The school year is back in full swing, and so is QUEST. But what were our fabulous QUESTees up to this summer? I had the pleasure of speaking with three QUESTees with amazing summers. Let’s see what they were up to! Continue reading
Mentoring Cohort 43 through QUEST Camp
Guest Feature by Valeria Salas-Dietz (Cohort 39)
On August 22nd, Cohort 43 students traveled to the Sandy Hill Camp & Retreat Center for a two-day excursion that defined and launched the beginning of their QUEST journeys. I was lucky enough to be able to accompany the fresh QUESTees as one of their mentors this semester.
Cohort 43 at QUEST Camp!
Connecting the QUEST Community through Alumni-Led Summer Happy Hours
Ever since I officially “graduated” from QUEST after completing my capstone in spring of my junior year at UMD, I had felt a bit disconnected from the program I love so much. Suddenly, I had become an alumni of the program! I had less opportunities to connect with my fellow program members than I had in the past. In fact, it felt like I was closing one of my favorite chapters of my college experience. With these feelings looming over me, I was ecstatic when I found out about the QUEST Summer Happy Hour being hosted in D.C. this past July.
QUEST Community in Washington, D.C.
New School Year Brings Exciting Changes to QUEST
As the leaves begin to fall and students adjust to a new semester, there is no doubt that change is ongoing in our lives. QUEST certainly is no exception!
After speaking with Emily Marks, QUEST’s program coordinator, I learned about some very exciting changes students can expect to see throughout QUEST courses and social activities this year. “Our faculty and staff actually met for three full-day retreats over the summer to discuss feedback we’d received from students and faculty and brainstorm improvements. This feedback was about specific courses as well as the overall planning of QUEST events,” said Marks.
To start, Marks mentioned the biggest change will be in the order of QUEST courses, beginning for Cohort 43. BMGT438A/ENES489A (Applied Quantitative Analysis) and BMGT/ENES 390H (Designing Innovative Systems) will now switch in the sequence of QUEST courses. Rather than taking 438A/489A after 190H, students in Cohorts 43 and beyond will now take 390H and then 438A in the proceeding semester.
“We decided to swap this order as some aspects of 190H will be moving into 390H. 390H will now focus on both process improvement and systems thinking whereas in the past, 390H focused solely on systems thinking.” This change also will allow students in 190H, our introductory course, to focus on their product redesign project for the entire semester, meaning more time to flesh out their product idea and develop prototypes.
She also mentioned improvements to the QUEST data course, 438A/489A. “Although this course will still contain a lot of the same material, we have slightly adjusted the curriculum to be more focused on data visualization and analysis rather than learning many technical skills like Python.” In the past, some students breezed through the material, while others found it extremely new and challenging. This curriculum update strives to reduce this gap and create an environment where all students feel equally knowledgeable and motivated to learn, regardless of major and prior experience. The data course will also heavily emphasize understanding the problem and the client before jumping into analyzing the data and developing solutions.
Last but not least, Marks spoke about some upcoming changes with QUEST events.
“We definitely want to keep most of our signature events such as our formal, the ice cream social, and the end of the year picnic. However, we are thinking of having the QUEST student organizations collaborate with each other more to increase attendance at each event. Therefore, the student leaders have been working on a calendar for all our events so that students are informed as far in advance as possible and are able to make it to the events.”
QUEST students are certainly busy and have a variety of activities to balance along with school work, so it is no surprise that attending events may sometimes be a struggle! Marks concluded with some words of excitement for the new school year. “We’re really hoping these new changes can help improve both the student and faculty’s experience this year. We are so excited to see what this new year will bring and hope to see many students soon at upcoming events planned with QUEST social and other QUEST orgs!”
The Quality Guild met this summer to discuss improvements to QUEST
Alumni Spotlight: Liam Mercer
Mercer (left) and his Capstone team.
Two weeks ago, Homes for America, a non-profit affordable housing developer based in Annapolis, MD, closed its first project since Liam Mercer, a QUEST alumnus from Cohort 28, started a year ago. The project is set to work on rehabilitating a 154-unit community in Baltimore that has historically served the deaf and hearing-impaired population. I got the amazing chance to reach out to Mercer to talk further about his time at UMD and QUEST, as well as his life post-grad.
During his time as an undergrad at Maryland, he studied Operations Management & Business Analytics and Finance. He also completed a minor in Sustainability Studies and Real Estate Development. With so many diverse interests, Mercer sought out QUEST to join an interdisciplinary program that “was designed for all students to play valuable roles on each project team.” Mercer was also part of many different extracurricular organizations, such as Phi Chi Theta Business Fraternity, The Maryland Pride, Ballroom at Maryland, and Survivor Maryland.
Mercer dancing with Ballroom at Maryland.
Many of the skills gained through QUEST have been useful for his professional career. After graduating in 2019, Mercer worked on a 2020 presidential primary campaign, where his team was “always looking for creative ways to be as efficient as possible with our limited resources,” something that he learned during his time in QUEST.
At his next job as an analyst at RCLCO Real Estate Consulting in Bethesda, MD, Mercer was able to combine his business and real-estate development background to provide economic consulting services for real estate owners, developers, and investors. He recalled that the QUEST Capstone prepared him well for the client relations part of the job. “I liked the opportunities to use data creatively in an analysis,” he shared.
Mercer and his current boss submitting the LIHTC Application.
Currently, Mercer works at Homes for America as a development analyst. His work is focused on developing housing projects that are income-restricted and affordable within the Mid-Atlantic region. Excitingly, Mercer has led Homes for America’s application for competitive low-income housing tax credits, which would help to finance their developments in the state of Delaware. Mercer says that it was part of the company’s “major organizational goal to diversify where we work, and I was proud to have a leading role in the application.”
Being able to work with combating the affordable housing shortage within our country is an area that Mercer had previously worked on as an intern during his undergraduate years that he was excited to come back to. Looking back on his time at UMD, Mercer says that “one of the benefits of a large university is that there is an organization of like-minded people for almost everything.” Congrats to Liam Mercer on all of his success so far!
Farewell from the Editor in Chief and Webmaster
As this term comes to an end, we wanted to share some of our favorite QUESTPress memories and how this community has changed our lives for the better.
A QUEST Senior Send-Off
Summer break is fast approaching, and that means diplomas are arriving! Students in Cohort 37 & Cohort 38 are enjoying these warm days and celebrating the end of the semester with senior pictures and DC brunches. I was able to connect with a few graduating QUESTees about how QUEST influenced their college careers.
The QUEST Continues: Celebrating Cohort 39’s Remarkable Journey
This month, I had the honor of interviewing some of our incredible students in Cohort 39! Dressed in their finest attire and equipped with their brightest smiles at the QUEST Conference on May 6th, Cohort 39 did an incredible job on their capstone projects.
Cohort 39 at the QUEST Conference.
QSocial Wrapped
As the school year drew to a close, QUEST Social planned a variety of events to celebrate the hard work of all the QUEST students and welcome the new students in Cohort 43 and Cohort 44 who were recently accepted to the program in March.
A QUEST Social member, Anna Fulton, gave her own take on how these events panned out, ranging from everything from the spring formal to the senior send-off and end-of-the-year picnic. First off, Fulton discussed the formal, which was on Thursday, April 18th.
Navigating the Product Landscape with Alumna Jacqueline Deprey
I had the opportunity to speak with QUEST alumna Jacqueline Deprey, who graduated in 2020 and now works for Dropbox. Deprey is a proud member of QUEST Cohort 30 and says she is still close to her BMGT/ENES490H team – Sign Sealed Delivered (SSD).
Sign Sealed Delivered (SSD) getting boba together.
Currently, Deprey is working as a Senior Product Manager at Dropbox, where she originally worked as a software engineering intern. When asked how she moved up to product manager, she mentioned how she was able to ask questions organically regarding product decisions (from QUEST!). This helped with her transition as it showed her interest in the product.
As a product manager, she is involved in the testing of new products. Dropbox uniquely tests products in-house. When they target a smaller firm (for example, a finance firm), they test the product with their own finance department. This allows them to creatively test their product in a parallel market to work out any issues. This way, they can analyze how products are used internally for accurate metrics to understand how it will work on the outside.
SSD team jumping for joy in Van Munching Hall!
Dropbox uses OKRs, objectives and key results, to measure their performance. This is really helpful when testing new products, as this process can determine how the product benefits the specific department in meeting its goals.
Currently, Deprey is working on a project called Dropbox Dash. This is similar to a search bar, except it will go through all the communications that you use to find the information you need. For example, if Deprey was looking for meeting notes for the month of February and she uses Outlook and Dropbox as her main sources of storage, this feature would allow her to search through all those drives. This project will be launched later in the year.
As a senior product manager, Deprey faces some challenges in her day-to-day life. All stakeholders involved in product development have different opinions and priorities. Product managers at Dropbox handle this dilemma by testing out their products in-house first. If dilemmas occur on the inside, they will only be magnified outside the company.
She also mentioned that transparency is important when it comes to juggling priorities. If her team’s goals are different than the goals of another group of stakeholders, they are still likely mutually beneficial. This realization increases cooperation between stakeholders for a brilliant final outcome.
SSD working on BMGT/ENES490H together in Van Munching Hall.
When asked about her experience in QUEST, Deprey mentioned that she learned how to think critically. Instead of just worrying about the problems on top, she learned to dig deeper into the underlying issue. This is something that has given her an edge and allowed her to become a Product Manager so fast!
Some advice that she has for current QUESTees is to take it all in. QUEST is a special place with fun and driven people. She also advises current students to be like a sponge in this program, since you can learn a lot from others and use it to better yourself. Finally, your peers in QUEST are like mirrors, they reflect your best qualities back to yourself.
So QUESTees, be like Jacqueline Deprey and find your mirrors in QUEST and soak everything in!