also plan on asking for books to recommendations for research. 

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

How I feel about not having had met my family :/



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).

I do have a mentor, and I am currently waiting to hear back from my mentor to see when she could meet. Most likely, my interview will be this Sunday because it seems to work best for her and me.

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.   

I have noticed during my mentor ship and during my research, that I am facing the dilemma of not having certain records for unknown reasons. For example, when I try to do my research for Europe, that those records are not there. I plan on doing research to determine why those records are not there.

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?

I would like to get history books because I would love to learn where everything has gone and why it isn't there anymore. I will look these books up on Amazon and see if I could get them for a decent price. I will also look at the Cal Poly library because they have a lot of sources. I will also talk to my mother about getting the sources for me since I am not on the list to check out a book from the library at Cal Poly.

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. 

A possible EQ I have is, "What is the best way to obtain  the sources I need when they are non-existent?"

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

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

I don't know what I want to do. I am stuck between completing more mentor ship hours. I was also thinking of doing a pedigree for my family. 

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

I will interview members of my family about what they their genetic features.

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

This will help me with my topic because I am doing genealogy as well and not just Family History.

4.  Update your Senior Project Hours log

After I finish doing hours for the day, I will record them to keep track of what I do. And how many hours go into it.