This paper outlines cumulative research on food deserts in relation to college students; namely, that there are communities classified as food deserts because significant numbers of the population lack access to grocery stores selling fresh produce or other goods normally called “healthy.” These areas are often also food swamps, or areas with intense access to sugar-dense, high-fat foods. Research as a whole suggests that three considerations primarily drive food insecurity for individuals caught in these food deserts: lack of access to a personal vehicle, low income or prohibitively expensive healthy foods, and personal education or culture (Wright et al., 2016). College students both fit into the geographical food deserts and are individuals who tend to have a worrying level of food insecurity (Kim, 2018). It is costly to make adjustments to entire environments to rid communities of food desert characteristics, and it is not always potent enough to end food insecurity or malnutrition; instead, it can be much more effective to focus on individuals within communities and help push cultures into a better direction. This project demonstrates that ASU students are experiencing food dissatisfaction and are in a food desert worthy of attention and action, and that students are motivated to see a solution. The solution that the paper focuses on is a food delivery system of fresh produce and foods for students, which addresses the three drivers of individual food deserts discussed by Wright et al. (2016).

My thesis was conducted in two parts, one with the creative aspect, which was competing in Venture Devils competition with my NGO pitch-deck. The second aspect was a written portion to explain the research I have done through my creative project, and competing in Venture Devils. I began this project in my ENT 360 class in 2020, with Professor Sebold, so I began gathering research then. I worked with Hope Women's Center, a local non-profit, to understand what needs underprivileged women have and how my venture can support those needs. I came up with a venture pitch that provides peer mentoring, networking, and financial literacy to women.

Food is one of the most universal and uniting human experiences. It is a powerful tool to bring communities together and it is a simple way to bring joy to an individual. This project is an exercise in marketing and entrepreneurship that was inspired by these ideas, which culminated in a fundraiser bake sale to benefit Creighton Community Foundation, a local nonprofit.

From December 2019 to December 2020, I served as the chapter president of the Chi Omega Psi Epsilon Chapter at Arizona State University. Although my experiences as president sharpened my leadership abilities and provided me with skills I will take into my future career, the emotional baggage caused by the experience was scarring. I found myself carrying it with me after my term ended, allowing my negative emotions to highly affect my post-leadership experience. In conducting this project, it was my goal to determine if other student leaders had similar experiences to mine, and if so, come up with recommendations on how to improve support processes to ensure that student leaders are able to enjoy their terms as much as possible. From my research, it is evident that expectations and responsibilities put on student leaders are taking away from the positives that spring from leadership experiences. In interviewing 18 student leaders from multiple organizations across six universities around the country, it became evident that students’ positions were highly affecting their mental health and feelings towards the organization and university while in the leadership role and after their terms. I created three recommendations with the hope that this project will start the conversation around the topic of student leadership support, eventually inspiring change that will allow future student leaders to have a better experience than both myself and my peers had. These recommendations include creating an outlet/platform where past and current student leaders can talk about their experiences, creating an avenue for organization advisors to connect with the majority of members rather than having them solely in contact with the leaders, and streamlining university communications to both students, leaders, and advisors. By doing these three things, student leaders will have a better support network, allowing them to fully experience, learn from, and enjoy their time as an executive board member of their organization.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the main advantages and disadvantages of various working structures. This paper specifically evaluates the pros and cons of working fully online, fully in the office, and a hybrid model. This paper also assesses factors that will influence individual companies’ decision for how to organize their workspaces, as well as macroeconomic trends that have emerged from remote work during the pandemic. This paper shows that optimal work setup is a hybrid environment. Although there are distinct advantages to fully online and fully in-person office environments, the hybrid setup stands as the most efficient and practical. It is important to note that every company must consider how their resources can support a hybrid setup, and if they can support a hybrid model at all. Companies that adopt a hybrid setup will capture most of the benefits from both online and in-person work, while limiting the disadvantages caused by each work style. Additionally, hybrid modality will become even more practical as technology continues to progress, and virtual work continues to become more efficient. The main advantages to online work are that it makes employees more efficient, eliminates unnecessary commuting to work, and expands companies’ talent pools for hiring. The main disadvantages to online work are also the main advantage to office work, and that is the knowledge spillovers from having workers physically together. Although knowledge spillovers increase the value of a company’s workforce, virtual work has made in-person work seem inefficient. The hybrid model combines the benefits of both online and in-person work, allowing workers to still be partially together in the office while allowing for better technological integration.

Obesity rates among adults have steadily grown in recent decades all the way up to<br/>42.4% in 2018. This is a 12% increase from the turn of the century (Center for Disease Control<br/>and Prevention, 2021). A major reason for this rise is increased consumption of processed,<br/>high-calorie foods. People eat these foods at a young age and develop bad eating habits that can<br/>last for the rest of their lives. It is essential to intervene early and help adolescents form<br/>balanced, healthy eating habits before bad habits are already formed. Our solution to this<br/>problem is Green Gamers. Green Gamers combines adolescent’s passion for gaming with<br/>healthy eating via in-game rewards for healthy eating. People will be able to purchase healthy<br/>food items, such as a bag of carrots, and on the packaging there will be a QR code. They will<br/>then be able to scan the code on our website, and earn points which will unlock in-game items<br/>and other rewards. Video game rewards act as effective motivators for you people to eat more<br/>healthy foods. After the solution was formulated, a preliminary survey was conducted to<br/>confirm that video game related rewards would inspire children to eat more healthy foods.<br/>Based on those results, we are currently in the process of running a secondary market research<br/>campaign to learn if gift card rewards are a stronger motivator. Our end goal for Green Gamers<br/>would be to partner with large gaming studios and food producers. This would allow us access to<br/>many gaming franchises, so that rewards are available from a wide variety of games: making the<br/>platform appealing to a diverse audience of gamers. Similarly, a relationship with large food<br/>producers would give us the ability to place QR codes on a greater assortment of healthy food<br/>items. Although no relationships with large companies have been forged yet, we plan to utilize<br/>funding to test our concept on small focus groups in schools

The insurance industry consists of financial advisors planning for individual’s financial future through defensive investments that will payout in case of something happening to a person’s greatest asset—themselves. Each financial advisor is mandated to pass a professional exam to receive their license in order to take in clients in each state. There is a process in which clients are serviced and sold on different products of insurance. Advisors need to consider client needs and service them with products are in their best interest and within financial reason. <br/> To sell a product you must have clients, and the way that financial advisor receive clients are generally through two ways: company provided or their own connections. At the end of the day, the goal is to get in front of more people and expand you circle. In that sense, there are two common way people address this expansion of circles and that is build relationships versus networking. The goal of this paper is to dive deep in the insurance industry and analyze the sales process when comparing the difference in selling through building relationships versus selling through networking.<br/> The research plan I have in mind start from researching background and history, to current practices environment, to method process solutions. In the initial stages of my research, I will focus on background and history of the financial services industry in terms of sales and insurance. This will address insurance sales processes in the financial services industry and its features as well as benefits. After explaining the step by step process and potential results of the sales process in the insurance industry, I will start researching current environments of the industry. This will explain the history, key theoretical elements, and significant events of the industry. <br/> The history of the background will set stage for me to address situational challenges in the business based on my own experience to which I will do research to find plausible sales process solutions when comparing relationship sales to networking sales. This research will then be synthesized with my own experimental solutions as I work in the industry, which will help me complete chapter 4 and 5 of my theses – Methods and Execution of Results.

Living a healthy and balanced life can be difficult for college students at Arizona State<br/>University due to the barrier of high cost of healthy food. To understand more about this problem<br/>we conducted research on the Tempe campus through surveys and virtual focus groups. We<br/>discovered that the cost of healthy food is one of the main barriers preventing students from<br/>eating healthy. We also learned that the students would be more willing to eat healthier if they<br/>could access healthy foods at a more reasonable price. Our solution to this problem was Eunoia,<br/>a service that allows students to receive discounts on healthy food and incentivize them to eat<br/>healthier in the future. Our company creates an innovative relationship between our customers,<br/>their private health insurance companies and local grocery stores throughout the Phoenix Metro<br/>area. Students at Arizona State University will be able to purchase healthy food items discounted<br/>by up to 30%. These discounts will be funded by their health insurance companies as well as the<br/>local grocery stores they purchase from. Our business model allows our customers to live<br/>healthier lives while also providing value to partnered health insurance companies and grocery<br/>stores. Once we established our business model, we spoke with students at Arizona State<br/>University and representatives from health insurance companies. Through these demographics,<br/>we received positive feedback and early traction with our idea. Our goal is to be able to<br/>implement our product in the Arizona State University community and then expand this product<br/>into a more general market to help all people live a pure and balanced life.

Executive Casework, Inc. is a custom commercial mill working company based in San<br/>Jose, CA. Although the company originally only focused on cabinets, it has expanded to include custom reception desks and solid surface countertops to meet demand. The company founded by David and Mark Brown has humble beginnings, originally located in Mark's garage. Over the last two decades, the company has seen astronomical growth buoyed up by the fast increase in commercial real estate in Silicon Valley.<br/>However, the company is currently facing considerable uncertainty like many others in the industry. These resulting overhead costs, when paired with future uncertainty of demand created by geopolitical trends, work from home, and Covid-19, create a notable problem for Executive Casework, Inc. As such, this thesis will focus on strategic steps Executive Casework, Inc. can make to capitalize on current macrocosmic trends, as well as trends within their own industry. More specifically, it will be a strategic analysis identifying the key external forces driving the fluctuating revenues in the commercial custom mill working industry, followed by an analysis of these external forces (magnitude and longevity). We will end with a framework for capitalizing on these trends by organizationally and physically placing a company like our exemplar company, Executive Casework, in the best position to realize maximum profitability.