Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- All Subjects: Food
Through my personal travels and peer interviews, I have found that this project gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge on different cultures and regions of the North America and explore how local foods contribute to the cultures in that setting. Additionally, this thesis helped me self-teach myself how to develop a fully published website and practice my web design skills.
While working with the World War II Studies program, we primarily conducted market research, which eventually led us to pivot into starting our own venture. The data from the surveys we created indicated that the target market for a World War II Master’s Program was too narrow, and only appealed to people with specific cultural backgrounds. We concluded that a simple marketing plan would not be able to solve the lack of diversity, and decided to start up our own business to combat the issue. In the spring semester we created Platter Chatter, a social venture dedicated to promoting diversity and cultural awareness through food.
We believe that Platter Chatter has future potential as a social venture due to its unique position in the market, as well as the diverse perspectives and social capital that we bring as founders of the company. Some unexpected events have disrupted our original plans for testing and launching our venture, but with future work we are sure that our company and product will be able to succeed.
For our Thesis Project we wanted to create a cookbook that was designed specifically for college students who are living in the dorms. Our cookbook includes recipes that are low cost and easy to make for beginners. To be sure to capture our target audience, our cookbook will only included recipes which can be created using the given appliances in most standard dorms, which are limited to a microwave, blender, refrigerator and small freezer.
For the recipes specifically, we used a lot of family recipes and recipes from peers and colleagues. A great deal of time was spent actually testing out the potential recipes so we could narrow down which would be best for our book.
As two seniors who have grown immensely over the past few years at Arizona State, we recognize the issues that students may face when moving into a dorm. It was our goal to use our own experience and knowledge combined with research of those people who have also gone through this process, to create a book that we feel would have tremendously helped us navigate through our freshman year of college.
For this study, I visited twenty Sprouts Farmers Market locations across the Phoenix-metro area to determine the company’s in-store strategy to make their locations a destination that customers pleasantly anticipate visiting. As a business student myself and a Sprouts employee, I have familiarity with the company and desired to learn more about why Sprouts stores are so appealing and fun to visit. My method was to determine a representative sample of stores in the “Valley” to visit. At each location, I requested to speak with a manager and asked him or her four questions about that particular store. I also spent approximately forty minutes examining each location and observing details about each store according to a precomposed list of things to particularly notice but with room to add details regarding each store’s unique elements and commonalities with the other locations. The results of this study were rewarding, as at nineteen of the twenty stores I was able to speak with a manager who graciously answered my questions. I collected much data from these interviews and from my own observations. The most significant conclusion I reached was that Sprouts Farmers Market promotes health, natural-eating, freshness, and friendliness in every area. From pleasant employees to natural lighting to unique brands, Sprouts endeavors to carry products that meet the special dietary needs of each customer no matter how general or specific they may be. Another key discovery I made is that the entire company and each individual store revolves around the produce department. Because this is the core of the business, extra measures are taken to promote it, such as frequent produce deliveries to ensure fresh products are on the shelf, extra lighting in that part of the store, and frequent stocking and sweeping to keep the area full and clean. Additionally, the produce department has ample signage denoting organic and local products and information signs about how to consume various produce items, including information to learn about the farmers who grew the goods. Beyond these key elements of Sprouts Farmers Market, an intangible element exists which sets Sprouts apart from its competitors, and that is the personal touch. Sprouts’ employees are friendly, welcoming, and helpful. They are encouraged to ask customers if they need assistance and to inquire how their day is going. The employees are also educated on the products they sell as well as various dietary trends so that they can help shoppers find products that fit their needs. This warmth, helpfulness, and friendliness trickles down from the top management at each store and is communicated to the customers through their interactions with the employees. This personal touch is so important to Sprouts Farmers Market that the company even has a program to encourage employee helpfulness. It is called the “Yes” Program, and essentially empowers employees and managers to authorize price adjustments, exchanges, returns, and the like to assist and serve shoppers with exceptional customer service and provide whatever is necessary to make the customers happy and desirous to become repeat shoppers at Sprouts Farmers Market.
