Students and Student Organizations Innovate with IDEA
Students exploring Alexander Library in the fall semester might stumble upon the Hatchery Innovation Studio, a collaboration between Rutgers—New Brunswick Libraries and the Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA), which resides on the first floor of the library.
The studio offers space for students to collaborate, host club meetings, attend workshops, or just hang out between classes. Though it is just a few years old, the space has become a useful hub for engaged students, according to Adrian Cordova, president of CreativeX.
“The IDEA space and the Hatchery is just a great place to connect, network, and get familiarized with, especially if you have any big ideas for anything involving tech, design, or entrepreneurship,” Cordova said.
“You really want to get in that space first as a stepping stone for your future endeavors, and that’s something I wish that I knew as a first-year or sophomore.”
Part of what makes the Hatchery such a compelling space to students like Cordova, as well as their student clubs, is IDEA, which aims to more fully integrate innovation, design and entrepreneurial thinking into the student experience.
“The unique thing about IDEA is that we ask students: what problems do you want to solve? What majors are interesting to you? What careers are interesting to you?”, said Abby Kucks, IDEA’s former program coordinator. “Once they begin to answer those questions, we can think about how they can explore the problems that they want to solve.”
While IDEA offers a range of courses, fellowships, workshops, and programs to any interested students, many of its students are introduced to the Hatchery—and to IDEA—through its first-year cohort program, which offers students the opportunity to participate in weekly workshops, talks, and other learning opportunities.
In the following summer, students are matched with an internship that best matches their interests. After this experience, many of these cohort members become members or leaders of on-campus clubs and connect those clubs back to IDEA for programs, workshops, and enrichment.
“It’s been interesting to see how our first cohort, which just graduated last spring, moved through their college careers,” Veronica Armour said, who serves as IDEA’s director. “Some stayed tight with IDEA along the way, and others used it as a starting point to explore other paths.”
“I didn’t really know what to expect going into the program,” said Malay Patel, who participated in IDEA’s second first-year cohort before serving as the president of the Rutgers Entrepreneurial Society and beginning his own startup, Samsara Clothing. “I learned a lot of interdisciplinary skills, like agile methodologies and frameworks, which are used everywhere in business roles.”
In Patel’s sophomore year, he began to help orchestrate events with IDEA and, in his role with the Rutgers Entrepreneurial Society, to connect club students with the resources available at the Hatchery.
Other student organizations (which operate under Student Centers and Activities) have also engaged with IDEA. Parul Joshi, who also participated in the inaugural first-year IDEA cohort, echoed Patel’s thoughts on collaborations with IDEA.
“Applying to be in this program definitely was a great decision,” said Joshi, who learned about the Hult Prize student organization through IDEA. By her junior year, Joshi was president of the Rutgers chapter of the Hult Prize organization.
“In these past two years as director, I’ve been working a lot with Veronica and Abby, and the IDEA program has shared resources and helped us navigate challenges like event planning and marketing,” Joshi said. “They have helped us so much.”
IDEA has also partnered in more extensive ways with other student groups. For example, Kucks and Armour put together a six-week course for members of Rutgers SigEp, a recognized Rutgers fraternity. In this course, students were trained and prepared for two pitch competitions and taught to map out their personal goals, finances and networks.
“The partnership has greatly helped the chapter and the development of the brothers into balanced men,” said Joshua Israel, who serves on SigEp’s EBoard and who participated in IDEA’s first-year cohort. “One of the brothers used his experience to pitch a startup company to UPitchNJ, and many other brothers got internships because of Abby’s help and dedication.”
IDEA boasts many similar stories—students connected with the program have taken leadership positions in clubs across the university, run for Student Senate, or participated in the Rutgers Summer Service Initiatives. Other students have won pitch competitions, interned at startups, or even started their own companies.
It also offers many other resources such as its Innovation Lab training program, its StoryLab program, and mock job interviews. It has run mini-courses and workshops on issues like food waste or food security, as well as design labs for Colgate.
Fundamentally, though, IDEA, like many other resources on the Rutgers—New Brunswick campus, is what students make of it.
“We offer a lot of different touch points for people to engage with IDEA and with innovation in general,” said Armour. “We want to accommodate their interest levels, or even just what their time and schedule allows for.”
“Really, this is all about the students,” she continued. “What are your passions? How can you navigate this university? Who are you, and who do you want to be?”
You don’t have to have answers yet, but that’s where we can start.”
You can follow IDEA on Instagram at @idea_rutgers. If you are in a student club and would like to learn more about IDEA, click here. To learn more about the many student organizations at Rutgers-New Brunswick, visit getinvolved.rutgers.edu.
