Sourcing information
Give an example of a time you used digital tools to locate information you needed to complete an assignment. How did you determine your research question? How did you evaluate the sources you chose? How did you know this was the most trustworthy information? How did you present the source in your work?
For our QAC 151 project on skincare, my partner Kavya and I used digital tools to find the data we needed. We started with a dataset from Kaggle that had details on over 1100 skincare products like their names, types, ingredients, and prices.
Our main question was about skincare product prices—what makes them cost more or less, and how the quality compared to the price based on what’s in the products. We trusted the Kaggle dataset because it’s well-known and had all the information we needed clearly listed. We also checked reports from places like Allied Market Research to confirm trends in the skincare industry. We knew the dataset was reliable because it had good reviews from other users and the information was consistent.
Reports from industry sources backed up what we found in the dataset, which made our conclusions stronger. In our project write-up, we made it clear that our main data came from Kaggle. We explained how we used details like product names and prices to understand how skincare products are priced. We also mentioned the industry reports to show broader trends in the skincare market.
Using digital tools helped us gather and check the information we needed for our project. By using a reliable dataset and checking it against industry reports, we could explain why skincare products cost what they do based on solid data.
Choosing and learning digital tools
Talk about a time you taught yourself how to use a digital tool. What motivated you to do so? How did you go about teaching yourself?
Give an example of a new digital tool you needed to learn to complete an assignment or solve a problem. Why was that tool the best one? How did you go about learning it? How did you evaluate its effectiveness?
I had to teach myself how to use Latex notation in Notion to type up my homework for my Discrete Mathematics class taught by Karen Collins. I chose to write it in Notion not the regular Latex software because it also doubled as a note taking app and I could more easily reference my notes while solving homework problems that way. I watched multiple tutorial videos online and had a cheat sheet of all the notations printed out that I had right next to me for the first few weeks. However, I stopped using Latex in Notion because it had some technical difficulties like only printing half the page sometimes. I switched to traditional pen and paper for my assignments but what I learned during that period has nonetheless been very useful in taking quick notes with minimal mathematical notations.
Transference
Describe a time you used a knowledge base and/or skill set developed in one digital area and applied it to a different project.
The skills I learned in my Excel and VBA class directly translated to an improved experience with all Microsoft products and by association completing all my assignments. One example is when I had to analyze SEC filings for my finance class. I used Excel to clean and manipulate the data to draw actionable insights that I presented in class.
