PSYC 3790 Counseling Theory
Professional Interview Assignment
Develop Your Interview Questions. Be sure to develop a respectable list of questions that are
directly related to the course material. This list should include questions about theoretical
orientation, personal awareness and growth, what the person being interviewed wishes she knew
when she were at your stage of professional development, etc. You may also want to ask
questions related to her practice, details of her job and what her day includes, etc. You need to
get my approval for your set of questions before doing the interview.
Identify a Professional. Find someone who is willing to take the time to work with you to
complete the interview and questions you have for her. You should do everything you can to find
someone in the same field you anticipate practicing (e.g., a marriage and family therapist, school
counselor, etc.). Be clear when arranging the interview as to what you intend to do and how
much time you anticipate needing.
Complete the Interview. Be respectful of the professional’s time and rights. This means being
totally prepared for the interview. It also means that you should provide an informed consent
(verbally) so the professional knows how his answers will be used and that he realize he can
choose not to answer certain questions. You should ask him if you can use his real name or if he
wants his identity protected. Remember, as you do this interview, you are representing our
university, so be prepared, act professional, and build bridges. Who knows, it may be a
professional contact you can later benefit from.
Write Up the Interview. Write the paper as a narrative, not as a transcript of the interview.
Make the experience into a flowing story of what you learned. You should go beyond the simple
question and answer details by providing your reactions and thoughts to the process of the
interview, the professional’s responses, etc. Providing some background and context will be
helpful. For example, you may want to explain why you included particular questions (e.g., why
they were important to you). One key point of the assignment is for you to learn more about the
nuts and bolts of your chosen profession. Therefore, make sure you include information on what
you came away with that you didn’t know before and how this will affect you in your career.
Because the focus of the write up will not be directly on the questions, you should include a copy
of the questions (as an appendix, for example).
This is the major writing assignment for this course. It is worth up to 100 points. You should take
care to make sure the paper is clear, well-written, and has a narrative flow. You should incorporate
feedback you have received about your writing from other assignments into this one. I expect you
to spend time editing and reworking this assignment rather than just typing it out on the fly. Grading
will be based to a great extent on the quality of your writing.
The paper should be written in APA format (regarding margins, citations, etc., but not
intro/methods/results/discussion). If you don’t know the details of APA formatting, ask me. There
is no set length or number of references, but I would imagine that such a paper would range from 5
to 10 pages (not counting title page, abstract, or references and appendices).