The hungry scholar

hello!

By : Adya Saigal, Arushi Mehra, Eva Chan and Sarah Lee

1.

Our Method

We used interviews and surveys consisting of 14-16 questions. Our interviews were structured, in order for us to get clear and informative insights from our interviewees.

Our team reached out to 16 individuals and received a total number of 15 responses. Our respondents are all students pursuing their bachelor’s degree with one exception of a recent graduate. Most

respondents study at Parsons School of Design, which is located in Manhattan, but there are others who study/studied at various locations in or near New York City (e.g. School of Visual Arts, Boston

University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). A majority of our respondents (60%) live in the city.

2.

A high level analysis of our findings

Below are the findings of our online survey that was distributed through emails and social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

An overwhelming amount of respondents (15 out of 16) are NOT subscribed to a meal plan. It is worth noting that only one of our respondents is subscribed to a campus meal plan, and said meal plan costs

$2,000 per semester. It gives us insights into why so many students choose not to subscribe to a campus meal plan, the obscene amount of money students are paying for on-campus dining, which is

more often than not set at a high price while providing food of subpar quality. Another factor contributing to the unfavorability of meal plans is the lack of food variety and the operating timings of

university affiliates cafeterias.

We also asked respondents to list restaurants or delis they know of that provide student discounts and from that information we generated a list of potential business partners for our app: UWay, Merci

Market, el dorado, Kiin Thai (only for NYU students), Dukes Corner, Hu Kitchen, Tea Party, Anna’s Taqueria, Shinkansen, Garden of Eden, Trader Joe’s, Blossom Du Jour, Fresh & Co.

However, the rate of which students actually use such offers is much lower than we anticipated. This shows us that we need to consider factors that would lure/attract/encourage students to utilize

discounts to budget sensibly: This might also prompt further investigation as to why students don’t use discounts more often: is it because they would rather cook at home? Are some of them affluent enough

to not live on a budget? If yes, how large is that population? Or are they just not interested in saving money? Is there a lack of awareness about such discounts? Why not? ...etc.

OUR REFLECTIONS

3.

When discussing our project, our first assumption is that most college students eat out at least once a day, this assumption was satisfied by our survey and is key to going further with our idea. Our second assumption was that college students spend around $10 or less on meals, however, according to our research we found that only 20% of our participants spend between $5 and $10 while the rest spend

over $10, and no one from our survey spends below $5. Obviously we have to take into account that we have gotten responses from a very small amount of people in comparison to the thousands of college students in Manhattan, however, this is our starting step for confirming/denying our assumptions and

therefore moving forward in terms of what we will offer students and what types of places we will suggest to them based on a median budget.

We did not realize that when asking students to list which locations have a student discount, that a majority of them would say Uway (the deli across the road from the Parson’s University Center), this

prompted us to talking about how general awareness of places with offers for students is in the close proximity of campus and therefore we should focus on shedding light on new places around campus

(apart from Uway) that are alternatives. When asked which types of discounts they prefer, we realized that nearly half of the participants preferred promotional bundles rather than stamp cards and meal plans, prompting us to think about ways in which we could use this information, such as encouraging

certain restaurants to offer a free drink with meals to students. Finally, when asking whether they would eat out more if there was a discount program, 93% of participants said yes, we researched

restaurants around our school and realized most do contain some sort of promotion/student discount yet students keep going back to Uway because they are not aware of other options. Overall, this survey

helped us clarify our previous assumptions/research enabling us to move forward with our strategies and approach to students and dining establishments.

Big concept

“to help college students in the NY metro areas to easily find delicious food options that are within their budget: saving time, money; discovering new and exciting

food spots and eating well, all at the swipe of your finger.”

Our process is easy

VARIETY

AFFORDABILITY

SATISFIED CUSTOMER

EXPERIENCE

thanks!