Interview Experience

I think the trickiest part of the interview was phrasing questions in the right way, so that I got answers that were relevant, but did not corrupt it. For example, I described the topic of the interview before hand, and because of this, one of my interviewee’s continued to use the words “young professionals” and “community”, when I’m not sure they would have if I had not brought them up. Even so, I still feel as though our questions were not specific enough to get as precise information as I would have liked. It is very easy for generic answers to be given and, though I do believe there were some great insights into community living, I do wonder if we could have gotten even more. I am glad, however, that I had two diverse interviews, as they were on opposite ends of the group we were looking at: one is just starting out and is in grad school, while the other has been married for 3 years and is on the tail end of being a young professional. In this way, I got a good glimpse at both ends of the age range we are studying. The last thing I found interesting was that both interviewees, each of whom were my cousins, were both unsure if they considered themselves “young professionals” and, thinking about it, it would be odd to call myself that once I graduate. I believe we discredit ourselves from having that title because we don’t feel our particular profession or way of life deserves it, when it really does.