Hand Them the Keys: How Cleveland State Lets a Student Build the Orientation App and Why It Works

Cleveland State hands its orientation app to a student to build each year — a deliberate choice, not a stopgap. Alicia Andrews, coordinator of campus visits and undergraduate admissions, explains why: orientation is where first-year belonging starts, and a student who just went through it is uniquely positioned to build that first experience. The arrangement works both ways — the student gets a real, ownable project for their resume, and the app stays current with how students actually think and navigate.

In this session, Andrews covers how Cleveland State scopes the build as genuine end-to-end ownership rather than a delegated task, the brand guardrails that keep the app consistent even as a new student rebuilds it annually, how the role becomes a talking point students carry into job interviews, and how a clean handoff between graduating builders keeps the model improving year over year.