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“This experience has taught me a lot about team work. Occasionally, I see people becoming frustrated and upset, however, based on my experience this quarter, I am now better able to help diffuse tempers and resolve problems rationally. ”
- Peter Hong
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 Awab: I’ve learned how to work efficiently and productively with people who have completely different professional and educational backgrounds.
Peter: Time management has become invaluable to us – we can now accomplish a high quality work product in half the time it used to take.
Carrie: We’ve learned that efficiency is a big key to our success. We’ve created best practices that work well for our team, which allows us to accomplish the most crucial tasks with ease.
Cameran: Surprisingly, I’ve learned that constructive debate and even some conflict creates better solutions and more critical thinking.
Ryan: I’ve learned to trust my teammates with group work, knowing that I will be personally judged based on a totally collaborative effort..
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 Carrie: Our first group project in Organizational Behavior was probably our best achievement so far because it had a real-world impact on some very deserving people.
Ryan: Our assignment was to solve an organizational issue for a local company, and we took on the challenge of finding a solution for Casa Teresa, a home for unwed mothers, who was about to lose its thrift store.
Peter: The staff at Casa Teresa had exhausted its resources internally, and we came along right at the perfect time to help them out.
Cameran: We spent several weeks learning about the organization, analyzing their structure, and understanding the factors that led to the loss of the thrift store. We realized that they needed to change their entire business model and move all of their retail efforts online at Ebay and Craigslist.
 Awab: We were nervous when presenting our solution, as the online store was a complete paradigm shift from anything that they’d ever done.
Ryan: We were impressed and excited a few days after the presentation when Casa Teresa informed us that they were going to take our strategies and recommendations and put them into play over the summer.
Awab: It felt great to succeed both academically as well as professionally, especially as we were just starting to get to know each other.
Carrie: At the same time, this helped us grow closer as a team because we knew that our work would actually make a difference in the operations of a great organization. The application of our studies to real life was very powerful.
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 Awab: The faculty really care – they make themselves available to whomever wants to learn.
Peter: I agree with that. They are very helpful outside of class whenever we need to meet with them.
Cameran: They respect our hectic work and school schedules tremendously, inviting us to call their cell phones and home phones at any time of day if needed.
Carrie: I think what makes them truly unique is that they are not just academics – they all have real world experience that they bring into the classroom every week.
Ryan: Absolutely – there is none of that “those who can’t do teach.”
Cameran: It’s really a testament to them about how much we’ve learned about ourselves and how our team works.
Peter: They really helped us take our team to the next level.
Academic Backgrounds:
Carrie Young: UCLA (BA), American Literature
Cameran Hetrick: University of California, Santa Barbara (BS), Economics-Mathematics
Awab Ali: Cal Poly Pomona (BS), Computer Science
Ryan Burns: UCLA (BA), Political Science,
GRAD: University of California, Hastings, Law School (JD)
Peter Hong: University of California, Irvine (BS), Electrical Engineering,
GRAD: University of Maryland, College Park (MS), Electrical Engineering
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