Niko Brown
LBST 200
October 19, 2018
Module III Assignment
My interview topic was on how the campus students felt about the amount of degrees offered at Capilano University. Our group came up with five open ended questions that would reveal how many students on campus felt about the amounts of degrees offered at Capilano University. I felt the topic we chose had much importance and would be an interesting topic to investigate for the interviewer and the interviewee.
After finding someone on campus that did not look busy, was open for a conversation, and most importantly was in a Bachelor of Arts program; I showed her my consent form that clearly explained my intentions and her rights and then asked for verbal permission if it was alright if interviewed her for about 15 minutes asking five questions about the amount of degrees offered at Capilano University. I urged her to answer the questions in any way she wanted and take them in any direction she wanted as that is the point of open ended questions. I felt I was clear with her about the point of the interview and that she was comfortable.
The first question I asked her was “How would you think earning a Bachelor of Arts from Capilano University will differ from other local universities such as UBC or SFU?” She answered that it depends on if you are going to go for your masters and the field of study you are in. Cap is a lot smaller and younger than UBC and SFU but it has a much closer community than other larger schools. Judging by the answer the interviewee focused the social duration of getting a Bachelor of Arts at Capilano University. The second question I asked her was “Why did you choose Capilano University to earn your Bachelor of Arts degree? She replied saying the location of Cap was convenient for her, she already knew lots of people here, and she liked the size of the population. She also said that she wanted to go to a smaller school but wanted to earn a degree not a diploma. I asked her “why not a diploma?” and she replied that she needed one for her program, and thought these days many careers require you to have at least one Bachelor of Arts degree.
The third question I asked her was, “What arts degrees would you like to have offered here?” She replied that she was not sure exactly what all the degrees are that are offered at cap but knew there are less than the much larger universities. She added maybe there should be either an online ballot or on campus vote from the student council regarding what degrees students would be interested to take at cap and whether they should be offered. Something like that would make it clear about the demand for the degrees that should be offered at cap. The fourth question I asked was “Why do you think Capilano University offered the arts degrees it has today?” She responded by saying that they were probably the most versatile and popular degrees that fit the market for the university. She also said many students transfer from cap so it does not matter as much if they are just racking up credits and course interests.
Next I asked her “With the number of students Capilano University has, how would it benefit the university to have more degrees?” She replied saying she was not sure exactly how the cost works but drew back from her previous answer on how much of cap’s population transfers to other post-secondary institutions so that would hinder the benefit of offering more degrees and is probably much of the reason why they have the ones they have in the first place. I then asked her “do you think it is worth offering more arts degrees for the population that does not transfer?” She replied saying that it might be of some benefit since it brings more choice but still concluded that it does not matter if many transfer and also that cap is still a young university and has grown much within the last ten years of it becoming a university back in 2008.
In closing, I thanked her for her participation. Overall my strengths as an interviewer where that I prioritized that the direction of the interview was open ended and maintained it be interesting and enjoyable. My weakness was that I probably should have elaborated a bit more on her answers and had more diverse questions.
