Compass Year

Overview

Compass Year is a year-long guided journey designed to provide high school graduates with fresh perspectives and diverse, career-focused experiences. It helps them explore their aspirations and achieve meaningful success in higher education.

Team

Teddy Ankeny, David Lopez, Harshilkumar Patel, Schuyler Sanderson, Qingru(Starry) Wang

Process

1. Cliche and Hypotheses Exploration

We first brainstormed with the industry we wanted to explore and thought about some of the cliches. We decided to go deep into the Education field and followed some cliches we came up with:

Interaction

Attend undergrad immediately after high school.

Entrance exam > Apply > Get accepted > Campus tour.

Students engage in extracurricular activities (clubs, sports, societies, etc.).

Price

The total cost of attending a private undergraduate college range from $150,000 to $240,000

Price has grown exponentially, increasing by 180% in the last 40 years

Product

The typical student-to-faculty ratio among top universities is 20:1.

Employment prospects are improved upon graduation.

School is socially fulfilling and engaging.

2. User Research

3 Hypotheses:

Cliche Category	Cliche	Disruption Category	Hypothesis [What if...?]
Interactions	Connections/friends/networks with other students is less important than getting an education from a top school	Invert	Getting a good social education is more important than an academic degree
Interaction	Attend college immediately after graduating high school	Deny	There was a school between high school and undergrad?
Interactions	Students apply for employment after graduating, leveraging their degree to obtain employment	Invert	Employers applied to universities for their students

Target Audiences

Core Audience Categories

Current Higher Education Students

Prospective Higher Education Students

Potential Audiences

Part-time students

Transfer students

Returner students

Certification seekers

Bad SATs "dumb dumbs"

Good SATs "smart smarties"

Outliers

Disabled students

International students

Vocational students

Self-learners

Elderly students (set student)

Immigrants

VISA seekers

Contextual Observation & Interviews

Based on our target audience, we conducted both contextual observation and 4 stakeholder interviews. 4 stakeholders include prospective MBA Full-time Student for NYU, current MBA student at Stanford and current grad student in NYU Steinhardt and Columbia Law School.

Here is our Research Insight Board (Affinity Map):

Our notable observations from the research on why people attend grad school:

Attending school only for networking typical

International students focus more on extension of visa VS degree itself

Education can be secondary to the romantic aspect

International students see it as an opportunity to understand new other individuals’s think than learn

Attending school is a period for self-exploration

Prestige of program

Entering Undergrad didn’t know what I wanted, entering Grad school very well understood outcome

Attending school is often out of an familial expectation vs internally driven

Key Research Insights and Opportunities

ㅤ	Disruptive Hypothesis	Research Insight	Opportunity
1	What if getting a good social education is more important than an academic degree?	When attending school, there is a much greater focus for many students on deriving social value over academics, but higher education focuses on academics within the classroom.	Help guide motivated persons to develop the skills and connections needed to form a new career-focused network in a specific industry or field, which may otherwise be impossible to enter for the given individual.
2	What if employers applied to universities to specialized recruiting programs?	Students care far less about academics than ensuing post-grad job prospects	Help young adults focused on starting their white-collar careers by providing them training programs partnered directly with employers for guaranteed recruitment.
3	What if all students knew what they wanted to do before attending [undergraduate] university rather than used higher education to discover these options?	Students entering undergrad didn’t know what they wanted, but entering Grad school very well understood the desired outcome/were more effective in attaining it.	Help recent high school graduates discover their talents, passions, and career aspirations through guided curriculums and real world work experiences in a single program.

Opportunities Exploration

Program Name	Who	Advantage	Opportunity
Social School	- People who struggle with social interactions (e.g. special education) - People who lack a (white collar) or specific industry network via natural means (e.g. immigrants)	Helps individuals overcome barriers towards forming a white-collar network Summer camp model, replacing archery with social networking/soft skills training	Help guide motivated persons to develop the skills and connections needed to form a new career-focused network in a specific industry or field, which may otherwise be impossible to enter for the given individual.
Vocational Sponsored School	Young adults whose sole focus is finding a job	More certain likelihood of employment for focused training in a short amount of time	Help young adults focused on starting their white-collar careers by providing them training programs partnered directly with employers for guaranteed recruitment.
Gap Year (Considering renaming to 'Horizons Year')	Recent high school graduates considering undergraduate university	Provides graduates with guidance and mentorship on: - Identifying what makes them happy - Understanding what areas of work interest them (What does a white-collar job even look like?) - Discovering their talents - Building social skills with fellow graduates - Experimenting in the real world at real companies	Help recent high school graduates discover their talents, passions, and career aspirations through guided curriculums and real-world work experiences in a single program.

3 concepts initial brainstorming on whiteboard

3. Concept Generation Process

Concept Generation Exercise

1. Career PrepLine (Educational Tasting Menu)

📌 Concept Summary

A career-exploration program offering bite-sized, work-related experiences that help students transition from exploration to specialization.

🔹 Why It's Valuable

Reduces employment anxiety for students.

Helps companies find the right skillsets.

Creates a supportive, low-risk environment for career exploration.

🌱 Simple Visualization:

2. Purpose-Synthesis / Forward-Synthesis / Outlier Acorns

📌 Concept Summary

A structured gap-year alternative that accelerates career discovery by blending mentorship, guided exploration, and real-world work experiences.

🔹 Why It's Valuable

Helps students identify passions, talents, and career paths before committing to a degree.

Offers exposure to real-world job settings, reducing uncertainty about white-collar careers.

Saves students money by helping them determine whether college is the right choice.

Equips students with better clarity to secure internships and choose a major more strategically.

🌱 Simple Visualization:

3. Intensive Social Bootcamp (LinkedOut)

📌 Concept Summary

A hands-on program designed to help people overcome social anxiety and build confidence in networking and professional interactions.

🔹 Why It's Valuable

Provides structured, in-person guidance for social interactions in a safe, controlled setting.

Rapidly expands professional networks for individuals who lack access to career connections.

Encourages participants to step outside their comfort zone and gain confidence in professional settings.

🌱 Simple Visualization:

4. Discover & Design Mockups

Concept Testing

We conducted concept testing on the 3 concepts we have among a 3-person focus group including 3 people.

Data from Concept Testing

We used Radar Chart to visualize the focus group’s decision on concept testing and figure that the Gap Year Upskill is the most popular concept.

Summary

ㅤ	The Winner: Gap Year Upskill	A Close Second: Career Prep Line	A So-So Third: LinkedOut
Overview	Participants consider this concept as exciting, innovative and helpful. They like the travel component and teaching life skills. But the biggest two concerns are high cost and ambiguous targeted group.	Participants think this concept is not necessarily exciting but productive and goal-oriented, a trade school for knowledge workers. Some are concerned about standardization.	Participants don’t think of this concept as both exciting and lucrative. But the concept is relatively clear.
Individual Voting	All 3 participants chose this concept as their most favorite.	All 3 participants rank this concept as a second one at the end, despite two of them scoring this concept a 4 out of 5, which is the same as Concept A.	All 3 participants rank this concept as a so-so third.
Recommendations	1. Narrow down what age group people are targeted on. 2. Do some researches on some gap year choices in the market right now and list out their: ◦ Targeted age audiences ◦ Types of services they provide; ◦ Expanse; ◦ Consistency (how willingly the consumer would like to pay?) ◦ How pay for it? (Students themselves or parents?)	1. Specify the matching standardization between employees and employers. 2. Put emphasis on its productivity when marketing.	1. Specify targeted group. What kind of people need this and make it different from some existing business.