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Jose Javier (JJ) - 400545355

Project 2 - Portfolio
“Imagine the experience of new SEPT students building a
community amongst students, faculty, and community partners”
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Table of contents
01 02
Reality Check Interviewing
You can describe the topic of You can describe the topic of
the section here the section here

03 04
Empathy Maps POV & HMW
You can describe the topic of You can describe the topic of
the section here the section here
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05 06
Ideation Storyboard
You can describe the topic of You can describe the topic of
the section here the section here

07 08
Feedback Apendix
You can describe the topic of You can describe the topic of
the section here the section here
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Reality Check
Is there something we need to know?
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Pay it forward (2000)

What does the world mean to you?

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Interviewing
Learning from experiences
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Interviewees
Both interviewees have a similar
experience with communities
involving students, faculty and
the community. After empathy
maps, we can find differences
that will help us later in the
ideation process.

Jay Khawaja Fabian Micke

User - Engineer working in User - Exchange grad
steel industry in Canada student from Germany

Jay Khawaja
QUOTES
• I mean, in most situations, I'd probably
want to be the community partner
because it seems like that's more in
control of a project
• Get people who want to be involved,
otherwise it's kind of like a project being
put on people as opposed to something
that they are asking for or need
• We might not understand the situation as
well as the community would
INSIGHTS
• Students feel not involved in most of the
projects happening
• Faculty members and students don’t
understand the situation enough to be in
control of the project
• Motivation to participate in a community
project should be a true feeling
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Fabian Micke
QUOTES
• It's a bit hard. I'm not really into university
life.
• Big chance to get a new concept involved
in it.
• It really helped building my own
personality and standing up if there are
some problems and still not holding back,
not going every time in a corner and cry.
INSIGHTS
• Work on community projects help
students build interpersonal relationships
skills
• Fresh students are necessary to have new
ideas
• There are students not engaged in
university life
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Empathy Maps
Listen and understand

SAY
• When I was a student, I liked getting an income
too much
• We had a project back in first year which was literally
like the class project
• I would advertise. There would need to be, like, public
outreach
• I mean, in most situations, I'd probably want to be the
community partner because it seems like that's more
in control of a project
• Get people who want to be involved, otherwise it's
kind of like a project being put on people as opposed
to something that they are asking for or need
• We might not understand the situation as well as the
community would
• Students get a learning experience
• community because they get their problem solved
• faculty kind of has an easier way to have students
learn
DO
• Participate actively in community projects
• Formed groups to build a solution for a community partner
• Work because he likes the income
• Get involve in a project as part of the class requirements
THINK
• There are a few projects going on not
involving students, just faculty and
community
• Student life is rough if you are working
• Is better if community members approach
the university because they understand
the problem better
• If it is an assigned project the motivation
won’t be the same
• The experience is beneficial to every
participant
• The flow should be community, then
faculty, then student
• Getting people engaged would be very
difficult
FEEL
• Stressful with more responsibilities coming
• Excluded from ongoing projects because
they are just involving faculty and
community
• More experienced after finishing the
project
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Jay Khawaja
NEEDS
• The community to be in control of the
project
• Get students and faculty involved
because they want
• Students to learn from the experience
• Faculty to have an easier way to teach
• Community to have problems solved
• Faculty and students understand the
situation as well as the community
• Students to have enough time to
participate
INSIGHTS
• Students feel not involved in most of the
projects happening
• Faculty members and students don’t
understand the situation enough to be in
control of the project
• Motivation to participate in a community
project should be a true feeling
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SAY
• It's a bit hard. I'm not really into university life.
THINK
• The government should be owning the project
Fabian Micke
• There are some projects by the department where a
department decides to do like a project, a research • Students get a valuable experience while

NEEDS
project, and then involving it into a course plan and working in teams
students working on it and having a company as • He thinks the government must engage
partner to do it. community, students and faculty to have new
• There are a lot of projects involving community ideas. • A framework to organize participants
government partners, university students, who set • New and different ideas to solve
up a nice concept for the whole project community problems
• Big chance to get a new concept involved in it.
• It's like the team building aspect of getting into the FEEL
group of people with a lot of ideas, having the
interchange of a lot of different cultural and • He enjoys his work so much that he is amazed he
INSIGHTS
economical and knowledge wise backgrounds is getting paid for it
altogether, and getting into super brain in the • Proud of working in a company with renown • Work on community projects help
community. quality students build interpersonal relationships
• It really helped building my own personality and skills
standing up if there are some problems and still not • Fresh students are necessary to have new
holding back, not going every time in a corner and ideas
cry. • There are students not engaged in
university life

DO
• Works while studying to learn more about quality
engineering.
• Come to Canada for 1 term as a exchange student to
experience something outside his comfort zone
• Change career after 2 years, pursuing what he really
likes
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POV & HMW

How the parts contribute to the whole
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Jay Khawaja
POV 1: Jay is a first year student who needs a way to be part of community projects
because he feels there is a thick wall between faculty and students

• HMW 1 – have a better communication between faculty and students about community projects?
• HMW 2 – engage first year students and involve them with faculty and community partners?
• HMW 3 – challenge the order of events (community partner -> faculty -> students)

POV 2: Jay is a community partner who has a problem since many years because he
doesn’t know how to request help or doesn’t want people think he is not capable
• HMW 1 – change the way community partners share their problems?
• HMW 2 – improve the understanding of faculty and students of community problems?
• HMW3 – motivate community partners to share their problems

POV 3: Jay is a faculty member who needs a way to involve more students into
community innitatives because when is a mandatory part of a course there is a
evident lack of motivation

• HMW 1 – change the driver of motivation for students?

• HMW 2 – build a self advertising initiative?
• HMW 3 – engage more students?
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Fabian Micke
POV 1: Fabian is a grad student who needs a way to build social skills because he
was never engaged in university life

• HMW 1 – attract students not willing to spend time in the university?

• HMW 2 – advertise community between students, faculty and partners as a learning opportunity?
• HMW 3 – make easier the project selection for students based on what they want to learn?

POV 2: Fabian is a community partner who needs a new innovative mindset because
traditional solutions from just faculty are not working anymore
• HMW 1 – gather new ideas from students and turn them into solutions?
• HMW 2 – provide help to students in their projects?
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Ideation
Let’s get creative!
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Brainstorming 1
• HMW 1 – have a better communication between faculty and students about community projects?
1. Orientation course
2. Faculty approaching students in classes
3. Social media engagement strategy
4. Projects fair
5. Open door policy for students to know more about projects
• HMW 2 – engage first year students and involve them with faculty and community partners?
1. Introduce the idea of community from highschool
2. Public announcements
• HMW 3 – challenge the order of events (community partner -> faculty -> students)
1. Build a society where students approach directly community partners and follow guidelines provided by faculty
2. Expose more students to the community to receive feedback form current problems
3. Allocate faculty resources to search for new projects
4. Involve more public institutions to build a network of information
5. Create an institution able to provide communication between stakeholders
• HMW 4 – change the way community partners share their problems?
1. Create a tv or radio program where you can share community problems by calling or sending messages
2. Start a “pay it forward” program to create a chain of help
3. Schedule social events to gather the community and talk about possible projects
• HMW 5 – improve the understanding of faculty and students of community problems?
1. Schedule tours for students to see current projects and future projects
2. Make community learn how to make a well-prepared request
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Brainstorming 2
• HMW6 – motivate community partners to share their problems
1. Show past successful projects
2. Explain the process to request help, so it’s transparent and easy to understand
• HMW 7 – change the driver of motivation for students?
1. Instead of a mandatory class, funding rewards, scholarships, recognition.
2. Involve industries to motivate students like trainee programs or co-op for best projects
• HMW 8 – build a self advertising initiative?
1. In exchange of help, each benefited community partner share testimonials so other communities know about it.
• HMW 9 – engage more students?
1. Create competitions between faculties
2. Engage students from highschool
3. Build a community for graduated students as well
• HMW 10 – Attract students not willing to spend time in the university?
1. Motivate students by having 10 minutes guest lecturers talking about projects
2. Invite successful graduated students talk about the importance of university life
3. Create a project framework where you can help even from your house
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Brainstorming 3
• HMW 11 – Advertise community between students, faculty and partners as a learning opportunity?
1. To every proposed project present skills that will be learning
2. Before starting a project, build a tailored learning program for the student involving industry partners
3. Create valuable certifications used like tokens for co-op and trainee programs
• HMW 12 – Make easier the project selection for students based on what they want to learn?
1. Unify information in one public webpage
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Ideation Highlights
POV: Jay is a community partner who has a problem since many years because he doesn’t know how to request
help or doesn’t want people think he is not capable of solving it
1. Introduce the idea of community from highschool
2. Build a society where students approach directly community partners and follow guidelines provided by faculty
3. Create a tv or radio program where you can share community problems by calling or sending messages
4. Start a “pay it forward” program to create a chain of help
5. Schedule social events to gather the community and talk about possible projects
6. Create valuable certifications used like tokens for co-op and trainee programs
7. Unify information in one public webpage
HMW – Make
easier the project
selection for
students based on
what they want to
HMW - challenge learn?
HMW – change the the order of
way community events
partners share (community
their problems? partner -> faculty
-> students)
HMW Introduce
the idea of
community from
highschool?
HMW engage first
year students and
involve them with
faculty and
community
partners?
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“Reimagine the community partner

experience of asking for what they
need.”
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Storyboard
How can I share my thoughts
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Feedback
Learn and improve

Before showing the storyboard as always, we tried to

explain again the purpose of this interaction and asked to
be honest with their opinions. Overall, the storyboard
was well received, a few improvement opportunities
were found and challenges we may face implementing it
like people that does not listen to radio or people not able
to make a call. One idea suggested by Jay was including
help from the government to standardize the
communication between the community and the
students.
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Appendix
Here you can find my reflection and interview transcripts!
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Reflection
Interviews and Empathy Maps:
After my first project, my mindset when interviewing changed radically, I’m more interested in hearing stories and
feelings rather than just technical questions. For Jay interview and empathy map I asked if I could record the
interview (page 27). For the empathy map it is not confusing anymore classifying the information between think
and feel. Jay was very explicit, and his words matched his actions and feelings. Fabian was more technical
focused, I tried to change the direction of the interview, but it was so hard (page 31).
POVs:
I’m feeling so confident using empathy maps to create POVs, it is now so much easier since the foundation is
built better from the interview to notes taken. It really gives a holistic view of this complex system. And for sure
helped me with the HMWs and brainstorming.
Ideation:
Something I tried to do different here was not thinking about many steps ahead. Just the process I was doing at
the moment. It helped me not set boundaries or without wanting, changing the ideation direction. The
brainstorming (page 18) was more spontaneous and could take advantage of that when selecting the best ideas.
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Interview transcripts - Jay 1

Great, so just going to make a few questions and that's it. All right? So, yes, back then, in undergrad, you did mechatronics, right?
Mechatronics and management mechatronics. That was in 2014, right? Started 2014, graduated 2020, right into COVID. Directly into
COVID. Oh, man, that was rough. That was a rough time. I had a job lined up, and then the job got postponed indefinitely, so I had to find
another job during that time. So, yeah, it was tight. Oh, God. And your graduation was online? Postponed indefinitely as well. And then I
think they decided to do it kind of online. The year after, I didn't really show up. I did the iron ring ceremony online too, which is, like,
when you graduate as an engineer in Ontario. Yeah. The ring and the ceremony that you're supposed it's like the calling of an engineer. It's
like a culty thing. Almost the same thing. Yeah, you're supposed to hold the chain. Supposed to be like a whole dark experience. Okay. And
where did you live when you were starting? I lived in Burlington for the first couple of years, and then I lived with my then girlfriend, now
fiance in our student house here. Great. For the second two years. Yeah. Cool. How was your life back then? You were working as well?
Yeah, working a couple of jobs at the same time as while I was in school, I was doing I know I worked too much. I liked working, but when I
started working, I didn't want to ever stop working because I liked getting an income too much, I guess. Okay. I couldn't give that up. Just
being in the negative is hard. So I guess in university, in the summers, I would work, like, full time, and while school was going on, I'd work
part time up to, like, 30 hours a week. I'd work at a restaurant, and I'd work in a manufacturing facility. Cool. Nice. That's nice to have the
experience before graduating. Yeah, it helped out a lot, I think. I think it was a key in getting my current job because they really look for
that type of previous experience in any kind of manufacturing. Oh, interesting.
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Interview transcripts - Jay 2

And do you find your life different than before? compared to being a student or compared to being, like, during COVID or something like
that? No, student life. Oh, yeah, definitely. 100% student life was rough. I can set boundaries now between work and school and different
situations, and at that time, I didn't feel like I could do that, I guess. So everything was stressful, and everything was piling on top of itself,
and responsibilities were, like, all mixed but now, after, we're just a lot more structured, I guess, or you can kind of force that structure.
Maybe you can force organize your time. Yeah, you can organize it. And there are certain limitations. Perfect, the purpose of this interview
is to imagine the experience of engineering students building a community amongst students, faculty, and community partners. Do you
know any community involving students, faculty, and community partners? Community involving students, faculty, and community
altogether? Yes. We had a project back in first year which was literally like the class project was getting someone from the community to
come in and give us what their symptoms were for a problem that they wanted solved. Okay. The client was like a person who was a stroke
victim, and he wasn't able to move the left half of his body, so he needed some tools to help him do that, to do certain tasks like put butter
on bread or tie shoelaces or change the gear on his car. So that was like kind of a directly community engaged project we did where we
kind of built devices for him. Everybody in the class formed groups to build him various devices that some of which he took home to help
him out. Cool. Interesting. I guess, working with our school faculty and students, etc. Like with Hamilton City, I guess. Yeah. I think that's
the way they want to direct. Okay. I don't know. Not sure. I think we have a mental health department that works with the city a lot. Our
psychology department has a lot of services that are offered to the city or community in general, or they have various outreach programs
to engage people.
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Interview transcripts - Jay 3

And if you were about to build one, like students, faculty, and community partners helping the society or doing other type of activities,
what would be your take on it? What would you do? Like, what would I act as or which position I would take? I guess I don't know. It
depends on a specific situation or what the goal of the partnership is if we're trying to complete a project. I mean, in most situations, I'd
probably want to be the community partner because it seems like that's more in control of a project or more the person setting the
guidelines for the project or the sponsorship, I suppose less direct, hard back breaking labor, so to speak. In Project executions, students
usually get the worst end of that one, I think. Yeah, all the and how would you organize that? What would be your approach on building
that kind of community? It's hard to get people engaged, I guess. It's hard to get started. I'm not sure how to get started. You have to
almost advertise to a degree to get people to come in or to give suggestions for situations or ways that the university could partnership
with the community. Okay. I don't know. I'm not sure how to directly get engaged with community. I know the university engages with
companies a lot to do research for them. But that's not exactly what we're talking about. Right. We're talking directly helping the
community. What would be a project that we've done? Does McMaster do? The environmental projects around Hoots Paradise? Like
environmental preservation, that kind of community engagement? Yeah. And Open Circle Community. That's about helping high school
students. Okay. Like dropout rate increasing, the dropout rate reducing, like, I guess helping them come to university or have sports
programs. I'm pretty sure university also does sports programs for Hamilton, so those are also, like, community engagement. I'm not sure if
that includes students, though. Okay, well, it's kind of difficult. Various programs, summer camps. Like, Master does, like, summer camp
type things, I think, for high school level students. But I'm not sure how the faculty ties into it, per se. You would advertise at some
degree. Yeah. There would need to be, like, public outreach. Right. Like, get people who want to be involved. Maybe you have to go to the
city council or something so that you can find people who are already kind of involved in the community. Sure. Or a community center.
Maybe that's a better place to advertise because you'd actually get people that are already kind of doing it or kind of into it. Okay. Yeah,
you're right.
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Interview transcripts - Jay 4

Get the target market. Right. I'm not sure how else you get people to engage. You need ideas and it has to, I guess, come from the
community because otherwise it's kind of like a project being put on people as opposed to something that they are asking for or need.
Okay. The community has to be the one bringing the project in, so to speak, or pushing for it and then approaching students. Students or
faculty members. Otherwise it might seem like it might be the case that the faculty member, we might not understand the situation as well
as the community would. Okay. Yeah, I guess that's the idea. Final two questions. And what do you think would be the benefit to the
community? Like, to the community or the students, or do you think the most important benefit overall? I don't know depends on the
type of projects they do. But there's an overall synergy. When everybody's working together, there's benefit to the community because
they get their problem solved. The students get a learning experience and the faculty kind of has an easier way to have students learn
because everyone's kind of getting their goals achieved that way if the faculty's objectives are getting people to learn better. I like that.
You're right. And the last one is, can you tell me experience you had when you were a student involving, like, community well, you told
me one already, but either students, faculty or community partners. Student faculty and community partners. Trying to think back to how
we would engage. There's a lot of student faculty relationships and I guess faculty community relationships, but I'm not sure if there's a lot
of student faculty and community combined relationships besides the one class that I had. So wait, you think there are already relations
between community partners and you said faculty and faculty, but not involving students? But I don't think it's involving students
necessarily. I think it's more like community related research might be involving the faculty, but I don't know if that involves students
directly or if it's just them taking the research from data that's provided by the city or provided by various institutions or not for profits,
community resources, and they conduct analysis or provide analysis. I'm not sure if that involves students in any way or not. Kind of
difficult. Yeah, I think it covers everything. Good. Hopefully my answers are of some value. Yeah, sure, no worries.
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Interview transcripts - Fabian 1

It. Yep. One, two yeah, it's working. Yeah. So this is about this is about the experience of a community with students, faculty, and
community partners. Okay. You know, community partners? like stakeholders, neighbors. Correct. So I'm going to ask you a few
questions about your background so I can get a holistic view of who you are. And then I'm going to ask you. Yeah. So what did you
study? Before I started, my bachelor was economical engineering. So have like, 50% economics, 50% mechanical engineering, and now I'm
doing my master's degree in quality engineering. So it's like a part group of mechanical engineering, focusing on all stuff like requirements,
engineering, FMEA, so everything that you need for quality product and a quality service according to it. That sounds interesting. It's really
interesting. I really like it. And when did you start your bachelor's? So my first bachelor, I started in 2015. I quitted it two years later and
started the economical engineering in 2017 and finished in 2022. You are like 25 years old? 26. Nice. And you live with your parents
when you were studying? After I finished, like, high school, so comparable high school and moved on to university. I moved out because
the university was out of town and commuting every day wasn't an option. And so was 18. I moved out to my first own apartment okay.
And say I end summer last year, living together with my girlfriend. Nice. That was in what's called the Province? And it's north. Rhine
westalia. Nice. And how was your life back then? Like, you were working? Yeah. So first of all, I'm a full time student, and so I'm working
in a company for kitchen machines and vacuum cleaners. Yeah, really sexy. So it's based in Pupata, like the city where I'm living. Really
known throughout Europe and really known for a high quality standard. So, for example, my parents also have a vacuum and cleaner in the
basement of them. It's 40 years old and still working, like first day. Wow. So really high standards for quality. So I started 2019 in the
product management and moved on to quality department for reliability and lifetime insurance. Oh, that's nice. That's really related to
you. What you yeah. So I started working there and so I think quality is really nice and fun to do. It part of my job is just throwing
everything to the ground and look if it's breaking or if it stay healthy. So you're getting paid to demolish everything and hopefully not
damage it, but it's really cool getting paid for stuff like that.
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Interview transcripts - Fabian 2

Still working. We're good. Yeah. Afterwards, I decided to do my master of Quality engineering. Nice. It's pretty nice. Okay, so let's go
straight into the main questions. So do you know any back in Germany and probably university, like, any community involving students,
faculty and community members, like the three of them? It's a bit hard. I'm not really into university life because everything is still like
online and on campus. Even Corona isn't the biggest thing anymore, or not that big. But there are some projects by the department where
a department decides to do like a project, a research project, and then involving it into a course plan and students working on it and having
a company as partner to do it. Or like, the community. For example, one project involves the fire department for specific use for chemical
issues. So there are a lot of research projects involving it. All right. There's also I think it's every two or three years, it's like an open garden
concept going through the cities. Okay, so, like, one time Berlin, next time Hamburg, and so on, so on and so on. And so in 2030, it's
coming to Bupatal. And so there are a lot of projects involving community government partners, university students, who set up a nice
concept for the whole project. That's nice. Who assembles that big team of students, faculty and community. It's by the local
government, like the city. The mayor is like the chairman of this. Okay, so they are in charge for the project, and so they ask everybody to
join the project to get the whole city involved into it. Nice. All right, so if you were about to create a community, like whole new one,
what would be your first steps? What would be your approach on creating one? I think I first would like to start with common rules, kind
of like a law, but behavioral. We want to have within the group, like being friendly and look for each other. Yeah, like grown through it, for
our community, how we want to live together. And afterwards just starting about mapping a city. So how do we want to set up all the
buildings? Where do we put on companies and factories and schools, libraries, and really looking for a nice infrastructure concept so that
we get within a lot of public transportation bicycling. Like the projects you would address? Yeah. So, like, first up was ground Rules, and
then how we want to set up the city.
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Interview transcripts - Fabian 3

And how would you engage students, faculty members and community partners together? First of all, like brainstorming system, so
everyone okay, let me then everyone writes it down. What is it first thought, what you would like to do in the project, what's important?
And so maybe thinking outside the box of different concepts without any barriers of thinking. And maybe there are some cool stuff you
could implement and do, like a new thing what not common by now. Nice. All right, it almost finished. What do you think would be, like,
the benefits for having that community for students, faculty and community members? so there's a big chance of having something new
so you could learn from the past. Like, city building in the past was really automotive driven, so cities are just built to have a nice
infrastructure for cars and a lot of parking lots, et cetera. You have a chance to get, like, playing ground and get a new, fresh start, so you
have a big chance to get a new concept involved in it. I'm asking more towards benefits for the people working for students. What would
be, like, the benefits of working in that? Working into the action group. Yeah. Okay. You can be part of a big thing, so you can be part of a
new community. You can be part of a big project. So it's like the team building aspect of getting into the group of people with a lot of ideas,
having the interchange of a lot of different cultural and economical and knowledge wise backgrounds altogether, and getting into super
brain in the community. Nice. And building up a big new knowledge base so students get a very valuable experience. And then faculty with
their infrastructure of setting up events, planning events, and getting people together so they could really be, like, a leader and the planner
of everything to set up for people around. That's an interesting point of view. And finally, do you have another experience working with
community partners while you were studying community partners? Probably for a company like this? Yes. First, when I started working,
it was not like studies related. I worked in a bakery shop and sell all the bread and all the sweets, something like that. And so I have to talk
to a lot of people throughout the day and dealing with a lot of difficult customers. It was, like, really valuable experience to having all these
problems and all this stuff. So it really helped building my own personality and standing up if there are some problems and still not holding
back, not going every time in a corner and cry, because it would be a lot of my day otherwise, that's depressing. Okay. Nice. Yeah, I think
that's it. Thank you so much.
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