Grad students Poorajith Sasikumar Thenmozhi and Anurag Bansal needed a problem to solve. As founding members of ColibreClub, a student-led organization at Worcester Polytechnic Institute Business School, they were gearing up for their inaugural student hackathon and were in search of a real-world problem statement their competitors could sink their teeth into.
That’s when the Business School’s Assistant Dean Sandhya Balasubramanian stepped in. Sandhya a friend and colleague of ours reached out to the Intead team to see if we had ideas. Our answer: Always!
Trend watchers and challenge seekers, we didn’t take long to share one of the many higher ed research topics that interest us in the area of student success. Prior to and through the Covid-19 Pandemic, we watched student mental health concerns grow dramatically. We also noted that issue rising on the list of major worries being carried by university presidents and provosts.
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Data underlines the urgency. Sallie Mae’s How America Completes College 2024 report on undergraduate barriers to graduation reveals 42% of at-risk students who consider leaving school do so for reasons involving motivation and mental health issues. When asked what resources would have helped them stay, 30% said more mental health resources/support.
In our work with academic institutions, we’ve seen such a range of responses on campuses that make services available to students in different ways and importantly, help students become aware of and access those services in different ways as well.
Assurances to help individuals who are struggling academically/mentally/physically are part and parcel of student communications. You know as well as we do that prospective students and their parents care a lot about this topic so including it in your recruitment materials has become routine. For some families, wanting to know about academics and sports top the list as they evaluate an institution. At some point, a growing number of parents worry about whether their kid, as mature as they are, is going to have the support services they need to succeed, including mental health services.
So, the Intead team has been thinking a lot about actual accessibility, or lack thereof, of these types of programs. Some universities promote the services and access far more than others. Are they living up to their promises to students? Are there innovative ways to improve both student communication and accessibility? The WPI student hackathon tackled these questions with gusto!
Read on...
Consider the broader trends on campuses across the US. In Overcoming Student Loneliness, a report by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Robin Holmes-Sullivan, president of Lewis & Clark College and clinical psychologist, said that today’s students, while generally optimistic, appear less resilient than in previous generations. She attributed this partly to the pandemic and the constant worrisome notifications of all kinds, leading to feelings of heightened uncertainty.
The Chronicle report highlighted other sobering statistics: 44% of young adults participating in a 2023 study from Harvard reported a sense of not mattering to others, 34% reported loneliness.
In a separate more recent Active Minds survey of approximately 1,100 US university students, 65% reported feeling lonely, 52% reported being concerned about their friends’ mental health, and 29% reported severe psychological distress.
Even if these specific stats are new to you, the sentiment is surely familiar.
And yet, anecdotally, we hear all too often from students who tell us that finding these services isn’t intuitive. Case in point: When last spring an undergrad friend of ours sought help for mental health, her email sent to the counseling office went unanswered. That’s just one case, and not overly dramatic, but it highlights a very real breakdown between words of assurance and help delivered. We’ve unfortunately all seen much worse cases where a student’s need for help did not come in time.
Some of the failures have to do with cultural barriers like when international students don’t understand the US healthcare system. Or, the times students simply don’t think to ask for the help they need. Others likely don’t have the language needed to connect the dots between their untamed schedule and the executive function coaching on offer.
An audit Intead conducted of 300+ US universities showed that there is no standardized way for students to seek the help they need across institutions (not surprising). And, not every institution offers services. Those that do frequently bury their student services well into their websites.
So, we took this important query to the WPI hackers: Is there a way universities could make mental health services more available to their students?
WPI’s ColibreClub hackathon brought together five teams each with five students. Each team tasked with finding a way to address the mental health challenges students face while creating a business case for their solutions. With just 24 hours on the clock, the students dove into the work at hand.
The Hackathon Checklist:
- Research the depth of the problem.
- Harness your technical expertise to help tackle the problem.
- Determining if your solution can have a real-world impact on the problem.
- Ensure your idea aligns with industry standards.
- Approach your solution with innovation and adaptability.
- Present your solution with business acumen, vision, and bottom-line accountability.
Most teams grappled with limited information – HIPPA regulations limit health-related information and the hackathon 24-hour clock did not allow for much time for that level of research. One shrewd group did uncover a trove of real-world student mental health data and connected with the professionals behind the dataset to get permission to use it as part of the app they want to develop. So resourceful!
The WPI student club, composed of coders and aspiring tech entrepreneurs, pushed themselves to merge technical expertise with business acumen. A task their professors were keen to see come to life and a key differentiator that WPI touts to prospective students.
The event was dynamic and pizza-driven, culminating in three hours of presentations where the students showcased their ideas to their peers and a panel of judges, engaging in lively exchanges that further refined their concepts and identified opportunities for improvement.
The Intead team (Ben and Iliana) were honored to be part of ColibreClub’s inaugural hackathon alongside fellow judges Raha Moraffah, WPI Assistant Professor; Ardian Preci, WPI director of innovation and entrepreneurship programs; Charles Morse, WPI Dean of Student Wellness; and Sandhya Balasubramanian.
WPI Business School’s mission to develop adaptive leaders at the intersection of STEM and business was on full display that day. Under the guidance of Dr. Balasubramanian and a dedicated WPI faculty, the students were the winners, demonstrating not only technical creativity but also a deep sense of collaboration and community.
As we so often are when we work with students, we left this event inspired and hopeful for a bright future.
And here, the winning teams:
- 1st Place went to Team D3, Sai Krishna Chaitanya Srikonda, Ishayu Das, Klaidi Meça, with their Customizable AI Companion
- 2nd Place went to Team Peer Sync, Preshit Gujar, Harsh Deshpande, Aditya Nene, with their Music-Based Mood Prediction
- 3rd Place went to Team Bug Smasherz, Labhesh Mahajan, Rahul Chhatbar, Amrut Savadatti, Vinayak Revankar, Prasham Soni, with their Data-Driven Student Well-Being System
Congrats to all!
And if you are interested in finding challenging, real-world topics for your students to take on as they learn how to operate in an evolving global environment, be in touch. Our team is full of ideas, always.
