Blog 7: Second Interview Preparation

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert? 

 My mentor is Deputy Daley, he currently works at the Walnut Sheriff Station.

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1. How long have you been in law enforcement and have you worked in different departments?
2. Has the work environment changed from when you first started?
3. How has the job changed since you first started?
4. What has the experience been like in general?
5. Where did you train and for how long?
   

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

So far nothing about Senior Project has been extremely positive or negative. Most of it so far is going through the motions trying to see what does and does not work for me when it comes to the work for the project.

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

At the current moment nothing is extremely difficult. I have most of how I am going to do my hours figured out, like how I will have to do them on the weekends because the only time I can meet with my mentor is during the morning from about 6am - 2pm which when my mentor is on shift at the Sheriff's station in Walnut. At this point in time I do not think the senior team can help with this particular situation since it is not a large concern of mine.

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?  
I learned that having a setting where the interviewee is comfortable is a definite thing to make sure of. The more comfortable the person you are interviewing is the more likely they will be able to better answer your questions. I found that both interviews went well and I got a lot of useful information from both of the people I interviewed. 

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?
One of the people I interviewed suggested a few movies and books to look into like The Red Dot Club for instance. He also suggested looking at books and sources that are written by actual police officers rather than people that have never been a police officer. 


3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 
Both of my interviewees were officers. One from LADOT (Los Angeles Department of Transportation) which are the police officers that are known to direct traffic and have been referred to as "Meter Maids". The other interviewee has been a LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) officer for about 29 years and has worked in many divisions in LAPD.

Blog 4: House Advisory Prep

What I am hoping to accomplish through my senior project is learning what it's like to work for certain departments of Law Enforcement and how it may differ for certain cities or even for certain states. I am also hoping to find out what the actual job is like rather than the romanticized version of law enforcement that usually portrayed in movies and television (in shows such as Blue Bloods for example). I am hoping to have a better understanding of how law enforcement works and if it is something I want to go into after college and if so what branch of law enforcement.

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?
I plan to interview a police officer from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that is a friend of the family. I plan to interview him because I'm curious about what its like to work at his department and what its like for him to be a police officer that works in Los Angeles.

2. Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask? 

1. What caused you to want to be a police officer?
2. Where did you do your training for the job?
3. What has the experience been like so far?
4. Do you have a favorite moment or thing about the job? If so what is it?
5. Is there a physical toll on your body from this job?  If so what?
6. Have you had any surgery for injuries that you've gotten from this job? Is so then how many?

Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

Jennifer Gump, (626) 203 - 9414, The South Hills Church of Christ.

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?    

I considered changing my topic to have something to do with working with children. Mrs. Gump was the organizer for a VBS event taking place at the South Hills Church of Christ. Mrs. Gump has worked with the children in at the church for about 17 years and has always been involved with planning and carrying out events for the children. 

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.   

1.  How can literature be revised to be more understandable for a certain age group?
2.  How do you keep children entertained in today's society when they are so use to having technology to entertain them? 
3.  How do you plan an event to teach and entertain children at the same time?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

I learned about planning an event and making sure that the children understood what they were learning and how to revise material to help it be more accessible to the children so that the information did not go over their heads. I also learned planning such an event can be very stressful if people are constantly panicking about everything being done on time and it can drive people crazy.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

I am still not quite sure what I want my project to be at this moment in time. I am still considering doing something with children like working with the church. However I am still also considering doing my project on police work, in fact I am leaning more towards police work because I have more resources when it comes to this topic in particular. I have ruled out the possible topic for the military because I feel that I would not have as many resources as I would for the police work topic.

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1.  What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?
The three lessons that were most helpful for me to see were Independent Film Making,  Preschool Special Education, and Make-Up Artistry. Here is my reason for each. In Independent Film Making the presenter was excited and new a lot about their topic and had a lot of resource and was just in general excited about their topic. That also goes for Preschool Special Education, the presenter not only loved the topic but genuinely wanted to teach about why the topic was important to them and why it should be important to others. Finally for Make-Up Artistry the presenter had her ups and downs however you could tell she was interested in the topic. The three lessons all had a interest in their topic and were all well versed in the topic to where they could speak about it with confidence. That shows me that when I do my Senior Project to be interested in my topic, to where I can have the same excitement that those presenters had when they presented their topic.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

One thing that I learned about the senior project in the interviews is that getting an early start on what I want to go for my senior project and starting to slowly start working on it over the summer can help lessen the stress of the senior project as well as be better prepared for it.

 

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

At the moment I am considering two topics which are: Police work and Military work.

 

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this?(Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

Why is police work so important in today's society?

What is the best way one can prepare yourself for basic military training?

 

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

Some mentorship for police work my father knows one of the deputies at the sheriff station in Walnut. I have actually already gone on a ride along to see what it would be like to mentorship at the sheriff station.

For military work I was planning on helping the Military Explorers Headquarters to start up and help with certain things with training and organizing.