Now that you’re three weeks (halfway) into your senior project experience, are you answering your essential question?

1. How are you exploring your essential question; is it different from what you expected? If you don’t feel like you’re answering your essential question, what is happening that’s different from what you expected?

I am learning a lot of pieces of advice from everyone I talk to. Some are more clear and precise than others but others’ advice is more in the way I notice how they’re answering my questions. I am trying to read between the lines for some of my interviews in order to pull out more ways in which we (class of 2021) can learn from them.

2. Are you surprised by any of the challenges that you’ve faced so far? How have you met those challenges and what can you do going forward to deal with them?

By the and, I am getting a little zoom fatigued. Most of my interviews have been longer than expected (although, by now, very expected – in fact, I am surprised when they don’t go over an hour) so I have to plan to sit for more than an hour and be still and engaged. This hasn’t been too much of a problem for me because I am always very interested in listening to what people have to say. Some have very concise yet thorough answers, of which I’ve gotten used to either having a follow-up question or moving on to another one. It is getting harder and harder for me to meet more people who I would normally be able to meet, at least at graduation, that I can no longer.

3. Writing on your essential question: What have you learned about your essential question so far? What further questions do you have? and/or Has your essential question changed? If so, how?  What do you want to know more about?

I have learned a lot. I didn’t go into this project with a lot of things in mind in particular I might learn, but I have certainly learnt a wide variety of things I had not previously thought of before. These interviews have sparked a newfound fascination of the lives of people in WWII, 9/11, and the journeys many of my interviewees’ parents (or themselves) went through. My essential question has not changed. At least not that I know of. It is broad enough that I do not think I have to change it completely, although I may end up tweaking it a little at the end to make it more inclusive and succinct.