Event Improvement
When I first started at UTSA, it became abundantly clear that the Graduate Students Events Program was insufficient. Furthermore, unlike most other departments, we did not have a recognized Graduate Student Organization to help lead and plan events.
Within my first two weeks, I sent out a simple survey to all graduate students asking the following questions;
On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you with the current events program?
What type of events interest you?
Would you be interested in helping to plan events in future?
After receiving a response from over 50% of the student body, I was able to clean and analyze the subsequent responses to create the following visuals to present to my supervisors:
This graph successfully highlighted from the responses that students were generally unhappy with the events program, with an average score (x above) of 5.42 out of 10.
Furthermore, we were also able to discover what kind of events students were interested in thanks to the survey. I collated responses and categorized them, to form the following visual:
This pie chart helped to visualize four key event types that our students would be interested in.
Finally, responses to the last question helped identify the quantity and names of students that would be interested in helping to plan events in future:
Conclusion of Analysis
I was able to present the results of this data to my supervisor with the above three visuals. Their clear and concise nature make them easy to grasp the situation, and as such the following changes were made thanks to these data-driven insights:
Events were held on a more regular basis, ensuring to cover one of the four areas listed in the pie-chart
A Graduate Student Organization (GSO) was formed; I contacted each of the 16 respondents that said they would be interested in helping to plan events, and got them all into a meeting with each other. By the end of the meeting, they had agreed to form the department’s first GSO. The GSO now regularly hold town halls to get feedback from all students, plan social events and more. Their creation is one of my prouder achievements and would not have been possible without data!