Interview Assignment:
Robynn Clayton
Interview Project
Communication 1010
09/28/11
Interview Analysis Memo
DATE: September 30, 2011
TO: Professor Kate Jones
FROM: Robynn Clayton
SUBJECT: Interview Analysis Memo, Comm. 1010
I had the opportunity to interview a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) from Redwood Therapy Group in West Jordan. I choose to interview Jennifer because I have a brief history with her and she is the reason I want to be a therapist.
I have wanted to be a therapist since I was a junior in high school. I am working toward a degree in this field and I wanted to interview a therapist to understand what I need to do as a student now so in the future I will be able to start my career as soon as possible spending as little money on education that I can while ensuring I know what it necessary for my chosen career. I went about the interview to learn and understand the fundamentals of what it takes and what it’s like to be a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
This memo summarizes the key points and advice I received and analyzes what I learned from conducting my interview.
Summary of Lessons Learned
Education and Residency
While interviewing Jennifer I learned that a masters degree is required to become a therapist. It is five semesters long and if you do it straight through it will take approximately two years to finish. I was also informed that it is better to go to different schools when obtaining your Bachelors and your Masters degree, so you can have a wider range of references, get different views on subjects, and become more open minded to new ideas. Where as going to one school you have the same surroundings on a daily basis going somewhere else helps you break out of your comfort zone.
In interviewing Jennifer I learned that you have to do a type of residency where you work directly under a Therapist and with clients permission you will sit in on sessions and observe, after you do that then you become an intern and work with clients on your own. I am really excited that I won’t be jumping right in and I will be able to observe and see what it’s like. I also learned that I am currently majoring in the wrong thing at SLCC and even though the classes I am taking will help me in the long run they are not necessary and I need to switch my major and find the classes that I should be taking. This was a very good thing to learn.
Depending on the different field of therapy that you choose to go into will depend on how much schooling you will need to take and what your starting pay will be. I was concerned with wondering if this career would help support a family if need be. One thing Jennifer shared with me is that she started making $37,000 a year, but depending on the different areas you study and go into it can range from $30,000-$100,000.
Work Life Vs. Person Life
One thing I really wanted to know was if this career would affect my personal life at all, because you are taking on a lot of other people’s problems. I learned that with time separating work and personal life gets easier and you learn different ways to separate the two. Jennifer mentioned that her commute to and from work helps her change the mode of her mind and she can adapt to the environment she is going into. She also mentioned that listening to music helps a lot.
Jennifer mentioned that when she sees her clients outside of the office at a concert, church, grocery store, or wherever it may be she does not approach them, she doesn’t make it awkward to where they have to explain how they know her. She lets them come to her if they choose and she keeps it very platonic.
I also wanted to know what a typical day was like for her and she told me that she sees about 5 clients a day and then spends approximately two hours doing paperwork. They have staff meetings weekly to get advice on what they should do with clients if they don’t know keeping what they say to a minimum, it’s more for them to bounce ideas and get an outside sources opinion. I found this piece of information to be very interesting I didn’t realize that sometimes even the therapist doesn’t know what to do, and needs help from others.
Future Advice
This career is not an easy one to handle. People are very delicate, seeing as I am still young I wanted to get advice on what I can do to make this a much smoother process when I’m a little older and done with school. Jennifer instructed me that she would tell students majoring in this field to know their stuff and know it well.
With the economic downturn the demand for therapists is going up. It is a competitive field to work in and the more you know and the better you know it will help you advance in your career and it shows that you have a love for what you are doing.
Interview Analysis
Analysis of a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
While conducting this interview I realized that I have been majoring in the wrong field for what fits my career desires best. I learned a lot about what a therapist has to go through on a daily basis and what I can do now to better prepare myself for when I become an LMFT. I am excited that I now have a reference to turn to if in the future I have questions arise and I need the answers.
Jennifer helped to steer me in the right direction and if I choose to listen and follow her advice in six years I will be a lot better off than if I went at this alone and had to figure it all out for myself. I really enjoyed interviewing her and the questions I had were answered and I now know what I need to do from this point on in my academic and my future career.
Analysis of my Interviewing Process
Since I already know Jennifer I wasn’t as nervous as I would have been if I had not already had a previous encounter with her. It helped that I had my questions prepared and that I have researched this career a little bit so I could ask the proper questions.
Before I went to the interview I prepared my appearance and myself so I would not offend Jennifer or other people who might be waiting in the lobby to see the other therapists in the office. I looked over and read my questions to myself many times so that I wouldn’t fumble over my words, I didn’t want to appear that I had written the question ten minutes before the interview and I was reading word for word. I tried to think of many questions I could ask, assuming that the conversation would develop and not necessarily stay as I planned.
For future interviews I think I would like to spend less time writing my answers down. Make brief notes with key facts so that I can move through more questions in a shorter amount of time. Taking a recorder next time might even be a good idea just in case I need to refer back to something that was said, or the way it was said.
I enjoyed being able to do this interview. I feel more confident and comfortable with myself while interviewing and I know that as I continue to interview people in my life I will get better with each interview I do. At the end of our interview I thank Jennifer for her time and she gave me her brochure as a future reference.
Interview Project
Communication 1010
09/28/11
Interview Analysis Memo
DATE: September 30, 2011
TO: Professor Kate Jones
FROM: Robynn Clayton
SUBJECT: Interview Analysis Memo, Comm. 1010
I had the opportunity to interview a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) from Redwood Therapy Group in West Jordan. I choose to interview Jennifer because I have a brief history with her and she is the reason I want to be a therapist.
I have wanted to be a therapist since I was a junior in high school. I am working toward a degree in this field and I wanted to interview a therapist to understand what I need to do as a student now so in the future I will be able to start my career as soon as possible spending as little money on education that I can while ensuring I know what it necessary for my chosen career. I went about the interview to learn and understand the fundamentals of what it takes and what it’s like to be a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
This memo summarizes the key points and advice I received and analyzes what I learned from conducting my interview.
Summary of Lessons Learned
Education and Residency
While interviewing Jennifer I learned that a masters degree is required to become a therapist. It is five semesters long and if you do it straight through it will take approximately two years to finish. I was also informed that it is better to go to different schools when obtaining your Bachelors and your Masters degree, so you can have a wider range of references, get different views on subjects, and become more open minded to new ideas. Where as going to one school you have the same surroundings on a daily basis going somewhere else helps you break out of your comfort zone.
In interviewing Jennifer I learned that you have to do a type of residency where you work directly under a Therapist and with clients permission you will sit in on sessions and observe, after you do that then you become an intern and work with clients on your own. I am really excited that I won’t be jumping right in and I will be able to observe and see what it’s like. I also learned that I am currently majoring in the wrong thing at SLCC and even though the classes I am taking will help me in the long run they are not necessary and I need to switch my major and find the classes that I should be taking. This was a very good thing to learn.
Depending on the different field of therapy that you choose to go into will depend on how much schooling you will need to take and what your starting pay will be. I was concerned with wondering if this career would help support a family if need be. One thing Jennifer shared with me is that she started making $37,000 a year, but depending on the different areas you study and go into it can range from $30,000-$100,000.
Work Life Vs. Person Life
One thing I really wanted to know was if this career would affect my personal life at all, because you are taking on a lot of other people’s problems. I learned that with time separating work and personal life gets easier and you learn different ways to separate the two. Jennifer mentioned that her commute to and from work helps her change the mode of her mind and she can adapt to the environment she is going into. She also mentioned that listening to music helps a lot.
Jennifer mentioned that when she sees her clients outside of the office at a concert, church, grocery store, or wherever it may be she does not approach them, she doesn’t make it awkward to where they have to explain how they know her. She lets them come to her if they choose and she keeps it very platonic.
I also wanted to know what a typical day was like for her and she told me that she sees about 5 clients a day and then spends approximately two hours doing paperwork. They have staff meetings weekly to get advice on what they should do with clients if they don’t know keeping what they say to a minimum, it’s more for them to bounce ideas and get an outside sources opinion. I found this piece of information to be very interesting I didn’t realize that sometimes even the therapist doesn’t know what to do, and needs help from others.
Future Advice
This career is not an easy one to handle. People are very delicate, seeing as I am still young I wanted to get advice on what I can do to make this a much smoother process when I’m a little older and done with school. Jennifer instructed me that she would tell students majoring in this field to know their stuff and know it well.
With the economic downturn the demand for therapists is going up. It is a competitive field to work in and the more you know and the better you know it will help you advance in your career and it shows that you have a love for what you are doing.
Interview Analysis
Analysis of a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
While conducting this interview I realized that I have been majoring in the wrong field for what fits my career desires best. I learned a lot about what a therapist has to go through on a daily basis and what I can do now to better prepare myself for when I become an LMFT. I am excited that I now have a reference to turn to if in the future I have questions arise and I need the answers.
Jennifer helped to steer me in the right direction and if I choose to listen and follow her advice in six years I will be a lot better off than if I went at this alone and had to figure it all out for myself. I really enjoyed interviewing her and the questions I had were answered and I now know what I need to do from this point on in my academic and my future career.
Analysis of my Interviewing Process
Since I already know Jennifer I wasn’t as nervous as I would have been if I had not already had a previous encounter with her. It helped that I had my questions prepared and that I have researched this career a little bit so I could ask the proper questions.
Before I went to the interview I prepared my appearance and myself so I would not offend Jennifer or other people who might be waiting in the lobby to see the other therapists in the office. I looked over and read my questions to myself many times so that I wouldn’t fumble over my words, I didn’t want to appear that I had written the question ten minutes before the interview and I was reading word for word. I tried to think of many questions I could ask, assuming that the conversation would develop and not necessarily stay as I planned.
For future interviews I think I would like to spend less time writing my answers down. Make brief notes with key facts so that I can move through more questions in a shorter amount of time. Taking a recorder next time might even be a good idea just in case I need to refer back to something that was said, or the way it was said.
I enjoyed being able to do this interview. I feel more confident and comfortable with myself while interviewing and I know that as I continue to interview people in my life I will get better with each interview I do. At the end of our interview I thank Jennifer for her time and she gave me her brochure as a future reference.
Reflective Paper:
Communications is a great class for everyone to take. The lessons I learned in this class will help me both in my personal life and in my career. I want to be a therapist my whole career will be focused on communicating with other people and helping them to solve their problems and get through the toughest part of their lives. I really enjoyed the interview assignment it gave me a lot of insight on what is expected of me as an interviewee and the interviewer.
This class consisted of a lot of reading and hands on work. I enjoyed reading the chapters in the book because they helped me paint a better picture of what the text was trying to convey to me. I liked that there was a little bit of everything. There was group work as well as individual work. Working in groups is often a good learning experience because when you have a career you are constantly working with people whether that be coworkers, clients, employers, etc. it helps to learn how other people interact so you can become more versatile in any setting.
I thought this class had a lot of strengths the biggest strength for me was the presentation at the very end of class. Public speaking doesn’t come easy for many people and I really enjoyed that I was able to do this and grow and feel more comfortable in a group. I don’t often break out of my shell that easy and I am a very quite person so doing this really helped me to feel more confident about my ability to present information in front of an audience because as my academic career grows so will my opportunities to speak in front of large or small groups of people.
One weakness of this class was that there weren’t many assignments it was mostly big projects. I personally like the little assignments between projects because it keeps the information I am learning fresh in my mind and I have an easier time remembering it when I am asked a question on the topic.
Overall I thought this class was taught really well, and the information I have gained from attending this class and doing all the assignments to the best of my knowledge will really help me out later as my academic career continues and later when I begin my career. This class has given me a new motivation to do my very best in school and broaden my horizons and break out of my comfort zone and try something new.
This class consisted of a lot of reading and hands on work. I enjoyed reading the chapters in the book because they helped me paint a better picture of what the text was trying to convey to me. I liked that there was a little bit of everything. There was group work as well as individual work. Working in groups is often a good learning experience because when you have a career you are constantly working with people whether that be coworkers, clients, employers, etc. it helps to learn how other people interact so you can become more versatile in any setting.
I thought this class had a lot of strengths the biggest strength for me was the presentation at the very end of class. Public speaking doesn’t come easy for many people and I really enjoyed that I was able to do this and grow and feel more comfortable in a group. I don’t often break out of my shell that easy and I am a very quite person so doing this really helped me to feel more confident about my ability to present information in front of an audience because as my academic career grows so will my opportunities to speak in front of large or small groups of people.
One weakness of this class was that there weren’t many assignments it was mostly big projects. I personally like the little assignments between projects because it keeps the information I am learning fresh in my mind and I have an easier time remembering it when I am asked a question on the topic.
Overall I thought this class was taught really well, and the information I have gained from attending this class and doing all the assignments to the best of my knowledge will really help me out later as my academic career continues and later when I begin my career. This class has given me a new motivation to do my very best in school and broaden my horizons and break out of my comfort zone and try something new.