portfolio

Northeastern University

2021 - 2022

Northeastern is a research institution that emphasizes experiential learning as a core part of their academic model. There are 14 campuses across the US, Canada, and the UK.

The Bay Area campus was launched in 2013, with career support being run out of the main Boston campus. As the Bay Area student body grew, there was a growing need for dedicated regional career and experiential learning support. I was hired to found that team and lead that effort.

Results snapshot

More than tripled number of students using career support after program launch vs before

Used pilot feedback to drive program improvements, increasing attendance at winter orientation

Project description

Design a comprehensive, region-specific career and experiential learning model to prepare Bay Area students for post-graduate careers.

Goals

  • Create unified source of truth for students to know how and when to access career and internship support

  • Build self-paced career readiness course and resource library

  • Establish baselines for engagement with career support - measure internship placement, appointments/office hours usage, event attendance, and qualitative surveys

Audience

~600 graduate students studying computer science, data science, project management, analytics, and information systems. Approximately half of students did not have a background in tech and were completing a 3-year bridge masters degree. Over 85% of students were international.

Challenges

  • Systems change: I was working across three colleges, each with different requirements for students. In order to scale, I needed to build a program that streamlined those requirements and created efficiencies. This was met with some concern from college administrators.

  • Data infrastructure: data tracking was dispersed, and existing tools did not have the features needed to track desired metrics. In meeting with engineering team and Salesforce admins, my team was given a 6-12 month lead time for product integrations, forcing us to use spreadsheets as a stopgap solution.

  • Habit shift: enrolled students were used to working with Boston-based teams for career support, slowing adoption of local resources.

  • Pandemic legacy: as the university moved towards in-person learning, campus outbreaks and health concerns among students supported the continuation of hybrid learning. Few students came to campus, event attendance was limited, and overall campus community and school spirit felt lacking.

Cross-functional partners

Campus-based student support staff, campus leadership (Dean and Assistant Dean), partnerships, college administrators, engineering, student leaders

Learning modalities

Written curriculum (Canvas LMS), internal wikis (SharePoint), in-person and virtual workshops, events, office hours, written communications (email and LinkedIn)

Process

As I was standing up a new team and function for the region, my design process focused heavily on collecting feedback, building hypotheses based on feedback, creating easily-executed MVPs to test those hypotheses, and iterating as we gained more data and feedback.

Students did not have one consistent source of information or preference for how to get information. In order to reach as many students as possible, I met them where they were at by partnering with faculty, campus and college staff, and student leaders to leverage existing communication channels.

Similarly, students were coming from a range of academic, professional, and cultural backgrounds; a one-size-fits-all model was not an option. To appeal to as many students as possible while maintaining scalability, we used student data to create profiles. We then created targeted learning programs for those profiles using modular resources, events, and curricula that allowed for a tailored, custom feel for students while limiting the amount of information that our lean team had to create and maintain.

Stage I - late Q2 2021

  • Listening tour: met with over 40 students, student leaders, faculty, and staff stakeholders. Interviews focused on wish lists, challenges, and blockers.

  • Create high-level outline of priorities and proposed solutions based on conversations

  • Get feedback from listening tour stakeholders to validate solutions

  • Set initial goals and systems for tracking progress

  • Build communications plan in partnership with campus teams, college admins, and student leaders

Stage II - early Q3 2021

  • Create self-serve resource database

  • Start habit change process: establish regional office hours for students, create macros for student comms, train staff on redirecting students to regional career team, begin departmental emails

  • Build outline for fall 2021 orientation - get feedback from staff and faculty

  • Create fall events calendar and clear next steps to maintain student engagement

  • Roll out tiered communications to reach students through various channels

Stage III - Q3 2021

  • Launch orientation for new students

  • Collect attendee feedback via surveys

  • Conduct follow-up outreach

  • Measure attendance and follow-up engagement to set baseline metrics

  • Report initial outcomes to leadership

Stage IV - Q4 2021

  • Track engagement throughout fall events calendar to identify periods of high/low engagement

  • Use quantitative and qualitative feedback from students and staff to update content

  • Prepare for second iteration with next student cohort in Q1 2022

Stage V - Q1 2022

  • Execute v.2 of orientation for January starts: ~50% increase in attendance, ~30% increase in follow-up appointments

  • Formalize data tracking: meet with engineering and Salesforce admins to scope internal systems update to allow for robust tracking, analytics, and reporting

  • Create ongoing survey and feedback cadence to drive continuous improvements

  • Publish async course in LMS to support and track student learning

Results

My team created and launched a comprehensive career support program within 6 months. The program included a self-serve resource center, biweekly workshops, self-paced/async coursework, office hours, monthly partner/employer events, and regular communications (email, LinkedIn, and embedded in college/student services comms).

Metrics:

  • Increased usage of career team (measured by attendance at office hours and 1:1 appointments) to nearly 50% of new students, vs a previous baseline of ~15%

  • Increased attendance by 71% between initial test/launch in Fall 2021 and second iteration in Winter 2022, despite winter semester having lower new enrollments vs fall semester