NICOLE DEE

Nicole Dee, a designer from Dallas, Texas, loves all things graphic design, but especially branding and identity design. 99% of the time, you can find her doing design work at a local coffee shop or driving around to find the perfect spot to watch the sunset. Her degree project is focused on developing a solution to make the college major decision easier for students. She has felt such a strong sense of belonging to the graphic design program, and she wants other students to feel the same with whatever area of study they choose!

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“FRANKLY, CHOOSING A COLLEGE MAJOR IS HARD.” 

One of the biggest decisions many students face is choosing where to go to college. Once they finally send in their college applications, receive their acceptance letters, and settle on the perfect fit, they can finally breathe; however, the stressful decision-making process doesn’t end there. Once they’ve determined their destination, their next quest is to discover what to study for the next four plus years, which could potentially impact what they choose to do with the rest of their lives. What feels like a monumental, sometimes inconceivable choice adds loads of pressure and stress to students. Without having been exposed to the myriad professions and careers that exist, many students make uninformed decisions regarding their college major that set them off track. This life-changing decision inspired Nicole Dee’s focus for her senior degree project. 

Facing indecision with her own college major decision as a high school student and later changing her major a few times in college, Nicole realized that this is a significant issue faced by many students. Currently, there isn’t a consolidated solution that tackles this problem. She immediately dove into research regarding decision-making styles, influential factors like interests and personality traits, collaboration, and the negative impact of high stress levels. 

With this research in mind, she then conducted surveys, interviews, and focus groups with high school and college students, counselors, and working experts in multiple fields in order to gain a wide variety of perspectives to develop a solution. She discovered a few key themes within her research: collaboration in the decision-making process is extremely important for students, lack of knowledge about potential career paths is a substantial issue, real-world experience is strongly desired by students, and self-exploration should play a big part in determining the right fit. 

Keeping these discoveries in mind, Nicole developed an app called Pathfinder. Pathfinder makes the college major decision easier by allowing students to deeply explore career options, discover which major would best fit them based on their interests and goals, and connect with experts within their local area. From there, they can request a shadowing appointment or directly message experts for more information about their fields in order to gain more personalized experience. 

With greater access to necessary information and the wisdom provided by local experts, Nicole believes that students will be able to confidently tackle the decision regarding their college major with the help of Pathfinder.