Eminent Interview Reflection

I found it quite difficult to find someone to interview about Alexander Fleming, my eminent person. So difficult that I did not end up getting an interview this year. I am quite disappointed by this because I believe this would have really added to my eminent person project and learning center.

The steps I took to find someone to interview is as follows. I first did some research about people in his field and some relatives he has that are still alive. I found his granddaughter online named Sarah Whitlow. She had done some interviews with a few different foundations around antibiotics, which is how I first found her. I had loved to do an interview with her, but she had very little internet presence. Luckily, I was able to find her on Facebook and I messaged her. I believe she didn’t get my message because I haven’t gotten a reply. After a few days of no reply, I tried to get in contact with the Fleming Fund as an alternative, but I again didn’t get a response.

In the future, I think I would try to branch out a bit more and contact more people. What I mean by this, is that I think I focused too much on someone who had a personal connection or a foundation around Dr. Fleming. If I had branched out to a professor perhaps in a similar field of antibiotics, maybe I would have gotten an interview. Only contacting two people was also a mistake. I was quite overwhelmed with other projects during the time I was sending out emails and researching potential interviewees and being busy made it hard to contact more people.

I think if I had to do it again, I would plan for there to be a timeslot where I would just research and email potential people. I would also set a goal of how many people I would like to contact so I can plan the right amount of time needed to send out emails, research and reply if I got replies previously.

What I have learned from this process is how I need to plan out my time better and make an action plan or checklist to follow. I think that doing this it will make it easier to not be overwhelmed and I can have a clear path of what I want to get accomplished. While working on this portion of my eminent person project, I made a few mistakes, but they are fixable. Being able to reflect on my mistakes also makes it easier to find what I need to fix next time and can improve my chances in the future. If I did this project again, I think with what I learned, I would be able to get an interview.

Don’t forget to check out my learning center on December 1st!