What I Said I Would Do
First Quarter
What I Did
I started the semester off studying turkish culture. I was reading articles and taking notes.
I quickly got bored by the articles on the internet and conventional form of research. Culture is the learned behaviors and practices of a group of people. I decided it would be better to learn through the experiences of people on this topic. I am now creating podcasts, watching videos, and reading stories. Although I’ve done a decent amount of shifting around in my topic this is an example of how perseverance has served me to find the best way for me to learn about a topic which I am interested in. I am now doing interviews with people who are originally from different countries and creating a podcast. I have completed two interviews and one vox pop at this point. I have yet to edit these interviews. I have created interview questions which I am asking everyone who I am interviewing, and then country specific questions. In the images below the highlighted questions are those I asked. Others with black bullet points I ask depending on what the person had to say throughout the interview. White bullet points are those which I ask if I want someone to elaborate further. So far people have had lots to say when I interviewed them and haven't needed much prompting.
Final Vox Pop Link
In order to prep for interviews I have been watching video about different cultures and responding. My responses definitely need to be longer and have more depth to them.
What's Next
I have the goal of completing six edited podcasts by the end of the semester. That means three more interviews, and editing all of them. I also am hoping to do more with my interview prep work. As well as looking more indepthly at the culture before interviewing someone, I'm also planning to start looking at current events.
Second Quarter
What I did
I interviewed and completed one podcast with Beatrice, who is from France. From doing this I realized that my questions needed to be revised. With her interview, I had a lot of background info in the beginning of the recording and a lot of stories dependant on that background information in the end. I wanted more of a hook to the beginning of the podcast, so I revised the questions to have the person say the background info with the story.
My second interview was with Flor, who is Guatemalan. I thought I should overlap my editing with interviews so I always have new content to edit. However, I think in the beginning I was overlapping a little too closely. When I interviewed Flor I had barely started editing Beatrice’s answers and hadn’t come to the conclusion that I needed to edit the questions. I ran into the same problem with Flor’s interview and edited them by the time I started the next interview. In these first two I found that audio editing takes much longer than I originally thought.
My most recent interview with, Abi, ended up as more of an exploration of him than of culture. At this point, I think I need to find a happy medium between my first and second set of questions. Although I really enjoyed interviewing Abi we kind of strayed from the intent of the interview which is culture. As I move through this study I’m finding it to be very much a trial and error based study. Interviewing is definitely a skill that I am still working on learning.
I've linked below the interviews and podcasts through different stages of progress. Each link goes to a google drive file.
I've linked below the interviews and podcasts through different stages of progress. Each link goes to a google drive file.
This quarter I also started looking at sociology specifically. I did some Crash Course videos and took notes. I think that I would like to interview a sociology professor next semester about what people believe. I’ve sent some emails and am waiting to see who responds at this point.
I listened to podcasts and critiqued them as well this semester. I pulled the things I liked and didn’t with the goal of applying them to my own work. At this point, the biggest thing I’m still trying to figure out creativity wise is a name for the podcast and an intro.
What I'm Doing Next
At the end of the last quarter, I set a goal to have 5 completed podcasts by the end of the semester. I don’t think that I will be able to complete this at this point but I am still planning to try. I definitely thought this goal was a stretch when I made it and think it still is. However, I have about two weeks left to meet it and am not going to completely write it off yet.