I found it somewhat difficult to write my narrative on the interview process, especially at Georgia State, to the extent where I have a Word document with around six different starts, three different endings, and a whole heck of a lot of discarded paragraphs. Nothing was really coming out the way I wanted it to; I ultimately just selected the draft that felt the most complete with the knowledge that I could workshop it to pieces and end up with something stronger.
One of my biggest struggles was that I wanted it to be a Modern Love-type piece, because of the analogies between blind dating/speed dating/hook up culture and the interview process for clinical psych programs. However, I was too uncertain about doing something like that, and ended up sacrificing a lot of potential quality detail in order to fit it into the constraints for a Lives narrative.
The other issue is that I do not want this to come across as a story of failure; rather, I want it to be a somewhat humorous reflection on how crazy interviews really are: you meet with complete strangers for a very condensed amount of time wherein you have to consistently stress what a great fit you are. There is no time to be "off" in this process, and you have to rely significantly on making a good first impression because there's not time for much else - much like first dates. This is why I don't want to mention how the interviews actually went (uncertainly; I am an alternate at several of the programs I applied to and won't find out if I will be invited to the programs for a while yet).
Overall, I know I have a solid start, but I also have a lot of ends that don't really connect. In workshop, I hope to forge those connections and make a concrete decision about what to keep and what to discard. I also hope to decide whether this work would better identify as Lives or a Modern Love submission :)
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