Priorities:Santa Clara University Student Priorities

2019 Student Priorities

Priority 1: Encouraging Innovative Cross-Collaboration Among the Schools at SCU

Most essential to the success of real-life projects and teams is collaboration. At Santa Clara University, however, the individual schools are often siloed, lacking cross-collaborative activities and courses that would enrich the students’ experiences even further. Courses within the Engineering school are excellent for technical training, and Business school courses prepare their students for much of the business scenarios they may encounter, but at the core of entrepreneurship is a combination of technical advancements and business acumen that can only be achieved with collaboration. We intent to implement a hands-on, project-based course that will bring engineering and business students together in a collaborative environment. Students will learn crucial technical and business topics, and how their intersection can push innovation to the next level. Teams will be made up of students in various majors who can act as both leaders and learners, ultimately contributing to a product that will move through a version of the entire entrepreneurial process. Based on student interests and market research, this course will be developed (by our team and faculty champion) to meet the demands of the students and their future careers as collaborative contributors to innovative success.

Priority 2: Promoting Awareness of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Resources

While many I&E opportunities exist at SCU, there is currently a problem in getting students to be aware of them. The Engineering School has sent out emails, created an online calendar, and even put up physical fliers advertising events that students can get involved on, but an overload of information has led to most engineering students neglecting it. Typically, the same group of students is attending these events, and the challenge is in expanding this group to a wider breadth of diverse engineers. Our team intends to have a large quarterly event where organizers and professors can pitch their events to students, which would restrict advertising to a few hours as opposed to lengthy, weekly emails. Additionally, our team members will act as liasons between the administration/event organizers and the students by raising awareness through fliers, social media advertising, and outreach to clubs.

 Identifying and Accommodating Students’ Entrepreneurial Ambitions (2018-2019)

In order to create demand for the abundant I&E resources on campus, we must first understand students' expectations and ambitions for their college careers. If they expect a large emphasis on entrepreneurship in a classroom setting, we can meet them there with new courses and revamped lab guidelines. If we find students want more freedom and are interested in entrepreneurship outside of the classroom, we will provide access to community-sourced projects and resources. We would like to find out where these expectations and desires lie through extensive market research. We hope to properly gain the perspective of students and professors by explicitly speaking to these individuals, as well as implicitly analyzing which resources, approaches, and courses are popular and why others need work.

Priority 3: Bridging the Gap Between Classroom Curriculum and Applied Innovation

Problem solving in the workplace is much different than the guided labs many students are used to doing at university. Due to this fact, when students find themselves in internships and later on, full-time jobs, they are ill prepared for the more open ended problem solving that exists in the workplace. In order to better prepare students for the future, we hope to rework labs to allow for students to create their own solutions, and do their own problem solving. Additionally, by better promoting more projects on campus, students will get the opportunity to collaborate with other engineers, another key skill need for the workplace. The combination of these two initiatives will go to great lengths in terms of instilling confidence in students when it comes to performing during the course of their internships, which will lead to even more opportunities for the students in the future. As such, we intend to work with faculty to create innovative lab guidelines and objectives, as well as provide more opportunities for team and project creation.

Priority 4: Promoting Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Santa Clara University has many institutions perfect for growing its students' entrepreneurial skills.  A popular minor at the school is entrepreneurship, where students take classes in many different business disciplines.  This minor also includes an internship with a start up in Silicon Valley. Similarly, the school offers a minor in Technical Innovation, Design Thinking and the Entrepreneurial Mindset, which is held within the School of Engineering with the purpose of being easier to fit in to an engineer's schedule than the entrepreneurship minor. The school also offers opportunities for project-based design thinking experience through clubs such as Bronco Design, ASME, IEEE, CIE and more. The SCU School of Engineering offers many elective courses in design thinking and innovation as a part of the KEEN program, which looks to encourage innovation on campus. The KEEN program also sponsors quarterly project-based competitions with cash prizes to incentivize students to gain valuable experience. Santa Clara is currently in the process of implementing STEM 2020, a project which involves replacing all the current STEM buildings with a massive STEM complex called the Sobroato Campus for Discovery and Innovation (SCDI). SCU is designing this complex with the intention of having innovation and entrepreneurship at the forefront.

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