Introduction (2-3 minutes)
Hi [name], thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I’m [interviewer name], and I’m conducting research to understand how recent graduates navigate their social connections after college.
This will be a relaxed conversation – there are no right or wrong answers. We’re just interested in learning about your unique experiences and perspectives. I have a script in front of me with a bunch of questions just in case, but this can be a free-flowing conversation. It should take about 30 minutes.
Of course, everything you share will be kept confidential and used only for research purposes. You can skip any questions you’d prefer not to answer, and we can take a break or stop at any time.
Does that all make sense? Do you have any questions before we begin?
Background (3-5 minutes)
- Tell me a bit about yourself.
- Walk me through a day in your life–what did you do yesterday from the time you woke up to the time you went to bed?
- What’s the biggest change you’ve noticed in your day-to-day life since graduating?
- What aspects of this change have been positive?
- What aspects have been challenging?
Current Social Patterns (8-10 minutes)
- Tell me about your social circle right now.
- How would you describe your current friendships?
- [if not mentioned already] Tell me about the last time you connected with friends.
- How do you typically stay in touch with friends?
- What platforms or methods do you use?
- What makes you choose one method over another?
- Walk me through the last time you reached out to a friend.
- What prompted you to reach out?
- How did the interaction go?
- How did you feel afterward?
Challenges and Strategies (8-10 minutes)
- What’s different about maintaining friendships now compared to when you were in college?
- What do you miss about how friendships worked in college?
- What’s better about how you connect with friends now?
- Tell me about a time when you felt disconnected from your friends.
- What was happening during this time?
- How did you handle it?
- What helped you feel more connected again?
- How do you go about meeting new people now?
- What’s working well?
- What’s challenging about it?
Tools and Interventions (5-7 minutes)
- Have you tried any specific strategies or tools to help you stay connected with friends?
- What motivated you to try these?
- How did they work out?
- What would make them more helpful?
- When you want to stay in touch with friends more regularly:
- What helps you remember to reach out?
- What gets in the way?
- What would make it easier?
Closing (2-3 minutes)
Is there anything else you’d like to share about maintaining friendships after college that we haven’t covered?
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with me today. Your insights will be really valuable for our research. Do you have any questions for me?
Potential Follow-up Questions:
- If participant mentions missing spontaneous interactions:
- Could you tell me more about those chance encounters?
- How did those spontaneous interactions affect your friendships?
- Have you found any ways to create similar experiences now?
- If participant mentions using specific apps/tools:
- What made you choose this particular tool?
- What features do you find most helpful?
- What could make it work better for you?
- If participant mentions loneliness:
- What tends to trigger these feelings?
- What helps you work through them?
- How do different types of social interaction affect these feelings?
AI citations:
I used Claude by Anthropic to help me write this script. My team and I wrote a bunch of questions we wanted to ask. I then explained the structure I wanted the interview to be and had a back and forth conversation with Claude before it generated the first draft of the script based on my thoughts and questions I had drafted. Ultimately, it was primarily used to create the interview structure. I then refined and edited questions to better align with what I wanted to ask and to be phrased in ways that will yield more specific and fruitful answers. I feel that this was a good use of AI, and it helped me with the more structural, well known/patterned parts of the assignment while I got to still engage with the content.
