Today I conducted the third interview I’ve done in three days. It’s been going ok so far. The computer setup with Skype and Solicall are working great, so at least I have no logistical problems to worry about as the recordings sound great and are already digitized so I can get to work on transcribing.

For the most part the interviews themselves have been pretty good. Like I said before, I am a little anxious since this is the first time I’ve done interviews for academic research. The interview subjects have been great and from what I can tell, they seem to be talking very openly about their experience with Sabermetrics. The interviews themselves are running a little shorter than I thought they would. I was hoping that each one would last at least an hour to an hour and a half. But so far, the first two were 45 minutes and the one I did this morning was about an hour. I suspect that this has to do a little with me being nervous. I noticed that I am speaking rather quickly and maybe that is prompting the subjects to answer in kind. But I also suspect that I need to adjust my interview guide. However, I do feel that I was much better in my last interview than I was with the first one.

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Apologies for not posting more. It has been a busy few weeks as the end of the quarter has come and I have spent some time taking it easy while transitioning to a new schedule. This post is just an update of how things are shaping up for the summer.

The first thing you should know is that I have started a job at UCSB’s Institutional Research department. I will be working part time doing some survey analysis work. In particular, I will be working on a project about the factors involved in the retention of freshman students. There’s a possibility that this could lead to a full time gig in the future, but more importantly it gives me a way to keep my quantitative skills sharp, so that when I go look for a job I can point to my work at institutional research as proof that I can crunch numbers.

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