QUEST 190H College Park Scholars Consulting
Project Problem: College Park Scholars, a two-year academic program at the University of Maryland that consists of twelve different living and learning communities, was my QUEST team’s client for the third project of the semester. While College Park Scholars aims to assist freshman and sophomore UMD students in developing long-lasting relationships with professors, faculty, and other students in their community, the program staff, in recent years, has noticed a decreasing rate of involvement in activities and participation among alumni, consisting of juniors and older. Due to poor alumni engagement and communication, College Park Scholars approached the QUEST Honors program 190 students to help conduct research, surveys, interviews, and analysis so as to provide tactful and practical recommendations to help the program address their alumni reach challenges.
Goals: Prior to getting to work, my team and I had our initial client meeting with our project champions to discuss project goals and expectations. We determined that one of the key goals and objectives for this project was to deliver innovative and insightful recommendations pertaining to the prompted issue: lack of alumni engagement in the College Park Scholars program. The purpose of this particular goal was to garner a better understanding of the current process of alumni outreach while collecting and analyzing helpful data to produce an optimized process to engage alumni. The advantage of streamlining alumni engagement efforts is that it provides former College Park Scholars students with a tight-knit network of like-minded individuals.
A second goal for this project was to interact with and hear directly from alumni about their experiences so as to report that directly back to the Scholars faculty and project champions for implementation. In the process of releasing surveys and conducting interviews, our aim was to hear precisely what the former students would want to see in terms of events and communication methods.
Recommendations: My team’s recommendations are divided into three sections: event strategies, email optimization, and tangibility to connectivity. Each section includes an explanation of the strategy, supported by data collected by the team, as well as the potential benefits and risks of implementing each strategy. These three areas of recommendations attempt to solve some of the realized problems that College Park Scholars alumni face when trying to engage with the program. Therefore, College Park Scholars should utilize these recommendations when the faculty deems fit.
1) Event Strategies: After conducting numerous interviews and collecting survey data from current University of Maryland College Park Scholars juniors, seniors, alumni, program faculty, and on-campus alumni outreach staff, the team learned that the College Park Scholars alumni are most interested in attending and participating in the following types of events and activities:
a) Alumni held panels or discussions about educational directions, career paths, how to leverage College Park Scholars projects, experiences, and skills into a professional profile…
b) Alumni-led virtual events, including resume reviews through online platforms, e.g. Brazen.
c) Alumni instructed workshops on various real-world topics, e.g. Consulting, UX/UI design, etc.
2) Email Optimization: The College Park Scholars program should restructure the alumni newsletters to be more conducive and tailored to the interests of the alumni. Almost 70% of the junior alumni and 93% of the graduated alumni that the team surveyed indicated that they did not interact with the alumni newsletters. Those that the team interviewed mentioned that it was because the newsletters did not provide tangible value nor appealing event opportunities for them. Therefore, by considering the various types of events listed in the first recommendation and incorporating these events into the newsletter emails, alumni mentioned that they would be much more invested in not only reading the newsletters but also interacting with them in tactful ways.
Furthermore, according to the email open and click rate metrics provided by the College Park Scholars program, the team determined that the most optimal time to send out the alumni newsletter was earlier in the week, in particular, on Mondays or Tuesdays. It was also determined that the most optimal time to send important news was much earlier on in the semester.
3) Tangibility to Connectivity: After interviewing junior alumni and graduated alumni of the College Park Scholars Program, the majority of the responses that the team collected suggested that the College Park Scholars program did not inform students in a memorable enough way about the most optimal way of staying connected following completion of the program. One student even said that at her citation ceremony, she was given a pin, a mug, and a hug goodbye without any practical information pertaining to how to stay in contact with the College Park Scholars program. Another interviewed College Park Scholars alumnus noted that after she received her citation in sophomore year, she did not recall receiving any email invitations to alumni events and College Park Scholars citation ceremonies. In order to overcome these problems, the team recommends that the College Park Scholars program follow up with an email upon completion of the program with detailed information about how to stay as best connected with the program as possible. Furthermore, the team suggests that the College Park Scholars program include links to their LinkedIn group as a way 10 of strengthening the presence of the social media medium. Based on the team’s survey data responses, 87% of the junior alumni and 86% of the graduated alumni indicated that they are not even members of the College Park Scholars LinkedIn group. Therefore, sending out a fully loaded farewell email is undoubtedly going to strengthen the College Park Scholars alumni network as well its LinkedIn group.
Throughout this project, I have learned and particular numerous skills which have enabled me to successfully fulfill the various learning outcomes and objectives of this course as well as refine and develop extensive personal goals.
BMGT 190H, but more specifically, project 3’s consulting project, has taught me how to apply specific skills, including Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, Business Process Design, Project management, Risk management, Professional communication. Survey design, and Teamwork. However, as it relates to the learning outcome of using a structured problem-solving approach, I specifically applied the skills of Lean, Six Sigma, and DMAIC. In addition, this specific learning outcome has prepared me to grow as an individual in how I approach critical thinking and problem-solving strategies. The artifacts that I have created showcasing these specific skills for this learning outcome include the final client report and the poster.
In this project, I also learned how to use many design and process improvement tools and techniques, including Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, DMEDI, Business Process Design, Process Flow Diagrams, Empathy Maps, Fishbone Diagrams, Pugh Charts, etc. These tools and techniques are all directly and indirectly referenced and illustrated in the attached artifacts, including the final client report, the final poster, and the SIPOC/process flow diagram.
I found that this project provided me with numerous opportunities to analyze and interpret both qualitative and quantitative data using the skills of Survey Design, Teamwork, Risk Management, Pivot Tables, Pie Charts, Bar Graphs, Excel, and many more. These skills are better seen in action via the attached artifacts including the final client report, especially in the appendices.
The skills of Professional Communication and Teamwork enabled me to fulfill the course objective of working effectively in multidisciplinary teams, communicating professionally using oral and written methods, dealing with ambiguity, demonstrating professional behavior. In addition, having an open mind, tenacious grit, and willingness to listen allowed me to accomplish this goal. For obvious reasons, these skills are showcased in all attached artifacts and deliverables.
In order to meet the course learning objective of evaluating, analyzing and recommending solutions to real-world problems, I had to implement the following skills: Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, Business process design, Project management, Risk management, Professional communication, Survey design, Teamwork, etc. These skills are illustrated in the final client report and poster artifacts.
Goals: Prior to getting to work, my team and I had our initial client meeting with our project champions to discuss project goals and expectations. We determined that one of the key goals and objectives for this project was to deliver innovative and insightful recommendations pertaining to the prompted issue: lack of alumni engagement in the College Park Scholars program. The purpose of this particular goal was to garner a better understanding of the current process of alumni outreach while collecting and analyzing helpful data to produce an optimized process to engage alumni. The advantage of streamlining alumni engagement efforts is that it provides former College Park Scholars students with a tight-knit network of like-minded individuals.
A second goal for this project was to interact with and hear directly from alumni about their experiences so as to report that directly back to the Scholars faculty and project champions for implementation. In the process of releasing surveys and conducting interviews, our aim was to hear precisely what the former students would want to see in terms of events and communication methods.
Recommendations: My team’s recommendations are divided into three sections: event strategies, email optimization, and tangibility to connectivity. Each section includes an explanation of the strategy, supported by data collected by the team, as well as the potential benefits and risks of implementing each strategy. These three areas of recommendations attempt to solve some of the realized problems that College Park Scholars alumni face when trying to engage with the program. Therefore, College Park Scholars should utilize these recommendations when the faculty deems fit.
1) Event Strategies: After conducting numerous interviews and collecting survey data from current University of Maryland College Park Scholars juniors, seniors, alumni, program faculty, and on-campus alumni outreach staff, the team learned that the College Park Scholars alumni are most interested in attending and participating in the following types of events and activities:
a) Alumni held panels or discussions about educational directions, career paths, how to leverage College Park Scholars projects, experiences, and skills into a professional profile…
b) Alumni-led virtual events, including resume reviews through online platforms, e.g. Brazen.
c) Alumni instructed workshops on various real-world topics, e.g. Consulting, UX/UI design, etc.
2) Email Optimization: The College Park Scholars program should restructure the alumni newsletters to be more conducive and tailored to the interests of the alumni. Almost 70% of the junior alumni and 93% of the graduated alumni that the team surveyed indicated that they did not interact with the alumni newsletters. Those that the team interviewed mentioned that it was because the newsletters did not provide tangible value nor appealing event opportunities for them. Therefore, by considering the various types of events listed in the first recommendation and incorporating these events into the newsletter emails, alumni mentioned that they would be much more invested in not only reading the newsletters but also interacting with them in tactful ways.
Furthermore, according to the email open and click rate metrics provided by the College Park Scholars program, the team determined that the most optimal time to send out the alumni newsletter was earlier in the week, in particular, on Mondays or Tuesdays. It was also determined that the most optimal time to send important news was much earlier on in the semester.
3) Tangibility to Connectivity: After interviewing junior alumni and graduated alumni of the College Park Scholars Program, the majority of the responses that the team collected suggested that the College Park Scholars program did not inform students in a memorable enough way about the most optimal way of staying connected following completion of the program. One student even said that at her citation ceremony, she was given a pin, a mug, and a hug goodbye without any practical information pertaining to how to stay in contact with the College Park Scholars program. Another interviewed College Park Scholars alumnus noted that after she received her citation in sophomore year, she did not recall receiving any email invitations to alumni events and College Park Scholars citation ceremonies. In order to overcome these problems, the team recommends that the College Park Scholars program follow up with an email upon completion of the program with detailed information about how to stay as best connected with the program as possible. Furthermore, the team suggests that the College Park Scholars program include links to their LinkedIn group as a way 10 of strengthening the presence of the social media medium. Based on the team’s survey data responses, 87% of the junior alumni and 86% of the graduated alumni indicated that they are not even members of the College Park Scholars LinkedIn group. Therefore, sending out a fully loaded farewell email is undoubtedly going to strengthen the College Park Scholars alumni network as well its LinkedIn group.
Throughout this project, I have learned and particular numerous skills which have enabled me to successfully fulfill the various learning outcomes and objectives of this course as well as refine and develop extensive personal goals.
BMGT 190H, but more specifically, project 3’s consulting project, has taught me how to apply specific skills, including Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, Business Process Design, Project management, Risk management, Professional communication. Survey design, and Teamwork. However, as it relates to the learning outcome of using a structured problem-solving approach, I specifically applied the skills of Lean, Six Sigma, and DMAIC. In addition, this specific learning outcome has prepared me to grow as an individual in how I approach critical thinking and problem-solving strategies. The artifacts that I have created showcasing these specific skills for this learning outcome include the final client report and the poster.
In this project, I also learned how to use many design and process improvement tools and techniques, including Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, DMEDI, Business Process Design, Process Flow Diagrams, Empathy Maps, Fishbone Diagrams, Pugh Charts, etc. These tools and techniques are all directly and indirectly referenced and illustrated in the attached artifacts, including the final client report, the final poster, and the SIPOC/process flow diagram.
I found that this project provided me with numerous opportunities to analyze and interpret both qualitative and quantitative data using the skills of Survey Design, Teamwork, Risk Management, Pivot Tables, Pie Charts, Bar Graphs, Excel, and many more. These skills are better seen in action via the attached artifacts including the final client report, especially in the appendices.
The skills of Professional Communication and Teamwork enabled me to fulfill the course objective of working effectively in multidisciplinary teams, communicating professionally using oral and written methods, dealing with ambiguity, demonstrating professional behavior. In addition, having an open mind, tenacious grit, and willingness to listen allowed me to accomplish this goal. For obvious reasons, these skills are showcased in all attached artifacts and deliverables.
In order to meet the course learning objective of evaluating, analyzing and recommending solutions to real-world problems, I had to implement the following skills: Lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, Business process design, Project management, Risk management, Professional communication, Survey design, Teamwork, etc. These skills are illustrated in the final client report and poster artifacts.
University of Maryland, College Park
4 Teammates
2 Likers
