"The key to salsa is...passion!"

(the title is a Scrubs quote, for those of you who don't know; I always think of it when I think of either salsa or passion)

I will begin by saying, I've actually been getting interviews right lately. I've had to do a few small interviews with senior students who had worked on senior design projects in the department, and I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it.

I got them talking about their projects, asked follow-up questions of their explanations, followed the story from beginning to middle to end. And as the final question of every interview, I asked them how taking the class had personally benefited them.

Man, did I get some awesome answers to that one.

And I think that's the trick of interviewing. Find out what the subject wants to say. Don't ask them about their personal responsibilities, ask them about what they're most proud of. Don't ask them what their senior advisor was in charge of, ask them how their senior advisor guided them. And most of all, ask them about what they're really passionate about.

For some of them, that was the projects themselves. I said, "Tell me a little bit about it," and they launched into a long detailed spiel like a torpedo out of a sub. For others, they were careful explaining their project around me, avoiding details and trying to go for the simple big picture. They only really showed passion when I asked them what their favorite part of the project was, or what the most satisfying part was. That got them going.

In my most recent student interview, the subject paused after I asked the last question, and thought about it for a bit. Then he told me that the best part of the senior design project was that it brought together everything he had learned over the past three years and put it right in front of him, right there for him to touch, and that it was the most satisfying feeling in the world. Closure, one might say.

Definitely using that quote.