Research Abstract
This is a research project that I conducted to see how relevant ATM coursework was to gain an internship or job.
For this study, I chose to research students in the Apparel Textiles & Merchandising major. My goal was to figure out how relevant the coursework is in real life applications. I created a survey and got responses from 30 students from varying grades and different genders. They were asked to rate how effective they thought certain classes or topics are based on a scale from one to six. Sustainability and textiles were two of the most useful topics when students applied to internships or jobs. There were also students who felt like the majority of what they were learning didnt help them in their professional careers. From this, I concluded that there should be more classes in different areas to allow students to study more of what they intend to do professionally. Another conclusion that I got from this data is to have classes focus more on learning and less on completing projects. While these projects are a good learning tool, many students are too focused on completing the minimum requirement, then learning more about the actual topic. Overall, many students thought this major was great at preparing them for working in the fashion industry, but they also thought there could be some changes to make the program better.