Persona: Young, educated women about to enter the "real world"

Basic Information:

• Median Age: 22
• Median Income: Poor (we are students...)
• no children
• completed rigorous undergraduate programs and working on graduate programs

1. What do you think and feel?

The biggest priority is getting through the next exam, while balancing extracurricular activities, the occasional happy hour, and recruiting for jobs. The most important priority is to find our niche in the professional world, and build a foundation from which we can "market" ourselves. We want to be able to have it all: a strong resume, an "A" on every exam, while still soaking in the college experience to its fullest and not missing a thing. The biggest preoccupation is how to fit everything we need to do in one day without permanently moving into the library! We aspire to stand out in the working world compared to our peers, and have our ideas be respected and heard

2. What do you see?

We see a world that is dramatically different from that of our parents' time because of all the choices available to us. Just walking through campus we are offered trials on about ten new consumer products and services that our bound to "change our lives." Our environment could be described as fast-paced, and constantly evolving. We are one of the most vulnerable groups when it comes to marketing, because we are interested in trying new things, and for the most part, our "tastes" are malleable and not exactly set in stone at such a young age. Brand names don't mean as much to us as they do to our parents. Word of mouth is extremely important, because we are influenced by our friends, the Youtube videos, and the latest Twitter update.

3. What do you say and do?

Many times younger people can come off as apathetic, and as if they are trying to tune out politics, current events, and the "real world." Most of the time, we are still trying to discover and find the causes that actually have meaning in our lives. When we find something that moves us, we actually become passionate and deeply committed to it. At this uncertain time in our lives, we are still trying to figure ourselves out. Appearance is dictated by the latest trends. One week, every student on campus will be wearing Nike shorts, and the next week it's jeggings. Towards others, we are respectful, but I think many times we can be quick to make assumptions and judge, as we are still maturing into the adults we want to be.

4. What do you hear?

 Friends are the center of our world at this point in our lives. Social networking has made it possible for us to keep in touch with friends and family that live on different continents. We live through our friends' experiences, learning from their mistakes and enjoying their successes too. We are influenced by young leaders with revolutionary ideas that have the ability to make themselves heard. With the amount of information available to us, a message that is actually absorbed must be unique.

5. What are your pain points?

One of our biggest fears is realizing that we might not be able to do everything we would like to do, and facing the fact that we need to prioritize. It might not be possible to be president of every club on campus and still carry a 4.0 GPA, and holding ourselves to our high expectations can be difficult. That is why finding convenient products that can cut down time and effort on our part is especially valuable to us. On a different note, many of us are frustrated by the economic conditions that face us, and are fearful because there are not many professional jobs on the horizon. We are fearful of not loving the job that we will have, and being miserable day after day in a cubicle, while not being intellectually stimulated. I think many of us are also fearful of the apathy regarding the environment, which is why younger people are much more likely to "go green."

6. What do you hope to gain?

Through the collegiate experience, we want knowledge that will adequately prepare us for the real world. Success is determined by how well we are doing compared to our peers, as well as if we are meeting the goals that we have set up for ourselves. We are overly ambitious, sometimes the biggest obstacle to our success can be ourselves, because we can be frustrated when we fail from time to time and want to stop trying. That's why having an end goal in mind is so important, because the dream is what keeps us awake at 3 am studying for an exam that is the next morning.