The inaugural NDSU Honors College cohort is part of a new academic experience built around bold ideas, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a purposeful living-learning community.
Because these students will live and learn alongside one another, orientation week was about more than getting familiar with campus. It was also an opportunity to think intentionally about the kind of experience they want to shape together.
That is where NDeavor came in.
Students joined us for a day built around a question we think about often at NDeavor: How do you turn an idea into something that solves a real problem?
Alyssa Teubner started the day by helping students think about the community they wanted to create and the role each of them could play in shaping it.
In the Innovation Studio, Adam Elznic guided students through building personalized dry-erase boards for their new living-learning community.
But building the prototype was only the beginning.
In the afternoon, April Steffan introduced students to how NDeavor helps move ideas toward impact, and they learned how NDeavor engineers begin by observing and understanding real problems before developing meaningful solutions. Then, they put that same approach into practice.
Together, the cohort identified the words they want to define their community this year, surfaced the biggest barriers that could get in the way, and developed plans for how their newly created whiteboards could help them overcome those challenges.
What they left with was more than something they made. They experienced a process they can carry forward: understand the problem, build something with purpose, put it to use, and keep learning from what happens next.