Report for week 41

This week I composed the letter I will be sending out and the questions that will go with it. I have also started the work in collecting the email addresses of all the students that we know applied to university. So far I've got all the addresses for students of 05/06.

Here is my letter:

Dear former Kungsholmen student

My name is Hannah Smith and I’m currently in ES3B. For my project work I’m creating a database to help current students get a more personal picture of what the universities they want to apply to are like. To do this I need your help! My plan is to collect information from you about how you have experienced your university and courses.

I would really appreciate if you would like to help me out by answering the following survey.
When you have completed it please send it to my email:

Mia Ekestrand says hi and encourages you to pass the survey on to all former Kungsholmen students you are in contact with. Mr. Powers and the staff at Kungsholmen would love to know where you are and how you’re doing.

Best regards Hannah Smith

Here is the questioner I will be enclosing:

Name of university:

University email and web page?

Size of university? Number of students?

Rate the location of your university? (1-10, 10 being the best)

What is good/bad?

Name of course:

How have you experienced your courses?

What is included in your course?

Where do you live? (on/off campus)

Rate your accommodation? (1-10, 10 being the best)

What is good/bad?

How have you experienced the price levels in the area compared to Stockholm? Example?

What kind of extra curricular activities are available?

Do you take part in any? Which? Costs involved?

Is there a students union? What do they do? Have you benefited from there existence? In what way?

Does the money from CSN cover your studies and living? If not how much do you have to add?

Do you work alongside your studies? How much are you allowed to work? What are wage levels like? Is it difficult to find work?

What are the job prospects after completing your course? Or if you have already completed your courses, what do you work with?

Is there anything you would like to add?

First status report

At the moment all is going well with my project. So far I've written a project plan and presented it to the rest of my project group. Then I've interviewed our guidance councilor Mia and gotten her thoughts on what type of information it is people fell is missing. I would have liked to have spent some more time talking to the people in my project group, and gotten some input from them. However the end of the last project seminar was very stressed and people didn't really seem to be in the mood to help out.

Since I feel that there is a slight time pressure to send out my questions. So instead of researching within a larger group to find out what questions to ask, I have composed the questions I'm going to send out to the former students, based on what I, Mia and the people I have had the opportunity to talk to about it think. However I have asked quite a few questions, so while I'm waiting to get the questioner back I'm going to research which of the questions people found relevant so as to see if I should dump a few.


Here is my project plan: (I have made some slight alterations they are green)

Project plan
Hannah Smith
ES3B

Background
I have chosen to focus my project work around the area of education, communication and choice because these are very current topics in my life and the lives of people around me. I also felt that it would be great opportunities to learn more about universities all over the world and help myself as well as others make a well informed decision.

Project Aim
The goal for my project is to create a university information site based on, on-site information from former Kungsholmen pupils. It would be a place for students applying to university to find alternative information and hear current student’s thoughts about their different institutions.

Implementation
First I’m planning to work out how the information should be presented. My current plan is some form of website. This means that one of my first tasks will be to find out how much of this I will need help with and how much of this I can do on my own.
My second step is to research what kind of information that university applicants experience that they want from other sources than the institution itself, by interviewing applicants as well as teachers and the guidance councilor.
After this I will develop a questioner or guideline for the university rating and description.
Then I will use my own and Mia Ekestrands contacts to start contacting former pupils studying at university to ask them to take part in this project.
If/When they have said yes I will send them material for their rating/description and on its return I will start going through it and creating the website.

Since the point of my project work is not to work with web design I may very well use for example a pre-existing format from a web hotel or get some help from my more technically experienced friends.



Time plan

Week: Term plan: Project meetings: Work: Personal deadlines:
34
35
36
37
38
39 Project plan Write project plan Project Plan
40 Seminar 1 Mia Structure work + Interview Mia
41 Mia Create questioner/letter for former students
+ Collect contact information for former students
42 Part of project Mia Create survey for current students
+ Collect contact information for former students
43 Mia Contact Former pupils and give out survey
44 AUTUMN BREAK NO WORK RELAX
45 Mia Collect all parts, compile the survey results + structure rest of work and continue contacting old students Conclude so far
46 Research website construction
47 Mia(Monday) Work on website Finish web-site planning
48 Seminar 2 Mia Chase former students who have not responded
49 First draft Mia Start going through all collected data
50 Evaluations Mia Continue collecting and going through all data Have all questioner results
51 Fix stuff time
52 CHRISTMAS BREAK NO WORK RELAX
1 CHRISTMAS BREAK NO WORK RELAX
2 Fix stuff time
3 Creating website
4 Creating website
5 Creating website Finnish website
6 Write project report
7 Write project report Finnish report
8 Final product, or… BUFFER ZONE / present product
9 SPORT’S BREAK NO WORK RELAX
10 Final product Prepare for fair
11 Project fair
12 Project report + Self evaluation
13 EASTER BREAK NO WORK RELAX
14 NO WORK RELAX
15 NO WORK RELAX
16 Final grade + Project back NO WORK RELAX


Presentation
The web page will be the main forum for the presentation of my results but I’m considering also having a shorter presentation on my findings.

I redid parts of my time plan since I realised that some things where in a illogical order and that I was ahead of my planning.