Here is an excerpt from the 'field notes' from my first experience recording an interview with a professor. Can you hear the interview anywhere? No, absolutely not (like, so, like, mmm, like, yup, ok, mmhmm, like, uhhh are there any more sounds I can can make while you speak?).
A Ball of Nerves
My nerves generally played the biggest role in today’s interview. After talking to doctors, speaking to professors takes second place on my list of fears. I went into the interview with my nails freshly bitten and a new pair of glasses that I did not feel comfortable in quite yet. I was afraid that there would be bits of the granola bar stuck in my teeth and that my sweater was noticeable dirty. I checked my appearance in the washroom. Teeth? Clean. Sweater? Not so much. Perhaps this would be seen as a positive, you know, set a casual tone for the situation.
We met in his office and in order not to be disturbed by anyone we agreed to go to the student lounge. He gave me the keys to open the lounge and went to run an errand; I went into the wrong room and recorded room tone (not because I really understood what I would do with it but because it seemed to be an important thing to have). After an embarrassing “you are in the wrong room moment” we moved to the student lounge and I could not get the words out that I would hang back afterwards to record the room’s ‘tone’. I was scared to say something that I didn’t understand out loud and I thought maybe the other room’s tone would suffice.
After the interview we said goodbye in the hallway, I went to the elevator and immediately changed my mind. I waited silently holding the door open until I heard him go into his office to speak to a student and then ran back to the lounge. It was locked. Room tone fail.
Upon settling into the new room I had hoped that we would be far enough away from the loud hallway talkers; we were not. I resisted the urge to stand up, walk outside and boss the student out of the hallway over the course of the entire 50-minute interview. I was equally distracted my fear that the light on the recorder was faking its role and was not, in fact, recording. I let myself check the recorder only twice to make sure that the numbers were running. Instead of paying attention to him talking I pretty much just ran back-up plans through my head trouble-shooting the “recorder didn’t record” situation.
I had all the questions I wanted to ask him written down and we both reviewed them before we started. As he answered, I realized that his remarks were not leading into the next question I had prepared but I was so afraid that the questions that were popping up in my head would scare him or would sound stupid so I generally stuck to my script. Towards the end I was a bit more brave and did my best to segue into other questions like this gleaming moment: “You said the word genuine which leads me onto a very big tangent…” brilliant. Thankfully he managed to deal with my ad-lib ramblings and frame them into answerable questions.
I was so afraid to listen back on the recording, as I could not deal with the fact that I would have to listen to myself stumble around looking for the word to describe the way in which we vote. IT IS CALLED AN ELECTORIAL SYSTEM, YOU FOOL!
It was such a relief to have it done! It was a thousand times easier than I had made it out to be in my head and maybe this experience has the potential to help calm my nerves about approaching professors to talk about thesis or other work. I still fear the power dynamic, I will still probably be incapable of putting together coherent thoughts (ELECTORAL SYTEM), and they will most likely continue to frame ideas I can only wish I could do. The first thing I wrote down after finishing the interview was, “I hope he doesn’t think I’m an idiot? What if he runs around spouting about how stupid I am? I wonder if all the professors do this?”
Listening Back
The second thing I wrote down was, “I started by insulting him in an attempt to make it more casual; I don’t think he got the joke.” Listening back on the interview I think this is the correct analysis of that situation. It doesn’t give me much hope in my future of interviewing (or general social interactions). I sat down to transcribe and listen to the interview and I feel that I should have tried to make the conversation flow more naturally and the questions could have been better researched. I wish I would have asked clarifying questions but then I think the interview would have just been about Viacom and Comedy Central as corporate entities so it is probably for the best.Reflecting on my own ‘performance’, I should have kept my mouth shut and spoke up. I did not believe the advice that we should sit quietly and react non-verbally. It felt so unnatural at the time. It was as if I was playing a bad sketch show character with my unnatural nodding and fake “I’m listening” facial expressions. You can hear in the interview when I ditch that persona and, in my opinion, totally spoil the quality of the recording.
If you ever decide to record an interview one word of advice: Listen with your ears and not your mouth.
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