By: Jacob King (Q27)
QUESTDev is a brand new student committee, spearheading the effort to create the program’s first internal website. The team, led by alumnus Danny Laurence (Q19) and current student Genny Allen (Q23), is comprised of students from all cohorts who specialize in website and technological development.
QUESTDev aims to develop and maintain the technological entities of QUEST in order to enhance the QUEST experience and streamline its recruiting and marketing processes. This venture began three years ago when Danny Laurence began the process of creating a webpage just for QUEST students. It has since grown in scope to the point where it involves current students, alumni, faculty and staff.
I had the chance to interview the lead advisor on the project, Kylie King, QUEST’s Program Director. Kylie is very passionate about the potential for the site. At this point, QUESTDev is focusing on three projects: 1) a comprehensive resume book for all current and past students to be continuously updated for corporate partners, 2) a new alumni directory that is easily searchable, and 3) a calendar of all QUEST events. In the future, QUESTDev also hopes to create a working compilation of all QUEST 190H, 390H and 490H projects and presentations.
Kylie put a very strong emphasis on the priority of the resume book. This resume book has more applications than just a contact sheet; it has the ability to connect corporate partners to alumni and current students. Additionally, when current students need academic or career advice, they can search in the resume book to find a fellow student or alumni to connect with. Finally, it can be a way for alumni and corporate partners to connect current students with internship and job opportunities simply by filtering through resume criteria. This resume book will further the feeling of community that QUEST already gives to its members, and by prioritizing it now, QUESTDev can streamline the process for future teams so that they simply have to maintain the current system.
The goal of a future QUESTDev project is for QUEST students to show off the projects that were major milestones in their QUEST curriculum. These milestones are some of the most memorable moments of a student’s QUEST career, and the faculty would like to be able to archive these for future reference.
Another intrinsic goal that Kylie stressed was the idea that this website will be a place for QUEST to keep evolving and diversifying itself. The program began as a quality management program funded by IBM in the 1990’s and has pivoted many times over the years to improve its courses and activities based on student feedback. In the spirit of continuous improvement, the program has added courses in which students travel to Silicon Valley and Asia and has sponsored projects in which students work with students and firms in Europe and Australia. It has also moved from simply connecting business and engineering students to admitting other students ranging from computer science to biochemistry to the neurosciences.
The hope is that this website is not just a page for storing information, but instead a medium for the QUEST community to further its influence. From marketing and recruiting of QUEST prospective students to the recruiting of QUEST students for full-time careers, the sense of connectivity and professionalism is meant to emanate from this website. Through QUESTDev and their tireless efforts, the QUEST community will be able to better connect, brand and display their journey through this prestigious Honors program and encourage the next wave of QUEST students to do the same.