Assignment 12A- Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No.1

Assignment 12A- Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Segment: Students of color attending or about to begin attending a university away from their hometown

Interview 1: My first interviewee is an 18-year old Hispanic female senior in high-school who is graduating this year and expecting to attend the University of Florida beginning Summer 2020. This person recognizes the identified need and is beginning to experience it for the first time as her friends have already begun their apartment hunting for the upcoming school year. She stated she has never needed to think about something like this, since she lives with her parents and has been for her whole life, and did not realize how many difficulties they would encounter when trying to decide a living situation. Therefore, getting her college acceptances has been the first time she has encountered this problem and is dealing with the situation on her own, for the most part. She also said her friends have gotten a head start and found subleases, and recognizes that she will be faced with the problem again when determining her living situation for the Fall/Spring 2020-2021 school year. She said using google to find apartment complexes in the general area she wants to live at and will hopefully be able to do in-person tours over the summer, as well as get personal recommendations from her friends who will live in other complexes over the summer too.

Interview 2: My second interviewee is a 20 year-old Asian/Hispanic first-generation female who currently attends the University of Miami. She stated she first experienced the issue well into attending the college she currently goes to, as incoming students attending that university are required to live on campus their first year and didn't even think about how difficult finding affordable off-campus housing would be- let alone close to campus. Traffic in Miami is terrible, and having a house or apartment complex within walking distance to campus would be certainly ideal for her situation. She also stated she comes from a lower-income household and can barely afford living in Miami as a broke college student, so worrying about paying rent is a very prominent issue in her life right now. Luckily after making friends her first year, she was able to find a group of people experiencing the same issue (all from different nationalities, since living in the city is expensive in general for most people) and decided to live with them farther from campus and carpool together most mornings. Regardless, days she needs to take the Metro are a hassle and require her to wake up extra early and is a big inconvenience.

Interview 3: My third interviewee is a 24 year-old Haitian female graduate student currently attending UF's College of Dentistry. She stated she began experiencing this need when she got accepted into graduate school, as she lived in a scholarship home that renewed her residency every year so long as she kept her grades up. After finishing her undergraduate courses, she realized she would need to look into housing options closer to the College of Dentistry so her commute wouldn't be so long now that she was full-time in the building. Thankfully, she does come from a family that isn't necessarily in a big financial need, but given her graduate status, definitely needs to think about finances to avoid being in bigger debt. Given the location of her building, she has more options in her housing, especially since on-campus housing isn't really an option for her. Finding a solution was not extremely difficult, since she was okay with the location of her apartment in regards to the College of Dentistry and thankfully has a lower than average rent price. After she finishes graduate schooling, she plans on securing a job outside of Gainesville and will not have to worry about her housing situation being close or not to campus.

Summary/Conclusion: While conducting these interviews, I came to realize that the need always exists, but the people who experience the need rotate and no longer have the need once they are not affiliated with the university anymore. There are definitely a wide assortment of students who experience this need, and even from my interviews I was informed of a greater population of people not only attending UF but other universities as well that experience this need. A living situation such as the one I proposed about a student-run housing complex would be ideal to implement in universities everywhere, and placement of such establishments in regard to the campus setup would be a factor to take into consideration as well. Depending on the background of the student, different people have access to different resources and gives them an advantage overs less fortunate students (international students, non english-native speakers, first generation, etc.) who dont have general knowledge on house hunting. Thus, a business concept like the one I proposed should be advertised to all incoming college students and even those already attending who may potentially continue in graduate school or employment at the university.