14A - Halfway Reflection

1) The behaviors that I used to keep up for the requirements of this course is to stay on top of everything. Every week, I mark down in my planner when the assignments, cupcakes, and peer reviews are due and I read the assignments beforehand so I have enough time to complete it. By being aware of the deadline, I hold myself accountable to do the assignments on time. Time management is the biggest skill for this class.

2) There have been some assignments were I mentally groaned at the requirements, but I know I'll always pull through. I've always had the attitude that I'm going to get the best grades I possibly can since elementary school so being academically driven is nothing new to me. Especially since this class i only 100 points, I can't really afford to slack off.

3) Three tips I would offer to next semester's students to foster skills that support tenacity and to develop the "tenacious mindset" is to 1) Mark down when assignments are due, 2) Look ahead to gauge how much work is needed for a particular assignment (especially if you're having a busy schedule during that time), and 3) When choosing your opportunity, choose something that you're genuinely interested

13A - Reading Reflection No.1

1)

• I was most surprised that Ray Kroc was 52 when he started taking on the McDonald's business. 
• I admired Ray Kroc's work ethic and how much he believed in McDonald's and its future. He was a dreamer and never stopped pushing for the company to improve and grow. He also had close relations with the people who came onto the team and never compromised his values or his vision.
• It's hard to find something that I didn't admire about Ray Kroc but I guess what I least admired about him was how he didn't dedicate a lot of time to his family. It's understandable since he was working so hard to build up the company but it seemed he never made room for his family.
• Ray Kroc faced adversity and failure, but he always found a way to solve the problem - either by reaching out to other people for help (either for money or more manpower) or trying to compromise with those involved. He never gave up.

2) Ray Kroc had a huge background in sales when he sold cups for many years, he was outspoken and honest, a hard-worker, rigid in his values, and utilized his connections to get what he wanted.

3) I was confused with some of the business jargon, how some of his deals worked with the leasing for his properties, and some of the compromises he had to make in order to gain ownership of the company.

4) If I were able to ask Ray Kroc two questions, I would ask what were his biggest motivations behind his drive for McDonald's and if he had the opportunity to change the school system, how would he reform it? I thought it was interesting his take on how schools teach students and wonder how he would modify it and why he worked so hard to get McDonald's where it is today.

5) Ray Kroc's definition of hard work entails being persistent and dedicated to your cause. I also share this opinion - because no matter how talented you are, what advantages you have, none of that compares to if you're actively putting in effort and exhausting the resources you have.

12A - Figuring out Buying Behavior No.1

Segment: The segment I'm choosing is high school seniors. All three of my interviews consisted of people in the same age group as me (college students) in a variety of majors - Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Health Sciences.

Summary of Interviews:

• Need Awareness: Through my interviews, I learned that need awareness usually arises when they encounter a problem or they reach a stage in their life when that problem becomes relevant. For example, my friend who is about to graduate said that he's going to have to consider how to pay a mortgage and the process of buying a house since he wants to move out. Another one of my friends has to consider different types of credit cards since she's going to be getting her own and not tied to her parents' one anymore. In situations like these, that's when they become aware of the need.
• Information Search: After becoming aware of the need, through my interviews I learned that a common approach is either asking family/friends or Googling it. By asking family/friends, they ask about their prior experience, any problems they have run into, what they recommend, and what to look out for. Googling is used more when they have a specific question in mind or when they want to compare details between companies for example.

Conclusion: After conducting my interviews, I can succinctly say that my segment consists of high school seniors who become aware of the need when they encounter the problem and solve their problem by turning to family/friends or Google.

11A - Idea Napkin No.1

1) My name is Ashley Phang and I'm a freshman at the University of Florida studying marketing. I am someone who has also struggled with this problem and wish for the unmet need to be met. I constantly look for ways for things to be more efficient and can anticipate what's coming next. Some of my skills is problem-solving, analyzing a situation from multiple angles, and thinking of creative solutions. Through my experience working with my cousins on Susie's Knee Project (a non-profit organization) I have been exposed to the behind-the-scenes of a business and through my participation in the Big Idea Competition, I'm constantly learning more about what it like to run a business. I aspire to not only be successful in school but also my future career and can foresee this business pushing me outside my comfort zone and teaching me valuable life skills.

2) I'm offering customers a program that will help prepare them for the real world by teaching them real life skills. As of right now, students are not taught these skills in school and have to rely on outside resources to learn. Through the program, the lessons and skills will be brought to them, instead of them seeking them out through other ways.

3) I am offering the program to high schoolers, specifically high school seniors across the U.S. They are all are either going to go to college, the workforce, or possibly the military after graduation.

4) More and more students are graduating from high school with no real knowledge of what real life looks like and so many students complain about how they didn't learn any valuable material while they were in school. I aim to change that and give them something that is tangible and applicable to their own life.

5) No one else has really addressed this problem and actually implemented it. Part of my advantage is that the problem is relevant mainly to people my age right now and I'm able to connect with them.

For the most part, my five elements work together but there is definitely room for improvement. Specifically on the fifth element of core competencies, this could be more well-developed. Overall, I think everything aligns because there is an unmet need, I relate strongly the to the problem, and others recognize the need as well.

10A - Elevator Pitch No.1

https://youtu.be/VWhj02Mxjpc

9A - Testing the Hypothesis Part 2

Who: From my second round of interviews, I found that there is some people who fall outside my boundary, although it is very limited. Since my opportunity consists of teaching mainly high school seniors essential life skills, there are some students that don't really feel that they need their school to teach them these skills. They actually don't mind having their parents teach them when the time arises and don't really mind learning "to cross that bridge when they get there."  Some students would rather focus on their other academic subjects and leave learning the life skills on the side. In other words, they don't feel it is the school's responsibility to teach them these skills.

What: Some of the people I interviewed agreed that by having mandatory sessions that students must attend, that could boost student engagement, but they expressed that it could be complicated finding the right speaker for certain life skills since there are so many different ways to approach it and not every skill necessarily has an expert for it.

Why: The underlying need for those inside and outside the boundary is the same, however for those outside the boundary, it's just less emphasized since they could rely on their parents more.

	Inside the Boundary	Outside the Boundary
Who is in	High school seniors who want to learn life skills	High school seniors who rely on their parents to teach them
What the need is	Teaching students a baseline of life skills that they further define for themselves	Teaching students and expecting them to know every option and have an expert level of understanding
Why the need exists	To better prepare students for the real world so they are better equipped to handle daily obstacles and could set up their future	Students who satisfied learning from their household and do not rely on school/outside resources for this knowledge

8A - Solving the Problem

My opportunity is having a high school class designed to help students learn life skills. Too often, high school seniors are graduating without any real knowledge of the real world and the skills to tackle daily challenges such as paying taxes, applying for loans, paying a mortgage, buying a car, building credit score, etc. By having a class to each students these skills, hopefully they will be more prepared for when they are presented with these problems.

My solution to a problem that arose in the previous assignment is to offer two separate courses - one for high school and one for college. For high school since there are challenges with sufficient funding, the unlikelihood of students enrolling for these classes, and the complicated nature of designing the class, my solution to this problem is by having shorter, mandatory sessions that mainly high school seniors attend. This way, they are required to learn the material but not necessarily have  a full blown class to do so. The sessions could be taught by guest speakers who specialize in that field and could provide helpful advice so students learn from the source, and the school doesn't have to dedicate too much time and resources designing the class. At the college level the class could be more in depth to give more specific details and information.

7A - Testing the Hypothesis Part 1

High School Class Designed to Teach Students Essential Life Skills

• Students aren't properly prepared for the real world when they graduate high school and could use assistance in tackling life's daily challenges
• The what: Since high school hasn't taught students life skills, they feel unprepared for the world
• The who: High School Students
• The why: Either schools don't feel responsible for departing this knowledge for students, the complexity of how to design the course plan, or insufficient funding

• Testing the what: The boundaries of the need are partially unclear because there are so many possible answers. Boundaries can include exactly what would be taught and the extent of the detail of each such as filling out tax forms, paying a mortgage, how to apply for loans, how to pick the right credit card company, and how to choose the best insurance - there isn't an exact answer to all of these situations and some are subjective.
• Testing the who: College students have this need as well as high school students who didn't go to college. Eventually everyone has this need.
• Testing the why: Schools may recognize that some students end up learning the knowledge from their parents and therefore don't feel responsible for teaching the students this valuable information. Moreover, how the schools would go about introducing the course can be ambiguous such as making the class required or as an elective, how they evaluate a student's knowledge of these skills, etc.

• Interview #1
• I asked a female college freshman and she never considered the high school class because she never considered it a possibility. To combat the problem now she would ask family or Google it herself. She believes that a class hasn't been implemented yet because schools assume that family or reliable resources teach students. Possible problems that could arise in designing the class is that there is too many personal details and too many ways to solve a problem. 
• Interview #2
• I asked a male college freshman and he would usually ask his parents or do online research to combat the problem. People who could be affected is young adults who may have not been responsible for major life responsibilities. Demographic wise it mainly affects middle-class and upper middle class in suburban neighborhoods. He believes that a class hasn't been implemented yet because schools are underfunded and the current state of education is more focused on the state curriculum and having good standardized test scores to gain more funding. Possible problems that could arise in designing the class is that not many people would take it because they wouldn't take it seriously or would consider it worthless, having someone to teach it in a school setting, and not needing it to be a full-on class, it could be an after school program administered in a more effective way instead.
• Interview #3
• I asked a male college senior and he mainly learned from YouTube and thinks that students wouldn't take the class because they won't view it as important as other subjects. Possible problems include everyone having different learning styles and problems with methods of teaching the material.
• Interview #4
• I asked a father and he expressed the need for awareness of life skills because if not, it could be detrimental for those involved. He also highlighted the importance of knowing personal finance such as saving, building credit score, how to utilize the right financial strategies, and what to look out for/avoid. In the past, he had to ask people with good financial history for help and hire an accountant. Reasons why a class like that has failed in the past is because the class wasn't as popular, wasn't relevant at the time, and wasn't well publicized. Possible solutions include making it mandatory for high school seniors b/c not everyone goes to college and in college, make it more in depth.
• Interview #5
• I asked a mother and she expressed that possible barriers are that students don't think about needing life skills at that age and since it's not required to learn, students rely more on their parents. Possible solutions include having a mandatory session (not necessarily a class) and having a college-level one be more in depth.

• Reflection
• I learned from the interviews that the class could be split into high school and college. The high school course could be a shorter program after school or split into shorter sessions. To guarantee a more effective result, the high school program would be mandatory otherwise the amount of students enrolled in that class would be negligible. The college course would be more in depth to cover specific topics relating to personal finance.