Project in a Nutshell

My Role:

Primary Designer. I was responsible for end-to-end research, design, and advocacy for Academic Explorer. I worked with students and academic counselors to understand the pain-points of academic major selection and with heads of departments, the registrar’s office, , and UW data scientists to advocate for giving students the tools and data they needed to make that selection earlier and better.

Most Fun:

I loved meeting with the students. I interviewed dozens of students about their path to their majors and was awed by their thoughtfulness and organization and saddened by how many of them felt they wasted time and money on majors they didn’t really believe in. Their energy and disappointment motivated me to fight on their behalf and to build something that would ensure the next generation of students wouldn’t have to settle for majors they didn’t like.

Biggest Challenge:

The biggest challenge was convincing departments to empower students with the data they needed to make their decisions. Departments tended to be very secretive about their data including % of students admitted to their programs, avg. grade point of students who were admitted, and what the graduation rates were for the programs. This information was important for students to know to understand how competitive they might be.

What I’d Do Differently:

I would have worked harder to engage with outside companies to get the data we needed for this tool. One of the biggest questions students had was “what can I do with this degree”, and although we had early discussions with Payscale to get that data, it fell by the wayside as we ran into challenges even getting the basic information (e.g. contact info, degrees offered, etc). I think the addition of job-placement information would have done a lot to help students and wasn’t entirely dependent on the other systems that were giving us the other troubles.