The final deliverable we created surround educational resources. We found from our interviews that although high school students had access to a lot of various educational assets at the high schools in Fayette County, they lacked a comprehensive idea of the various majors and career options available to them. There is a common theme of “getting out” of Fayette County as a measure of success. At the different high schools there are resources like AP classes, co op programs at the technical institute, various academic tracks, and even an instant decision day with colleges and universities. Based on our interviews, we will be connecting Pitt faculty and students with Fayette county both in person and virtually to expose them to different college majors at career routes. We will also be highlighting different small business owners within Uniontown and sharing their journeys and successes. We also dispersed a community survey to uniontown residences to hear their feedback about their community leaders. We analyzed the trends from the survey and identified any common themes. We saw mostly that transportation was an issue for residents but that overall they were happy and satisfied with their lives in Fayette County. If we could only implement one of our recommendations, I would want to continue analyzing our survey. I think this could give us insight into how people are actually feeling and can give us the best chance to help them in a way that would be truly beneficial to them.

Before this semester, I had never even heard of Fayette County. This semester provided a lot of background about Fayette County that I didn’t know about before. I was able to meet people who are proud of their hometown and want to continue their family legacy there. It was also really meaningful to be able to be a resource in a way that would serve them. I will probably describe this experience to my children as important meaningful work that altered from my traditional work as an industrial engineer. Typically, I am following the same sort of procedures to give tangible results and speed up processes. However, this work did not necessarily produce something tangible but it did provide a solid foundation for other groups to expand on. This is also the first project I have worked on that was ongoing. We were not expected to deliver a final product but rather just set up building blocks that others can work from. It was very rewarding to get feedback from community members immediately following our presentation. We are hopeful that the impact on the community will continue to grow and assist them in ways they need. This is also the first class I worked with majors besides engineering and the first time I have had to travel for an academic related project.