Exit Interview

1. What is your essential question, and what are your answers? What is your best answer and why?

• My essential questions is; what is the most effective way to maximize participation at community senior centers?

• My first answer is, senior centers must have activities and services that cater to each senior generation

• My second answer is, senior centers must offer services that cater to all the needs of seniors

• My third answer is, seniors must be informed about their opportunities through proper messed  channels.

• My best answer was my first because senior centers need to keep up with the times and modern seniors trends. Things become trends because they are well liked and in demand. Each generation has unique interests, and these generations will eventually pass and younger ones will come in. Keeping up with each senior generations interests will keep the senior centers in demand.

2. What process did you take to arrive to this answer?

• It took months of observing how my senior center has been adapting to the different likes of the Baby Boomers, the youngest senior generation. Another source for my best answer was an article on the website A Place for Mom, a senior care referral business. The article is called "From the Greatest Generation to the Boomers: Senior Living Evolves" by Jeff Anderson. This article gave me information on how important it is for senior centers to evolve. With the information I learned from the article, I applied it to my senior center and realized how they both must be used, which helped answer my essential question.

3. What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

• A big problem I faced was finding resources that was not repetitive. A lot articles told me the same basis of how senior centers increase social interaction, well being, etc. So I resolved this problem by going into specific topics within my senior project topic. In example, I researched "seasonal affective disorder" which causes a lot of death amongst seniors during the holidays. I also researched senior health and organizing health fairs.

• Another slight problem was my health fair for my second independent component. For a short time, I was overwhelmed and was not sure if it would be a success. It was good that I set the date for it to be held during my spring break. this allowed me more time to organize everything. I resolved it by learning not to doubt myself so much.

4. What are your two most significant sources to answer your essential question, and why?

• My first significant source was my mentorship. I honestly believe that one learns most by doing, and first hand experience. Mentorship was my best source because I learned personally how to deal with problems that senior centers may face. I also had great communication with the senior center employees, and was able to get their point of view on what is needed and what is already being done for seniors. My mentorship is the result of finding most of my answers. I am very grateful to have a great mentorship that allowed me to do that.

• My second best source was the "From the Greatest Generation to the Boomers: Senior Living Evolves" by Jeff Anderson.  I cannot emphasize enough on how important to know who your working with, at any job. At senior centers, employees need to know and understand each generation of seniors. Just like a performer must know their audience to reach them, employees must do that with any customers or people they serve. This article really helped me understand each generation of seniors that I have currently been working with.