What is next language to study?

Due to the recent research done through the 79 Kalamazoo College students, Italian, Arabic and Russian have the largest support to study at the Kalamazoo College. Is your new language choice on the list? And what is your answer with questions below?

The survey has several questions like:
* Are Kalamazoo College students generally satisfied with the languages departments at the college?
* How useful do students find the language requirement for their education/future goals?
* Would an increase/change in language courses offered increase satisfaction with the language department/Kalamazoo College in general?
*… and so on

The study shows that the language requirement has the middle impact to make the students to choose Kalamazoo College. Which is little bit lower than students’ satisfaction with the language department. Congratulations to the language department professors and TAs, you guys have done a great job.

In this survey, the students choices about language almost equal to what are offered at the language department. Most students want to learn 1 to 2 languages with the 3 units’ classes to graduate at “K.” Besides most students want to have lectures between 3 and 4 times per week with labs between 1 and 2 times per week. All these choices are almost as equal as what the school is offered at this moment, which are what students have taken so far.

Others interesting results are found as Kalamazoo College students want to learn between 3 and 4 languages in their entire lives. Do you reach your scale with 3 languages so far? Or do you have any other language to learn? As mentioned, Italian, Arabic and Russian are the languages that students more likely to learn besides the choices within the language department, still there are other 16 languages that students are eager to learn through the survey.

However, even though most students have the high desire to learn the language that is not offered so far, only 21% of students (among 79 students) are willing to pay for private language lessons just as what the music department does. For the students who are willing to pay for the private language lessons, the money to pay is quite near to the group applied music lessons. Are you one of those people who are willing to pay for the private lessons? Or there is no extra spending for the language study.

Study Abroad Spending

Keeping track of spending while at school is hard enough so it should come as no surprise that students preparing for study abroad have a particular need of viable information about spending abroad. The CIP tells students preparing for abroad to expect to spend between $1,500 and $3,000 depending on program length. Despite this, many students report spending far more than this. We sent out a survey to 261 juniors who participated in the 2010-2011 study abroad programs asking numerous questions about their spending habits while abroad. From our 91 respondents, we were able to draw interesting and important information from the responses. Student spending abroad does appear to higher than Kalamazoo College’s proposed range of spending with a significant relation between whether a student was studying in a first world or third world country and how much he/she spent on their most expensive vacation. Overall, this survey allowed us to draw information that gives students more accurate expectations as to how much study abroad costs, where the majority of money spent goes towards, and how to be prepared financially depending on their host country.

Summary for a general audience - Jake Olds

Fast Food in America has many connotations with the lifestyles of those who frequently eat it. People assume that those who eat fast food are overweight, of a lower class, or do not care much about the health and nutrition of their food. In a study conducted of the small community of Kalamazoo College, researchers Brandon Merritt and Jake Olds came across some interesting findings.

After surveying 34 randomly selected students of the approximate population of 1500, a few interesting correlations were found. As the participants’ incomes increased, so did the frequency of fast food meals eaten. Surprisingly, as the income increased, the amount spent per fast food meal decreased. The more that a person reported to care about the health and nutrition content of their food, the person had less of a chance of being overweight. Many frequent fast food eaters were actually in relatively good shape, particularly if they reported that the health content of their food was important to them. One interesting finding was that 25% of all respondents listed McDonald’s as their favorite fast food restaurant, with Wendy’s being the second most popular at 15.6%.

Jake Olds

Reflection

When high school students are searching for colleges to attend in the future, they need to do more than just take a campus tour with a current student that only tells you what subjects are taught in each building. Students need research or information to look at that may sway them one way or another when it comes time to choose the college for them. In particular, this information needs to come directly from the students that actually study there, not the biased opinions from administrators and professors. The study that I administered aimed to get an idea of the overall satisfaction of life here at Kalamazoo College.

            Kalamazoo College is a school that anyone can call home; whatever a person’s needs and likes are, K can adhere to those things. My study’s results prove this very statement. In regards to academics, my results showed that students are extremely satisfied with their education. They love their professors, classrooms are very modern, and the student to faculty ratio makes it easy to learn because of the interaction with teachers. Extracurricular activities are also a major plus at Kalamazoo College. There are a large amount of student organizations across campus that anyone can join as well as events that the college puts on for the students. These events and organizations bring students from all walks of life together for a good time and to also provide ways for students to meet one another. Athletics are another major aspect of Kalamazoo College.  My results showed that their is much promise for the future of sports here at K. In the fall of 2012, there will be brand new athletic fields available for the football, baseball, soccer, and softball teams, which many students are very excited about. These fields make the future of K athletics very bright!

            All in all, the overall satisfaction of Kalamazoo College showed to be very good. The students that attend K are happy to be here and excited to learn in an environment that is comfortable for all people. This survey showed that K is a very unique place that many people are taking advantage of, and hopefully many more to come will do the same!

How boring is "K" College?

Do Kalamazoo College students really have a handle on events happening on campus? Student researchers Ian Powell and Mayra Montero say no. Recent findings of their survey for their business class report that out of the hundred people they interviewed, people said that the average amount of events that occurred on campus per day was nine. However, the student researchers looked at the calendar of events on the campus website as well as the "Hornet Hive" that students and found that the average event per day of May was four and five events respectfully. Of course, there are different events that are advertised on these two parts of the "K" online network. "I was surprised" said researcher Ian Powell, "people my classes never seem to know what is going on campus but it makes sense that they have a distorted belief about how many campus events take place per day". There was also data to show that there was a big difference between the averages that first-years and seniors gave. Seniors thought that there were 13 events average per day while first-years thought that there were seven events. per day. This may be due to seniors that live off-campus that don't see campus advertisements everyday. Something to consider is that for events listed on the Hornet Hive, student leaders have to add their events to the calendar. These leaders may think that the Hornet Hive is ineffective, and do not list their events. On the calendar of events page on the campus website, there is no way to add an event for an individual club, so the number of actual events is probably much higher than the average recorded here. With this knowledge, maybe the Student Commission will try to change the way they advertise, so that more people have a better idea of how many events take place per day.

Kalamazoo College Advertisement Efficiency

Every quarter, Kalamazoo College Student Activities Committee (SAC) and organizations work hard to attract students to events and activities using different methods of advertisements. However, the methods used by SAC and organizations seem not to be very effective because many students do not know what is happening on campus. To answer questions about low attendance rates and which method of advertising is more effective we conducted a research project in which we studied Kalamazoo College’s student population’s preferences and opinions about advertising for campus events.

The research project was conducted using 100 students of Kalamazoo College and we found a few interesting findings to improve awareness about and attendance for campus events in the student population. We discovered that 54% of the students at K find information about campus events through Facebook, 38% through friends and 6 % through email and 3% through Hornet Hive. Also, we tested the effectiveness of these four places for advertisements using a scale of 1 (Very Ineffective) – 5 (Very Effective). We found that the mean effectiveness for Facebook was between 3.24 and 3.68, and for friends was a little lower, 3.17 to 3.57. On the other hand, the mean for campus email was 2.68 to 3.09 and Hornet Hive was between 1.89 and 2.21 making these two options ineffective for campus advertising.

Another interesting finding was related to students’ availability to attend campus events. First we asked our sample to indicate how many events they thought happen each a week during the month of May. Our sample said that the average was 9 but we found that 23 was the closest average estimate. Then we asked our sample to indicate if they felt too busy to attend campus events and if they have too much work. 44% agreed that they were too busy to attend the events and 30% said they have too much work.

Kalamazoo Student's Textbook Spending

With textbook prices increasing at twice the rate of inflation according to a government study by the Accountability Office the cost for students is becoming a rising issue. For Kalamazoo College students the average spending on textbooks per quarter is 210 or 630 dollars every year. This is drastically less than the 2010-2011 national average of $1,137 estimated by the CollegeBoard. The reason for these lower costs may be due to a number of spending habits. Less than half of Kalamazoo students surveyed only bought their books from the campus bookstore while 56% opted to purchase at least some of their textbooks, if not all, from an online source. Of those who only used the campus store their average spending was $245 but students buying some of their books online spent an average of $208, a slight saving which suggests that students who shop around or use an online source tend to get a better deal. The most common online source for Kalamazoo students was Amazon with 91% of online shoppers using this website to buy their books. Another option to cut back on spending is not buying a new book. Twice as many textbooks reportedly bought for spring quarter were purchased in used condition and 37% of students chose to rent some of their textbooks this year, an increasing trend nationwide. 88% of students sometimes choose to sell back their textbooks when they are done with them. Of these the majority chose to sellback to the campus bookstore although no students surveyed were completely satisfied with the sellback prices offered at the campus bookstore. The average sellback price for last quarter’s textbooks per student was $43 (about 20% of their original cost). These findings show the on average students at Kalamazoo may spend less than those at other schools because they exercise other resources leading to smart spending habits.