The Bachelor of Innovation program is unique to the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). It gives students the opprotunitiy to gain real world experience through innovative project for different organizations. While many university degrees include taking classes like biology, chemistry, and physics; the Bachelor of Innovation degree allows students to take Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Buisness Law classes, and Grant Writing. Included in this program is three teams classes, INOV 2010, 3010, and 4010. In these classes students get the opprotunity to practice different team roles such as researcher, presenter, and lastly team leader.

What is “innovation”? Some would say it’s being creative; maybe it’s experimenting with new ideas; it could even be transferring an idea into a reality. People are prone to relate the word innovation with being an inventor; someone who creates something new. While inventing can be part of it, True Innovation is about making positive change. Innovation is Transforming Ideas Into Impact. Innovation is about trying to make something better. When I was younger, I wanted to be an inventor. I wanted to be the next Edison or Wright Brothers; that individual who goes down in history for making something new. But these historical inventors were successful because they were innovators, not inventors. Inventors fail every day. They create something new and guess what, there is no use for it. My experience in the Bachelor of Innovation program has taught me that innovation is not inventing. It is not just about being creative, it is not just about making something new, its about creating Positive Change in whatever way is necessary. This program has allowed me to see experience how innovation done right can make Real change.

Recently I learned that even a pandemic does not stop innovation. Through the Bachelor of Innovation, I was able to co-lead a team virtually. This amazing project included making a new website for an organization that runs personality tests for large scale groups and offers therapeutic massages, as well as increasing website traffic through google analytics. Throughout the semester I got to participate in a personality test lead by the client. I was so inspired to learn more about myself and see how amazing our client was in action. As the project entered the final stages I started to realize the impact of innovation that I mentioned earlier. Here we were, this team of six diverse students, using our skillsets to create a website which most of us had done before, and there was this moment where we presented what we had done to the client. Seeing her face overfilled with joy was eye-opening and motivational. This project allowed me to grow as a leader, further develop my website development and organization skills, and showed me how innovation can make change.

Over these last four years I have had the opportunity to grow my abilities through a variety of projects and teams similar to the one above. I have learned how to work on diverse teams with differing UCCS majors from business to early childhood education. I have experience working on teams both in person and virtually. Vastly different team projects allowed me to learn a broad variety of skills anywhere from mobile app UI/UX development, website design, grant writing, and Arduino coding. I know how to effectively communicate with a client to determine their ultimate goals and lead a team to deliver on those goals.

What are you doing after graduation? I hear this question all the time and despite hearing it so frequently I still do not have an answer. I thought I wanted a job that was fun. The old saying that if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life always stuck around my head. We spend our money and our time investing in our education to increase our opportunities to live this dream of doing something you love. After some soul searching and as I grew into being an innovator, I began to see what I love. You would think that four years of repeating the same process would wear someone out but I’m more excited than ever. What am I doing after graduation? I am going to Innovate. It’s my hope and goal to find a place of work that allows me to innovate. To feel free to be creative, to invent, to transform ideas into impact, to use my strengths and experiences to make Positive Change in the world around us.