Alex Young COM 325 Field Project Analysis and Summary Due: March 22, 2012

St. Augustine notably once said, The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.1 Traveling has been a major part of all mankind since the dawning of time. From exploration to simpler relaxation, business has become more and more international as the worlds economy develops. From the days of the innkeeper we here about in folklore to todays major hotel chains and restaurants, people have needed a place to stay along the way during their travels. As the world develops, Purdues Hospitality and Tourism Management program, better known as HTM, is preparing students for the future in travel and hospitality. During this interview, I will interview three, out-of-state students from coastal states in the HTM program and try to uncover why they chose Purdue, where they see the world going in the next few years, what they are learning, and how they plan on shaping the worlds tomorrow with their knowledge. The interview will be 30 minutes for each interviewee, and I hope to gain knowledge from this experience. I decided to interview three people I have recently met do to all of my involvement with the Interfraternity Council and throughout other campus activities. The interviewees were Philip Minasian, Tierney McKool, and Richard Kalweit. I chose to interview these three in particular for several reasons. As stated earlier, they were out-of-state students in the HTM program living in coastal states or surrounding states. Right away I began to notice they were also involved in the Greek community here at Purdue as well.

(Akinmade)Akerstrom, L. (2008, March 7). The 50 most inspring travel quotes of all time. Retrieved from http://mataornetwork.com/bnt/0-most-inspring-travel-quotes-of-all-time/

Opening techniques as we have practiced in class were not necessarily as effective simply because I had contacted them in advance stating my purpose for the interview and went into how the interview would be structured. I did however reiterate my purpose when we sat down at the actual interview. In this particular situation, I wanted the interviewees to feel like the ball was in their court by using the clearinghouse question method for the closing technique. This allowed them to say the last words in the interview and leave with confidence. I decided to record the information I received by taking notes on my schedule of questions. Although I might have retained more information by recording via camera or tape recorder, the informal environment helped the interviewees relax and open up more to the topic at hand. Although Ive only met these students recently, they seem very relaxed and confident in their answers and presentation. One thing in particular that I noticed in their answers regarding the average personality of a HTM student/graduate is they are, outgoing, hungry, wanting to serve others, Essentially they want to help guys and gals like me uncover problems and create solutions in the world. One problem I had was the wording of one of my questions. Each interviewee asked if I could rephrase the question. I did and they answered appropriately. Another problem I ran into was my organization of note-taking. Due to the outgoing nature of each interviewee, their answers for each of my questions would roll into another question or topic I wanted to cover. This is perfect for me since my objective is to allow the interviewee a chance to talk and be

heard, however it became troublesome whenever I became unorganized with my note-taking trying to keep up with their answers. Richard Kalweits interview was affected because I could not hold eye contact with him since it was over the phone. He currently is working on an internship in Disney World down at Orlando, FL. Not seeing his body language hindered me from coming up with impromptu questions that flowed along his answers. Also his critique form was a challenge to fill out due to me trying to stay professional. We ended up agreeing on my roommate asking him the questions over the phone and then filling it out on his behalf. However, the problem with Richard not seeing my face is that he had trouble answering some of the questions about eye contact and so forth. Three things I learned about interviewing practices and principles was that I need to be flexible, sometimes keep notes another way than hand-written, and allow the interviewee to be in charge. I need to stay flexible in my questions. During this interview, I stayed with a very high structured guide. Although all the questions seemed to be open ended, the guide forced them into a certain direction. This help with my overall research, but I could have received a ton of information from opening the floor with questions off the guide. I also needed to record their interviews to catch everything they said because there was a lot of information that I missed simply from poor brain retention and lack of time to take notes due to maintaining eye contact. Finally, I needed to keep the interviewee in charge. I was in charge of the conversation but I need to make the environment feel more as if the interviewee was more in charge. I could have done this by maintaining a looser schedule of questions and asked more questions based on their responses. I could have also been more polite in asking them, Would you please describe the average HTM student versus, describe the average HTM student. All of these techniques

would have helped make the interviewee feel more comfortable and give me more information simply because they have someone actively listening to their responses. If I was to do the field project all over again, I would try to have a more flexible schedule of questions. I would also try to manage my time more effectively since one interview went for almost 40 minutes or so.