Forming an Opportunity Belief

1.) My Beginning Point: I have a belief that there is an opportunity existing within the realm of student parking on campus at the University of Florida.

2.) Description of My Belief: I think that this issue could be vastly improved, and as a commuting student myself, it would help me drastically. There is just not enough parking for anyone really on campus, and students: forget about it. I think most importantly, students need this to be met, because there are plenty of places for faculty to park, it just may be a little far. This need came from the very insignificant amount of parking spaces for students on or near campus, and it has probably always existed. As a student, I think the best way to meet this need is to just take the bus. It is too much of a hassle to have to walk over a mile to any building from the closest student parking lot. I would say that I am about 99% sure that this opportunity exists for other students besides me.

3.) Iteration No. 1: I talked with a fellow student. She said that the nature of this need is the very small amount of places to park on campus, and it will stay that way for as long as she can see. She experienced her need for some parking spaces when she first moved off-campus to Social 28. She experiences this need at least once a day. Right now, she said that her way of addressing this need is to ride her bike. During the summer though, can be really tough because of the insane rain. She was very happy to hear my possible solution, which would probably be just adding some kind of parking structure at the center of campus, or at least making the current ones bigger.

4.) Reflection No. 1: After talking with a fellow colleague, it was very apparent that this was an issue. I was already sure of that, but it was good to get some kind of reassurance. It helped me identify the needs of people other than myself, which made it much more revealing how much we really need a solution to this problem. It was very surprising to me to find that at least someone else, who lives way closer than me, has the same kind of issue.

5.) Iteration No. 2: I talked with a fellow faculty member. He said that, as a faculty member, there were very many opportunities for him to park anywhere and everywhere. He kind of seemed surprised that I had this issue, because he said he never really thought about it. His feeling after hearing my story was that it is an issue that can be definitely improved. As a faculty member, he explained to me, that when he was my age, as a student, his school was much smaller, and he lived on campus all of his years until he graduated. This made it obvious to me that he never had this issue of parking.

6.) Reflection No. 2: After talking with a faculty member, I realized that this may just be an issue for students who need to drive to campus. Besides that, it may be perfectly fine for other people because they have so many more lots dedicated for them. This realization brought me to the question, will this ever be fixed if only a small population on campus has this issue?

7.) Iteration No. 3: I talked with my sister, who is a recent graduate of the University of Florida. She told me that her experience with parking was very plentiful. She had many days where she would wake up late, and had no choice but to drive to campus. If this was the case, she would park in the lot near the Reitz Union, and this yielded her many many parking tickets. Her realization of this problem came her 3rd year here, which was her first time living off campus. She believes that this issue has been around since the campus became so big, and she also believes that it will last as long as the campus keeps getting bigger without any renovations to the parking lots.

8.) Reflection No. 3: After talking with a recent graduate, my sister, I realized that this issue has been around for at least the last 6 years, and probably before that. I also realized that when worse comes to worse, the only choice is to park close, but in a bad spot, and end up paying for parking tickets on a regular basis.

9.) Summary: After doing this exercise, I came to a lot of realizations. I learned that it may only be an issue for students, and that as a student myself who has to commute, my best choice is to either suck it up and walk really far, or suck it up and take the bus. All of these things though, do bring up an opportunity to create something great for students on campus.