A Summer in Wonderland: An Engineer’s Adventure Through the World of Student Affairs

Jeremy Bozarth, University of Louisville, Brown Fellows Class of 2013

Background• Summer 2010: Internship with Universal Studios Orlando

Industrial Engineering group. Exposed to time studies, inventory control, queuing systems and Arena Simulation software.

• Spring 2011: Co-op with UPS Supply Chain Solutions – Worked with UPS accounts in Sprint, Toshiba and SMART boards. Learned to better use Microsoft Excel and Access as well as work design tools to evaluate quality standards.

• Summer 2011: Internship with Norton Healthcare – applied time studies to Pre-Surgery Testing processes. Developed quality measurements for time per patient per nurse depending on the types of procedures being used.

• Fall 2011: Growing interest in Student Affairs, worked as a Resident Assistant for on campus housing and applied for Student Orientation Staff.

Project Goals• Better understand the opportunities of Student Affairs in a

University setting and decide if it is a career interest to me.• Continue to develop Industrial Engineering skills and apply

them in a different setting than the previous projects. • Find a way to merge the first two goals in a project that both

involves industrial engineering but still has aspects of Student Affairs.

• The opportunity to impact incoming Freshmen through Student Orientation Staff and provide an Engineering service to Enrollment Management.

Enrichment Project SynopsisStudent Orientation Staff:

Each Student Orientation Leader would lead a group of students around campus teaching them about campus life, help create Freshmen class schedules, and convince any ‘on the fence’ students that the University of Louisville is the right choice for them. As one of the first Speed School of Engineering students to become an SOS’er, I was given Speed Students for all 10 orientation sessions. (Jeremy’s Jedi)The SOS training started in the beginning of the Spring Semester. The group worked in admissions and became thoroughly educated on the University’s admissions process and orientation planning. Beginning in May, the SOS’ers had a two-and-a-half week training camp focused on learning about all resources available through the University for Students.

Enrollment Management internship:The Office of Enrollment Management is responsible for coordination of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Registrar's Office, Student Financial Aid Office, Office of Military and Veteran Student Services, University Commencement, Residency for tuition purposes, the Brown Fellows Program, and the Jones Scholarship Program.This internship focuses on Enrollment Management in Undergraduate Admissions through analyzing student retention rates and the demographics that make up each “cohort” of students.

https://louisville.edu/institutionalresearch/files/key-information-data-files/Retention%20Rates%20-All%2020101118.pdf

Using a reporting tool through iStrategy, student data is used to determine the amount of first-time Freshmen and Transfer students that stay and finish their degree at UofL.

Project Conclusions Student Affairs is an amazing way to make an impact on the lives of college students. The Student Orientation Staff is a great program to learn about student affairs as well as become more aware of your leadership style and values. The SOS program is highly recommended for anyone interested in Student Affairs especially with a focus on new incoming Freshmen.

The Enrollment Management internship is an on-going project. From the initial data gathered student retention rates measure from Freshmen to Sophomore year to be approximately 77% and decrease with each consecutive year. The focus now is the demographic of each group of students based on when they came to UofL. This internship also proved that the fundamental principles of industrial engineering can be applied even in Student Affairs. In this case, enrollment at UofL can be though of as a factory with each student being a product. Whenever a student drops out or does not complete the degree requirements, he or she can be considered a defect. The goal at the end of this Project will be to estimate the number of defects to be expected for future classes of students.

Future PlansThis summer brought me back to my roots. I am refocusing on the two things I love, theme parks and serving people. For this academic year I will be working as the Speed School President to represent the engineering students to the best of my ability. This semester I am starting the Theme Park Engineering Group (TPEG) to practice engineering projects related to a theme park setting (ie designing an animatronic bird, coaster launch pad and coaster simulations).

TPEG will also focus on Professional Development through attendance at conferences hosted by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

My next step is creating a project to submit to the Disney Imagineering “ImagiNations” contest in the hopes of presenting a project to Disney Imagineers and a potential internship. Since the Speed School program is planned for five years, I will be spending the next summer in class or potentially in a co-op with Disney and the following year obtaining my Masters of Industrial Engineering.