Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...) 
• At CCS Interactive, my mentor set me up with my own workstation right next to his and he assigns me tasks while he continues his own actual work. I was given access to their build site where all their clients' are stored. So far my mentor has taught me how programmers use PhotoShop where their main Graphic Designer does a layout and once approved by the client, the programmer will begin building the site through code. Currently, we are working on an improved site for the Pomona Community Health Center and I have finished coding the header, menu, and footer of the homepage and am currently working on the actual contents. It is a small office/workplace with one project manager, SEO programmer, graphic designer, and two other ladies (one who teaches a class for using Microsoft products & another concerned with communication). 
2. How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you? 
• In the summer, I reached out to friends or acquaintances that could mentor me in just general Computer Science which did not exactly work out so I ended up slightly changing my topic. I asked fellow seniors to help me compose an email which we all used with a few changes to best fit our situation. I then began sending out emails to companies that offered web design services near my house since I still rely on my mother for rides. Two weeks passed and I almost changed my topic again since I had received only one response that said they could not help. Eventually, Mr. Couper from CCS got in touch with me and set up a phone interview to clarify what the Senior Project required. We began my mentorship a week later which has continued since.  
3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person? 
• At this point, I'm feeling pretty comfortable with my mentor in terms of just spending an average of an hour and a half there 3 days a week. However, I still feel terribly incompetent especially when I'm set to do a task by myself since I'm afraid of making a mistake. 
4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it? 
• I feel like I need to work on asking follow up questions. I was not able to throw any in this time around because we were on a very tight schedule. I came in on a Friday in order to do a quick interview since there was a lot of scheduling conflicts between myself, my mentor, and my parents. We initially set up an appointment as soon as the interview was assigned, but we already had such limited time for actual work so we kept pushing it back. Then my mentor realized that he would be gone for the last two weeks of October so we crammed in this interview on our only relatively free day.