7A-Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1) An opportunity that I would like to pursue is one that I mentioned in one of my previous assignments last week. The opportunity would be primarily first year college students but also second year students who don't know how to live on their own. Every year, millions of students who are only 18 or 19 years old leave their homes and families to attend universities for at least four years. Most of those students however, have little to no basic knowledge of how to take care of themselves without any help which leads unnecessary stress, unhealthy diets, unbalanced schedules, and poor financial action on their part. This is an unmet need that I believe most students have that can be and should be addressed for the millions of students every year attempting to get a degree.

2) To clearly identify the opportunity, millions of first and second year college students every year from across the country are uneducated on how to take care of themselves and live on their own because they have spent their whole lives living with their families and have had little to no assistance in the at home to college transition.

• The who: First and second year college students 
• The what: Minimal knowledge of living on their own and taking care of themselves in college 
• The why: No efficient or effective assistance or program to teach them how 

3) Hypothesis- I believe that I can use this opportunity to create an app or program that can easily educate young college students to take care of themselves through all factors of life on their own such as cooking, cleaning, shopping, finances, scheduling, and more so they can more effectively transition and adjust to college life.

Testing the who: There are not many others who have this need outside of college students just because they are the ones making the transition from being taken care of (for the most part) to being on their own. However, you could make the argument that students who go right from high school to work could also have this need in which it would definitely apply to them as well.

Testing the what: Not all students have zero knowledge of how to take care of themselves, many probably know a couple things obviously but when you have classes and extracurriculars will they be able to properly put them to action along with all other factors necessary to live on your own? Do all students need to know how to take care of themselves completely? Perhaps not, there are kids who prefer or can afford to eat out every night or have easier class schedules or prefer to take their clothes home every couple weeks to their parents to clean, however, once again many cannot do that especially if they are out of state.

Testing the why: There are some high schools that I have heard about that do have a small course on how to be on your own and also some parents do make sure they teach their kids the basics so they are prepared, however, the majority of kids are not prepared.

4) Interview #1:
       First I interviewed a freshman here at the University of Florida who came from Maryland. When asked about the adjusted lifestyle since the 800 mile move from his family, he said he definitely has had trouble so far doing everything on his own because his parents usually took care of the essentials like dinner, laundry, transportation etc. Additionally, he said that while he knows it will take time before he gets the hang of everything, he finds himself calling his parents every day to ask advice or instructions. He said he has been living off of microwaveable foods and Uber eats for most of his meals and while that isn't the worst thing, it is burning a whole in his wallet. Overall he stated that although he is still surviving first year college life, he wishes he was a bit more prepared coming in.

Interview #2:
       In this interview, I spoke to a recent UF graduate about how her freshman year experiences went and if help of some sort would have been needed or preferred. She stated that although she was super excited to live on her own away from her family and home, she definitely got some unexpected obstacles of responsibility that she wasn't ready for. She said she had a lot of trouble scheduling her days out and would be eating breakfast at 12 pm, lunch at 5 pm, and dinner at 11 pm or whenever she had a spare moment. She said she lived in an apartment her first year and had to ask her parents how to write a check to bring to the front office for rent. This is something that could be aided by the use of an app or program that could show this first year student how to balance her day to day schedule and be knowledgeable of her finances.

Interview #3:
       For this interview, I spoke to a student who is about to embark on her first year of college to see what her expectations are and how much she already knows. When asked about how prepared she is for her first year of college and first year away from home, she said she was very excited but extremely nervous because she isn't used to completely taking care of herself. She stated that she wasn't sure if she would be able to do everything that her parents were able to do for her on a daily basis with school and a part time job that she plans to have her first year. She also stated that with her cooking experience, she would be, "definitely living on ramen noodles." Overall she said that it will be a learning experience the whole way, but she hopes to get some help from upperclassman in the process to make it easier.

Interview #4:
       For the next one, I interviewed another freshman from this year to see how prepared they were for living on their own. She is about 400 miles away from home in the Florida Keys. She admitted that looking back on the last 18 years of her life before going to college she was definitely spoiled. She said she had to call her parents while grocery shopping so they could tell her what to get and the first time she did laundry she overfilled the washing machine and it almost broke. "There is a lot of responsibilities you have on your own that you don't think about when you are at home with your family," she stated. She said she had a lot of trouble handling her finances to begin with as well because she kept running out of money every week until her parents started setting her limits and told her to learn how to budget. This is one of the more common problems first year students come across when living on their own.

Interview #5:
       For the last person, I decided to interview a sophomore to see if anything changed from first year to second by pure learning experiences. This sophomore was only a couple hours away from home so he whenever he would go home (which was about once or twice a month) he would take his laundry and his parents would stock him up on food as well to help him adjust. He said they didn't want to just throw him in the deep end immediately because he would've been all over the place trying to do everything on his own. He said now that he has had a full year under his belt, he has developed a regular routine and schedule for himself and has become much more knowledgable about self care and especially finances as he said he wasn't even sure how to set up a savings account when he was a freshman. Overall, he said that he wished he was more prepared going into school or during that first year because it would have saved him a lot of stress, time, money, and mistakes.

5) Interview Reflection:
        After the interviews, I realized that I opportunity is still there and is shared by so many students whether they are closer to home or not. I did notice that the ones closer to home (driving distance) were definitely less lost in the first year process but only because they never were away from home for too long, at least in the first year. Students who came from out of state were much more unprepared and in need of assistance during that first year period where they had no one to rely on but themselves. Some students are going to be better prepared than others and it really all depends on where they are coming from and how they spent the first 18 years of their lives, but overall, regardless of who you are or where you came from, being on your own in college is a whole different lifestyle that many students are not prepared for and it can really place unneeded obstacles in the way on the path to a successful first year.