Mini Project 3

OK so this mini project did not go according to plan, I was talking to one of my friends who is still in High School and I was planning on interviewing him when I was back in Greensboro over the weekend. Everything was fine until I got to his house and pulled out my camera phone. He did not want to be filmed and i had no back up. So this is the interview in text form. Sorry it is not a video.

How did you prepare for college?

There are many things that I have been doing to try to prepare for college. The biggest thing I have been doing is watching YouTube videos and talking to my friends who have already graduated.
Do you feel that you are ready to move to college?

Honestly, I do not know if I am ready. Everyone that I know says they are ready to move of, but this is something that is new for me. I do not know how I am going to feel being away from home and living on my own. How can you be prepared for something like that? I feel that you have to just experience it.
What are some of the fears that you have moving to college?

There are many things that I am afraid of when I move to college. Being on my own and not having parental guidance kind of scares me. I have always been able to go to my parents and ask them questions, but i feel that it is going to be a lot harder when I am on my own.

What good things were portrayed about college?

I have seen in movies that everyone is relaxed and loves to chill out on the lawn and study between classes. This may sound stupid, but it is portrayed that you are finally free and able to do what ever you want in an environment where no one is going to judge.

What bad things were portrayed about college?

This also comes from movies, but college is portrayed to be full of alcohol, drugs, and partying. I am not a big party person, but it almost seems that if you do not do these things, you have not experienced the college experience.

Is there anything that you would like to add to the idea of college readiness?

I feel that there is no way to be ready for college. You can read and talk to people all day, but when it is all said and done, you will not know what college is for you because you are not the same as everyone else. You are going to experience college differently then everyone else.

There was a lot of information that i thought was interesting. If the first interview, it seemed that the high school student learned a lot about collage by using peer based learning; however, this student learned about college by using non traditional sources such as YouTube and movies. There are some things that were spot on, but at the same time, there was also some things that were not true. I thought it as very inter sting to see how this student used technology to benefit themselves and learn more about college. It is hard to say how someone is ready because everyone experiences college differently. This was one of the most important things i took away from this because it made me thing about all of the step programs online that will show you the steps to be "ready" for college. How are there supposed to be programs to get you ready for college? How can you generalize such a big move/change in someones life into a 5-8 step program. When you search college readiness plan into google, you are able to find many of these plans, but it appears that they only target preparing in the form of tangible things. There is nothing that works to help in preparing you for the emotional aspect. If there was a forth mini project, i would like to take this and study how to be emotionally prepared for college.