Preparing for College Success

In what is quickly becoming a yearly CSM tradition, last month Ms. Doan’s 9th grade Foundations classes participated in mock interviews and blew their interviewers away with their professionalism, self-awareness, and savvy.

The group of interviewers included community partners, business leaders, CSM alumni, and CSM faculty and staff members. If scholars were nervous about sharing their qualifications with their distinguished interviewers, certainly no one could tell! One interviewer commented that he had just come from a career fair at the University of Memphis and that our 9th grade scholars were far more prepared, professional, and impressive than the college students he had just interviewed! 

Scholars were ready for their interviews, and it showed. Last week, Ms. Doan took several steps to help her scholars think through the process of preparing for their upcoming interviews. They began by accessing their prior knowledge by collaborating with classmates to brainstorm some dos and don'ts regarding interview etiquette and strategies. Next, scholars added to their knowledge about interviewing by watching sample interviews and noticing both effective and ineffective approaches to interviewing. 

Next came the planning stage, where scholars reviewed common interview questions and prepared their responses. Then, scholars were given a chance to practice interviewing one another, giving them an opportunity to monitor their skills and make adjustments as necessary with feedback from peers and Ms. Doan. This was a key stage in the process as scholars did not have to wait until after their actual interviews to receive important feedback. 

On the day of their interviews, scholars shuffled into the Cougar Den with nervous excitement. Interviews were “speed dating” style as scholars sat with a total of five interviewers for five minutes each. Scholars shared strengths, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, and much more. Many interviewers were ready to hire our scholars on the spot!

After the interviews were over, scholars were able to take a deep breath, step back, and reflect. Ms. Doan shared with scholars the feedback from their interviewers and scholars used the feedback to reflect on their experience and discuss what they would remember to do for future interviews.

We hope this event continues to be an integral part of the Collegiate culture and a meaningful rite of passage for our Freshman scholars.