Preliminary Exploration Research Plan

Overview: To uncover insights about education and opportunity between different classes and races in the United States.

Goals:

1. Systematically map out education pipelines for people of different backgrounds to better understand how prestige and privilege affect access to opportunities
2. Better understand how the student loan industry is structured and to whose benefit
3. Try to define what personal fulfillment means (Is it attainable?)
4. Strategize alternatives to immediately going to college
5. Narrow the scope for thesis

Methodology:

1. Interview people of different backgrounds to learn about the challenges, successes and failures they have faced throughout their lives to better understand the nuances to opportunity they have achieved or been denied.
2. Read academic papers on the student loan industry and the student debt epidemic
3. Design and iterate alternative pathways to bypass the traditional pipelines to opportunity and success

Timeframe:

• Goal 1 achieved by Oct 4, but ongoing throughout thesis development
• Goal 2 achieved by Oct 11
• Goal 3 will remain open ended as I continue to uncover new insights that will shape this definition
• Goal 4 achieved by Oct 16
• Goal 5 achieved by Oct 16

Technology: Personal laptop or smartphone to record audio/visual interviews; Evernote to organize all notes, readings, etc

Questions:

• How many people do I need to interview per week to gather sufficient data?
• Where best can I find unfamiliar people to interview? Colleges? Which ones?
• Is this robust research? Are there areas that can be stronger?