The Pitch: Experiential Learning in a First-Year Seminar

This student group developed the winning response to a business challenge for Kwipped as part of an experiential learning initiative at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Photo courtesy of Renee Smith.

The Pitch: Experiential Learning in a First-Year Seminar

Erika Jean Hanson

Academic Advisor and Coordinator, Student Engagement, SAIL Office Waston College of Education

University of North Carolina Wilmington

Students at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), like those at other institutions, often wrestle with indecision about their major throughout their first year, and sometimes longer. This indecision can lead to anxiety, delayed academic progress, and low GPA (Daniels, Stewart, Stupinsky, Perry, & Loverso, 2011). Data from UNCW’s University College, which oversees first-year student advising and programs, show 17% of students not retained from the first to second year identify as undecided. Undecided students typically report lower self-efficacy and more difficulty making decisions (Bullock-Yowell, McConnell, & Schedin, 2014).

Concerned about the success of its undecided students, UNCW set about helping them. We found that experiential learning activities allow students who are unaware of their strengths and skills to discover them through action and reflection. Studies show that students who engage in experiential learning have improved persistence compared to their counterparts (Abdul-Alim, 2011; Prussia & Weis, 2004; Tinto, 1998).

UNCW positioned its first-year seminar, UNI 101, as a significant retention tool, aiding students in their transition to the university. The course includes topics suchas academic preparation, the value of diverse ideas, and career exploration. It seemed a natural fit to incorporate an experiential learning component into UNI 101 to help students clarify their major of interest while also developing transferable skills (e.g., critical thinking, problem solving, oral communication, teamwork, collaboration, leadership, technology, professionalism).

Making The Pitch

The experiential learning initiative, named The Pitch, required student groups in UNI 101 to research a local business and its customers while also answering a challenge submitted by the business aimed at helping students narrow their major focus. The student groups then worked to determine a solution to best meet the needs of the business before pitching their solution to a business representative in a culminating event at the end of the semester. The Pitch sought to encourage students to explore different interest areas by working on various components of the project.

Over the summer, prospective businesses were contacted via email to gauge their interest in participating. Those that expressed interest were sent a Business Challenge Form explaining the purpose of the project, the role the business would play, example challenges, and space to submit their own challenge, purpose, background, and contact information. Three businesses, Kwipped, nCino, and Wilmington International Airport (ILM), chose to participate and submitted challenges (Table 1). The student groups had to develop a response to each challenge into the “pitch” part of the assignment, which would then be presented as part of their course grade. While each UNI 101 instructor could decide how many points were allotted for the project, those participating made the group project worth 15% of students’ final grade.

Table 1

Challenges Submitted by Participating Businesses

Wilmington International Airport: Develop a survey tool (iPad-accessible) to collect customer information regarding experience, home location, and purpose of traveling to Wilmington.

Wilmington International Airport: Create a mock-up of a mobile app/kiosk that allows customers to pre-order food from concessions to have waiting at their gate.

Wilmington International Airport: Create a sustainability campaign and slogan, which includes recycling throughout the operational and public spaces of the airport.

Kwipped: Create a marketing campaign to promote the Kwipped brand.

nCino: Develop a strategy to attract top UNCW students to the company on a biannual basis in order to build an intern and hiring pipeline.

After the challenges were submitted, five instructors, each teaching one section of a traditional UNI 101 class, agreed to take part. The five classes of 25 students each amounted to 125 participants. Each class was divided into five groups and assigned one of the five challenges. This was done intentionally so that groups within a class did not compete against one another, with the aim of keeping the class dynamic supportive, positive, and focused. Each instructor could divide groups as they saw fit.

During the fall semester, students worked on these projects inside and outside of class. Many of the groups chose to contact the businesses directly and visit them to better understand the companies and their challenges. For their midterm assignment, students presented their pitches to their respective classes, which gave feedback on their presentation style and ideas. This iterative process helped students further refine their pitches.

Getting Feedback

In late October, the participating business partners were invited to campus for the culminating event. As student groups gave their five-minute pitches, their respective business partners evaluated and scored them based on four criteria: (a) presentation skills; (b) critical-thinking and innovative problem-solving skills; (c) professionalism; and (d) alignment between proposed solution, submitted challenge, and company brand. They also gave written and verbal feedback on what students did well and ways they could improve. While their scores were tallied, students presented their projects to the campus community in a poster session. The winning groups of students were announced as the event concluded. These students received swag bags, recognition on social media, and the chance to interview for internships with the businesses.

While this project pushed students to work collaboratively and build transferable skills, it was primarily created to help them explore possible interest areas for majors and future careers. Table 2 shows how students explored various interests through the ILM mobile app challenge.

Table 2

How Students Taking the ILM Mobile App Challenge Explored Interests by Major

Psychology: Understand what customers want, how they would use the app

Communication: App flow to ease information delivery, public speaking delivering the pitch, networking with business representatives

English/creative writing: Write app language, create promo materials, write script for pitch

Business: Impact on ILM, return on investment, cost, marketing campaign

History: What has been done before, history of airport concessions

Art: Mock-up of app and marketing

Criminology: Online security for payment

Environmental studies: Sustainable packaging, environmentally conscious waste disposal at gate and ILM, locally sourced

Foreign languages: Translate app for international customers

Philosophy and religion: Food options for religious observances, ethical practice : Sociology: Current trends at ILM, within the Wilmington community, and trends at other airports

Statistics: Customer travel and concession data, projections

Public health studies: Healthy options, obstacles to healthy eating

Education: Directions on how to use app

Computer science: Create mobile app, online security

Participants See Benefits

To assess the assignment’s value, we gathered feedback from business representatives, instructors, and students. The companies providing the challenges were impressed with students’ professionalism and contributions; they have since implemented many of the ideas they received. For example, the winning group from nCino suggested a business representative visit targeted courses to discuss the company and student opportunities there, increase branded marketing, and provide financial incentives for student internships. Over the past three years, nCino has visited classes at least once per semester, added substantially to its branded marketing (e.g., koozies, keychains, tumblers), and offered monetary incentives for all internships.

Our participating UNI 101 instructors all agreed that The Pitch allowed for more practical exploration of career interests. The initiative also led to fruitful conversations about employment-based topics, including dressing and preparing for interviews, networking, writing professional emails, collaborating and resolving conflict effectively, and making presentations.

When we originally introduced the project to first-semester students, they were less than thrilled with the idea. Many found the thought of working with local organizations intimidating. Moreover, non-business majors did not see the project’s relevance. By the end of the semester, however, students overwhelmingly saw the value. These excerpts from students highlight how the project affected them and their future career path:

"When the semester first began, I was planning on pursuing exercise science, but by the end I realized I wanted to switch to education. I did well in my science classes but realized that I wasn’t finding them very interesting. Then I would work on this project and enjoyed helping my teammates understand the challenge we were given and the research I found. I got to develop our presentation we gave to the airport representative and executives (after we won), which was like a lesson plan."

"I am thinking of choosing studio art as my major because I have found that it fits my interests and values the best. On UNC Wilmington’s career page, I began my search by looking under the What can I do with a major in tab. As I kept reading about the studio art major, I realized that participating in the business challenge, where I was in charge of designing/creating an app, helped me discover skills that I did not even know I possessed. Skills such as imagination, creativity, flexibility, patience, work ethic, independence, and strong communication were all abilities that any studio art major should have, all of which I thought I was able to depict in our project."

Data from a student survey showed that 20% of those who participated in The Pitch identified as undecided at the start of their first semester. However, 47% of total students surveyed changed their major after taking the course. Although many cited The Pitch as a contributing factor in doing so, only 13% said it was the main reason. As a result, we suggest incorporating several opportunities for students to explore majors throughout the semester.

Lessons Learned

The goal of this initiative was to help students explore majors while gaining transferable skills. Although we succeeded, a few changes to the planning process would boost the consistency of students’ experience and ensure they have the resources necessary to complete the project.

With each instructor controlling the details of their UNI 101 section, including the assignment of groups and class time dedicated to preparing for The Pitch, students involved in the initiative did not have a consistent experience. Hosting meetings over the summer so instructors could build consensus around such details would help with consistency.

Crucial to this project were the businesses and representatives that submitted a challenge, worked with student groups throughout the semester, and provided feedback on their final pitches. Initially, we felt it was best to work with small, local startups, which may need more help than large businesses. However, we ended up with three very different-sized businesses and noticed that the smaller startup had less time to dedicate to students. In the future, we suggest working with larger companies with more resources available for students.

References

Abdul-Alim, J. (2011, March). Higher education leaders say experiential learning key to student success. Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://diverseeducation.com/article/14865/

Bullock-Yowell, E., McConnell, A. E., & Schedin, E. A. (2014). Decided and undecided students: Career self-efficacy, negative thinking, and decision-making difficulties. NACADA Journal, 34(1), 22-34.

Daniels, L. M., Stewart, T. L., Stupinsky, R. H., Perry, R. P., & Loverso, T. (2011). Relieving career anxiety and indecision: The role of undergraduate students’ perceived control and faculty affiliations. Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal, 14(3), 409-426.

Prussia, G. E., & Weis, W. L. (2004). Experiential learning effects on retention: Results from a required MBA course. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 5(4), 397-407.

Tinto, V. (1998). Learning communities: Building gateways to student success. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 7, 1-11.

Contact: Erika Hanson hansone@uncw.edu

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