| Due Jan. 21, 1998 |
You will be assigned to a group of 5-6 people, with whom you will work throughout the semester. This interview assignment is a useful way to get to know each other and to assess how to make best use of the human resources in your group. For the interview, each of you is to interview the person who comes next after you alphabetically by last name. The person in the group whose name is alphabetically last is to interview the one whose name is alphabetically first. (e.g., A interviews B, B interviews C, C interviews D, D interviews A).
Collect some factual data like name, address and phone number (although each individual has the option not to share address and phone if he/she chooses not to), whether and where your interviewee works and what he/she does, status in the program, educational and work background, etc. Then pursue some additional background information that has a personal or professional interest (for example, hobbies, pets, children, career aspirations, unusual past events or experiences, travel, etc.). Collect enough information so that you can write up an interesting interview on one page in a style suitable for a newsletter. Word process your interview report or do it as a web document.
Meet as a group to compare notes from your interviews and create a table (can be created manually or on the computer) showing commonalities and strengths as a result of differences. Select 4-5 interesting categories to use in introducing your group to the class. See example below: (I will show a few other examples in class)
| Name | Student Status | Career Objective | Hobby |
| John Doe | First Year | Librarian of Congress | Needlepoint |
| Jane Doe | Second Year | Systems Designer | Dog Training |
Make a transparency from your table or plan to project your web document. Select one of your group to present it and to introduce the other group members to the class. You will have 5 to 10 minutes (10 is maximum) for your introductions.
The interview reports and the tabular information are to be stapled together and turned in as a package. Half your grade will be based on your individual interview report and the other half on the ingeniousness with which your group picked interesting and important categories for the introductions.