Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

           My essential question is how can animal shelters best promote animal adoption? My answers are the best way for animal shelters to promote animal adoption is by writing an effective bio through the animals perspective, complete honesty and no longer that eight sentences. Animal shelters can best promote animal adoption through special animal adoption events because it attracts a lot of people, it's easy to broadcast and is not limited to any time frame. Animal shelters can best promote animal adoptions by reaching out to the public through flyers, internet media and word of mouth. My best answer out of my three answers is my third one, by reaching out to the public through flyers, internet media and word of mouth. This is my best answer because even though it is common it was made this way because of the ease and efficiency that these methods can be used. Also they can be used successfully with a limited budget.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

For my answers I decided to start from within the shelter because I remember the saying "if you want to change someone else then start with yourself." This saying is what I was applying to the shelter which is why my first answer is effective bios. From that I answer I decided to go bigger but still remain close enough to "start changing the shelter first". This was how my second answer emerged. Finally I decided to spread out and have a larger target audience than what my first answers target. To accomplish this I knew I had to choose the common methods. This was how I arrived to social media and flyers. However, I did not think to include word of mouth until my third and fourth interview told me that word of mouth is very important and very effective. After hearing it not once but twice, I decided to included it as well in my third answer.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

 I didn't face any major problems but I did experience several bumps along the way. For example, the first problem I encountered was trying to find a mentor ship. When I had my first topic, veterinarian, I was not able to find any clinic near my house that would accept me. The first thing I tried to resolve it was by widening my range of the area I was looking at. So instead of searching 10 miles near my house I went to 15 or as far as I could with my moms permission. However that didn't work so I had to switch my topic since I didn't have much time by then. Another problem I was challenged with was when we were nearing to find our second answer. I was already struggling to find good pieces of research that would be able to strongly support my answers and I just remember thinking "I don't know how I'm going to find another answer much less a third one". So went to purther, since I am more comfortable talking with him, and told him want I was thinking as a second answer. From there he asked me questions of specifics of the answer I had in mind until we molded it into a good thesis answer. 

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

One source I completely fell in love with is an article titled "How to Promote Shelter Dogs for Adoption" written by the best friend organization. This article was absolutely amazing for me because not it only did it help me come up with my first answer but, I didn't know it then, it also shaped my following answers. During the first research checks I stumbled upon this PDF file and it is like the holy grail for me. It provides dos and do nots, examples, and visuals. This article provided advice to not only writing effective bios but as well as hosting events and how to advertise with doggie cards and flyers. I used this article to piece together my answers. My second significant source that I used was an titled "Do Social Media Ads Really Work?" I found this article after I had picked my third answer by reading an article titled "How to Advertise on Social Media." Through this article I found the link to my significant source. I choose that article because the author Christopher Null conducted an experiment in test trying different web pages to advertise his business. From there he would say the results, what might have happened, and say positive things about the page he used. For example, on Facebook it writes about his experience setting up the ad and what happened until the time he ended his experiment. At the end he provides a verdict for each page and for Facebook he summarized what he saw. Because this article provides actual feedback to certain web pages is why I choose it to be my second.

   

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

Content:  
LITERAL
(a) I, Briana Arreaga, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
(b) Upland Animal Shelter and Instagram
(c) Mkay
(d) I worked at the shelter since there are no nearby events. Towards the end of my independent component I got the idea to create an Instagram page for the animal shelter. However in order to create the page for the shelter I had to obtain permission from the shelters manager, needless to say the Instagram page came a little late to actually count many hours for my independent component as I would have liked but better late than never.
INTERPRETIVE 

Nothing is better than hands on work. It helps me look at what the shelter is doing to help bring in more visitors to adopt. I really wanted to participate in an event but there were none for the time period I need or close enough. It is hard to present pictures demonstrating the 30 hours of work that I do at the shelter. Mostly since I take pictures of the dogs. But....

Super glad they posted this up. There was this one time I was showing a dog to a man and his son and when I told the boy to let the dog sniff his had he immediately pushed his hand to the dogs nose so fast. I had a mini heart attack. Thankfully the dog was gentle and not easily provoked.

I was invited to choose a dog and join a puppy play time!

For the puppy play time I was told to take out Happy or Wendy and I chose Happy. He was so excited and he loved to chase a ball. He was a ball hoarder XD 

APPLIED

I mostly used this component to help me refine my three answers. For my first answer, which is how to write effective bios, I would look at the bios as the shelter and see the ones they have for certain dogs and which dogs do not have one. I would then create a bio myself for the dogs that do not have one of their own and compare it to a Facebook page I was told about from a volunteer. On the Facebook page they would post pictures and bios of the dogs that are available in the Upland Animal Shelter. As I started to read the bios that are on the Facebook page it blew me away. The bios that are on that page are the bios that I am aiming for, not only for this component but also for my final senior presentation because I will be using the best bios I created to use them as props. For my second answer, how special animal adoption events as a way to promote animal adoption, I wasn't able to use this component. On the Facebook page I found out there was an upcoming adoption event but because of the date that it lands on I would not be able to attend to it. Finally for my third answer which is, advertisement through social medias, I thought halfway through to create and Instagram page. However, when I asked if it was okay for me to create the page they told me I would have to ask John, who is the manager of the shelter. By the time I was able to reach John the component was already coming to an end. Even though it is late I would still love to make the Instagram page to help my animal shelter. All in all this component was able to help me dig deeper into my answer 1 and answer 3 for my eq. Giving me ideas on what to do for my final presentation and without going through this component I would not have had that need to look at the Facebook page fast enough to see that it was worth it.