SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – The W20 Group is a global marketing communications firm founded by Jim Weiss, an alumnus of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Throughout the past year, he was concerned about the student experience and wanted the center to conduct research on the student experience.
“It was his request that we try to understand at a much more micro level and certainly a lot of research and a lot of articles are written on college students but the opportunity to really hone in on this community and use the learnings to apply in the future,” Beth Egan said.
Egan is an associate professor of advertising at Newhouse and co-director for the W20 Center for Social Commerce.
The W20 Group’s Center for Social Commerce located in the Newhouse School of Public Communications has published a report detailing their findings on the college campus experience throughout the pandemic.
Having this center in Newhouse gives the school unique access to data and analytics.
Each year, three students are chosen as a part of the center’s ambassador program that normally includes a summer internship. However, the ambassadors from last summer did not get to have that summer internship as it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the current ambassadors is Syracuse University senior Karley Warden. She said the ambassadorship typically involves promoting events on campus and spreading word about the center’s offerings. Normally, the ambassadorship is a year-long program but the current group has been on board for more than a year working on this project to gauge the student experience.
The study used qualitative data by interviewing students of different grades and majors one-on-one about their experience. For quantitative information, a research survey was sent out to any student they group could reach on campus. Warden thinks the survey got a high response rate because it is an issue that students care about and want to share input on.
“Part of our role as ambassadors is important to use those connections to really get results. If we were just sending surveys out to random people, they might be like I don’t really care about this and delete the email,” Warden said.
The study also utilized focus groups to learn more by allowing students to bounce ideas and perspectives off of each other.
Scott Mueller is a senior studying in the Whitman School of Management and was one of the students who participated in a focus group used for the research report.
“It was interesting. It was the first time I came together with a group of people to actually talk about how the semester went going mostly virtual and I guess I had never been part of a larger conversation with that kind of reviewing my experience. I had a lot of fun with it and it was really interesting to hear other people’s perspective,” he said.
With so much uncertainty in the job market, Warden said that some students are making last-minute changes to their career plans.
“One student mentioned that she was a retail student and was looking to go into retail but retail doesn’t seem like the place to be right now so now she’s going into consulting and moving across the country for a new opportunity,” Warden said. “So she’s grateful for the opportunity and grateful that she found something she can apply her skills to but it’s nothing what she studied here for last four years here.”
Warden emphasized how important this study was in allowing students to make their voices heard and share concerns about their experience, but ultimately, it is up to the university to decide if and how it will use this report’s findings.
