academic projects

strategic service design

punishment programs 101: the flaws within

For this project, my class had the opportunity to work with service designer Tricia Okin. The project consisted of designing a workshop that would spread awareness of the discrimination in schools. The workshop was mainly directed towards parents to share their insights as well as get an understanding of what is happening in schools. According to the data we were provided, black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than their White peers. While Black students represent 18% of children enrolled in preschool, they represent 48% of all preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension. In comparison, White students comprise 43% of preschool enrollment but are only 26% of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension. Students with disabilities represent a quarter of students arrested and referred to law enforcement, even though they are only 12% of the overall student population. These statistics proved a problem with discrimination, and it was important to understand why.

My class was split into five groups to design different workshops for the prompt. My group decided to focus on what the actual disciplinary actions were for each offense. We pulled up the student handbook from Newburgh school district in New York. From this, we were able to find that there were some offenses that had a stricter policy than others and what the necessary actions were to apprehend them. Some of these came to a surprise, such as suspension for using your phone in class. Considering how shocking some of these disciplinary actions are, we decided to incorporate it into our workshop.

My group’s workshop was titled “Punishment Programs 101: The Flaws Within”. Since we were told that the workshop should be directed towards parents, the attendees included 20 parents, the superintendent of the school district, and a mediator. The first five minutes consisted of ice breakers, where the attendees would go around the room recalling what the worst thing they did in school was and how they were disciplined for it. The purpose of this was to build empathy and have a conversation start. This would then lead into the main interactive activity. On a board, the different levels of punishment would be listed (e.g. call home, principal’s office, in-school suspension, etc.) The parents would be given sticky notes, and the mediator would read out different offenses. The parents would then have to put their sticky note at the level they thought that action should be punished. Following the exercise, the superintendent would then inform the parents of what the actual disciplinary actions are for those offenses. Following the exercise would be some light refreshments as well as a Q&A session with the superintendent for parents to express any concerns regarding the topic. Each attendee would go home with an infographic summarizing the workshop and providing data on the topic. They would then be sent a post-workshop survey to get any additional feedback, and they would be able to access any relevant information on a website designed for the workshop.

basic marketing research

netflix survey and analysis

During my senior year fall semester, I took a market research course. As the term project, each group had to choose a company to do a survey on and present the data. My group decided to use Netflix as our company because even though the platform is already successful, we found there was still a lot of growth potential. We created a survey using SurveyMonkey and sent it out to 100 people. We came up with two management decision problems and two marketing research problem for each management decision. Our management decision problems were to increase brand loyalty and to increase market share. To increase brand loyalty, we wanted to better understand the needs and wants of our audience and to identify the ideal price points for products offered by Netflix. To increase market share, we decided to determine which brands could have profitable partnerships with Netflix and explore the potential of a referral program.

This project was very mind-blowing to me because the data was not what I predicted. Many people find a connection between watching shows or movies and eating. Although many people do eat and watch television at the same time, people were not interested in a partnership with a food delivery company such as GrubHub or UberEats. Majority of the survey takers did not even use a food delivery app within the last 6 months of participating in the survey. Based on the data, more people preferred the idea of a partnership with a music service, much like how Hulu and Spotify have a partnership.

After analyzing all of the data, we were able to come up with some recommendations for Netflix. This included the implementation of a points-based referral program where you can exchange your points for a gift card, a free month of Netflix, or a free upgrade to the next subscription tier. We also found that price was not a significant game-changer in reasons why people use Netflix, but they are interested in a subscription tier that would provide live television. As for partnerships, users would be more intrigued if Netflix could partner with a music streaming company such as Apple Music. Finally, based on the needs and wants of the audience, Netflix would benefit from creating more originals in the comedy or drama genre, like their hit show Orange is the New Black.

We were able to do the majority of our project using SurveyMonkey since it does show data percentages and correlations. When creating our presentation, all of our graphs were created using Tableau. If you are interested in seeing the presentation, please contact me!

creativity and innovation

Animal Homelessness Awareness

I completed a Creativity and Innovation in Business class during my fall semester of senior year. For the term project, we identified wicked problems and proposed ways to help address the issues. As an animal lover, I chose to focus on animal homelessness. The first part of this project was conducting research. I sent surveys out to people who have adopted animals in the past as well as interviewed an animal shelter. After collecting my research, I was able to create personas and journey maps of the types of people involved and affected by the problem. Using design thinking, I wrote a proposal on how to improve awareness on the issue and ideated an event.

The event that I created was to bring together different organizations that shelter and support homeless animals. Each organization would be able to have its own booth to spread awareness as well as provide information on how to adopt or help. Besides the booths, there would also be a stage. This would allow people involved in these organizations to share their stories and experiences, which would help further spread awareness on the issues. While many people focus on the animals, not many recognize the hard work and dedication that volunteers put in to help them.

To make this project come to life, I used Wix to create a website dedicated to the class. The website includes a proposal, my ideation, a prototype, and other secondary assignments I had to do for the class. I also used Adobe InDesign to build my personas, journey map, and a formal copy of my proposal.

analytics for consumer insight

haitian american caucus

In my junior year spring semester, I took an analytics for consumer insight class that changed my world. Prior to this class, I was really set on doing social media and design, but after completing it, I changed my mind and wanted to go into strategy. For the end-of-term project, we did an academic service learning project for the Haitian American Caucus (HAC). One of the co-founders, Samuel Pierre, came to our class to tell us about the organization. They created a survey to send out to their community and sent the results to us. The class was split up into groups to analyze the data and come up with potential solutions based on the problems that the Haitian community expressed in the survey. We analyzed the data using PSPP, an open-source version of IBM’s SPSS. Using mean, correlation, and regression tests, we were able to find out which problems were most significant and what affected the community’s overall happiness the most. The graphs throughout the presentation were created using Tableau.

For our presentation, we first talked about the demographics of the community, such as their age, location, and their connection to Haiti. We then went into what issues are most important to the community and which ones would create the biggest impact in making the community happier. From the data, we were able to see that the community wants improvement in education, job access, the quality of emergency services, and the cleanliness of their homes. As solutions, we suggested to create a weekly class focusing on S.T.E.M, as the community specifically requested that type of education. This would lead to potential job opportunities for those who were taking the class. To further career development beyond S.T.E.M opportunities, HAC could also host local career fairs and provide financial assistance to those looking for a college education. Lastly, we proposed that HAC partner up with different organizations. We suggested the Immigration Defense Project, which could help create a hotline for emergencies in the community for services like immigration, medical, childcare, financial, etc. We also named St. John’s University, since the school does an annual neighborhood clean-up in poorly maintained areas called University Service Day. This presentation was given to the co-founders of HAC at the end of the semester so they could take our insights and ideas and potentially apply them to the organization.

If you are interested in seeing the presentation, please contact me!