Avinash

The past week has been very interesting for our class. As a whole, we gained valuable insight as to which organizations are preferred. Phone interviews were conducted with eight organizations, three of which were done in class. Students listened to the other five outside of class. The interview gave us a deeper look at each organization and allowed us the chance to seek answers to any pressing questions we may have had. The general consensus of the class seems to be that no organization gave a particularly bad interview. That being said, there was a relatively clear distinction in regard to which interviews were better than the rest.

The most interesting part of class this week was on Thursday, when we decided the number of site visits we would go on and which organizations we would be visiting. As a class, we agreed that in order for a decision to be made, twenty-one out of the twenty-five students must be in agreement. After eight phone interviews, we could only agree as a class on two organizations to visit. This was surprising- there didn't seem to be any overwhelming dissatisfaction with any organization, yet we still could not agree on who to visit. To a certain degree, part of the problem was that students backed the organizations they interviewed. Ultimately, a decision was reached, but it was definitely not as clear cut and easily done as most of us had hoped. I can't help thinking that if deciding on site visits was this difficult, making a final decision for funding will be even more so. Hopefully, the site visits next week will make our decision a little easier.