Great question. I feel like in essence it's opened some doors because I also feel like the professor I got closest to kind of in my time here in Grand Valley so far is Professor Zivi who taught our sequence just because like you know I did the period drive with her and then I worked as a student research assistant and helped her create a few PowerPoint for her talks and stuff. And it's like if I didn't have that bond I don't know if I wouldn't be as I don’t want to say well-rounded because I don't think I'm super well rounded. You know I was a senior research assistant on my resume. My wife was like oh I was the event coordinator for the period drive on my resume and I feel if I didn't have the Honors College and am able to form that bond with those professors I wouldn't have it at all.
If you could change one thing about the Frederik Meijer Honors College what would it be?
I don't want to get into specifics because I totally understand the idea that being well- rounded student means you're understanding science and you're understanding art and you're understanding you know theories of self and stuff. But I did feel like so because my major isn't science and I don't have to take any science classes for my major and come into any science credits. I think normal school curriculum is like oh you take like one science lesson you're good because it was Honors. I had to take a full year of science as I really did end up liking the science courses. I don't want to bash them too much by it. I just feel like in the absence of things it was a bit of a waste of time. You know in terms of working for classes in college yeah. Yeah. I mean you don’t need to have science to would be a good PR. Person doesn't make sense. So do you not think that those classes were valuable. I think they were fun and I met a lot of really cool people and I liked my professors and stuff. But in terms of being necessary to who I want to be as a PR person I don't think they were necessary.
Is there anything that I did not ask you that you think that I should have that would be valuable here.
No.
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have?”
Did not have a response
For Dialogue: Will this stakeholder agree to reconnect for further inquiry? How do they want to contacted?
Yes she will, by phone.
Three more connections this stakeholder provided:
● Offered the name of another Honors student I could talk to ● Mentioned a professor we could talk to
Possible next-steps:
● Perhaps get the insights of a sequence professor
● Definitely look into how the Career Center advertises their services – she did not even know where it was
● Compare planning method between a junior student and a freshman student, in terms of their future
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Dialogue 9
Stakeholder Group/Location: Honors Student
Estimated Age: 20-30 Gender: Female
Primary Goal of this Opportunity:
Speaking to an Honors student who is a sophomore will give us insight on what younger students are doing in terms of planning their future.
How does conducting this work reflect on your team problem statement?
We can gain insight into the experience of a wide range of Honors students which will help us develop a solution to help Honors students transition into the real world.
Summary of Research:
This person was the first person I talked to who really felt prepared to graduate. She spends time each week planning her future and thinking about what she wants to do. She researches programs in what she wants to do. In addition, she does not use advisors because she found that they do not provide information that she cannot find herself online.
Important insights:
● She plans her future quite often by herself, without the help of advisors ● Her main focus when planning classes is graduating on time
● Believes she learned valuable collaboration skills in Honors courses Dialogue Questions and Response:
Describe yourself as a GVSU Honor student. What is your year and your major? So I'm a sophomore and my major is writing my writing and my minor is Chinese language.
Any extracurriculars and hobbies?
I do have those. I am a writing consultant. So that's the main thing that I do.
I also sometimes go to queer and trans people of color and do stuff with LGBT Center. That's the main thing in terms of extracurriculars.
What does being an Honor student mean to you?
Well when I applied to Grand Valley I was encouraged by like a high school teacher to apply for the Honors College, and looking into it I guess I just saw that it would be like
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a very efficient way to get a lot of my credits like gen eds out of the way. And I thought that it would be a good way to keep myself like challenged going into college. And like I also liked the idea of like the Honors sequence. So those were things that I liked about the Honors College; and also the dorms I liked the idea of really nice Honors dorms too.
What did the teacher say to you when encouraging you to apply?
Yeah well she was saying that she knew the guy who was in charge of the Honors College at the time. I forget his name Dr. J Yeah. Dr. J, and he was really cool and he loved when students from like our high school applied because he knew that like all of us had like really good work ethics and stuff.
What high school did you go to?
City High in Grand Rapids which I guess is a, quote, unquote, like academic focused high school. Yeah but she just said all the kids who had been through the program that had gone to City before had really enjoyed the Honors program.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I'm 19 now so I guess that puts me at like 24. And I would be graduated by then I would have had like one year. I've been out for one year. Right. So one of the things that I'm interested in is after graduation going to China and teaching English as a second language. So depending on this timeline I guess I could be there doing
teaching. But I also am interested in graduate school. So I was considering you know like graduating undergrad then taking a year to go and teach and then coming back for graduate school probably in a writing like Master of Fine Arts sort of capacity.
What about 10 years?
I'm not sure I've got that figured out yet. Ideally in 10 years I would be working as a fiction author freelance and also like doing novels and stuff like that. I would like to be pretty financially secure and stable. But I'm also not sure. I could end up maybe
teaching or doing something like that maybe coming back to college and academia. So we'll see.
What are your plans after you graduate from GVSU?
Right now I'm thinking like I mentioned before maybe teaching English as a second language in China and maybe doing something like Peace Corps or something like that. Some sort of broad focus like teaching.
How often do you think about your plan your future after Honors?
Oh often. I'm very Type A. So like I'm almost all of the time thinking about it. I would say like, I don't know, three or four times a week. I'm figuring out O.K. I want to do something that will set me up for like success or whatever.
Do you ever take time to just sit down and plan? What kind of things do you do when you do that?
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that I'm going to be graduating on time. Everything that I'm doing like is setting me up for what I want to do in the future. Also do a lot of research. So I'll just like look like programs to teach abroad or Peace Corps or graduate schools or stuff like that I'll make a lot of lists. I also do use like my banner when I am like planning classes and stuff like that Mypath. Yeah the Mypath that's really helpful. It really is. It's like a really difficult to use interface.
But it's super helpful. That's all that I've used. I've never gone to an adviser. I mean you look at that and that's really all I need.