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• Do students understand what personal branding is?
• Are students able to define their skills?
• Do students have a career plan?
• Do students have a plan to promote their brand?
A pilot study was first distributed to students of Arizona State University which found that students lack an understanding of what personal branding is and have a need for the knowledge and tools to develop a personal brand. A workshop was then developed to address these issues. This workshop was held three times: first, for a Landscape Architecture class, second, for a marketing class, and third, for a student sales organization. The workshop discussed branding, personal branding, and then the participants were able to begin working on developing their own personal brand. The students in the first workshop had two sessions and were able to complete their own personal brand process with the workshop leader, while participants from the second and third workshops completed it on their own, after only a single workshop session. After completing the in-person workshop, participants shared their brand with their fellow students in a Google Plus page. Finally, participants completed an exit survey. This exit survey was used to measure the research questions.
The first workshop proved to be most effective, even though the participants in the first workshop were all landscape design students and the majority of the participants in the second and third workshops were business students. It was found that unless the students’ own brand development process was finished during the workshop or affected the students’ grade, it would not be completed. It was also evident in all of the workshops that slides with imagery were more effective at starting discussions than the text-heavy slides. As such, future workshops should be designed with a greater time allowance, the intent of the students’ own brand development process to be completed during the workshop, and the presentation should be redesigned to better initiate discussion among participants.
Does a consistent mentor help a youth transition into a secure and independent adult life? To answer this, I have used a grounded theory methodology to research elements of the foster care system. Through academic research, I audited the landscape of mentoring within foster care and then helped in the designing of a framework for a foster youth mentoring service could look like and have researched the areas in which a mentor can benefit a youth. I have listened to and recorded the stories of three college students with lived foster care experience so that I could learn from those who have firsthand experience. After using these methods, the findings showed that a consistent mentor figure is a key factor in the transition into a secure and independent adult life.