Students from the LSU E. J. Ourso College of Business Master of Science in Analytics program are in for a surprise Friday.
Eight teams of students will build bicycles for anonymous clients at the College of Business event, titled “Lifecycles.” But what they don’t know, is that the “clients” receiving the bikes are local foster children.
Lifecycles is the first event of its kind from the University.
The MOA program is partnering up with Volunteers of America Greater Baton Rouge, Front Yard Bikes and IMPACT Group to put on the event, which will last from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Although science analytics and bike building are unrelated, Lifecycles will serve primarily as a teambuilding exercise for participating students, according to College of Business Communications Manager Joshua Duplechain.
“When you work in analytics for a corporation, you’re working in a team environment with people, so there’s a lot of team-based collaboration in that line of work. This is just to help them, [the students] not so much with real world experience, but it helps with that team dynamic,” Duplechain said.
The Science in Analytics program is designed to prepare students to use data-driven methods to contribute to an organization’s effectiveness and to help make decisions.
Students will receive classroom instruction prior to assembling the bikes. The actual building will take place in the Business Education Complex rotunda at 10 a.m. Dustin LaFont, founder of Front Yard Bikes, will supervise the teams throughout the build.
Front Yard Bikes, a community bike center where children learn to fix bikes and can eventually receive one of their own, teaches participants in south Baton Rouge academic and mechanical skills.
The team’s objective will be to build its bike in the shortest amount of time.
Students will learn about the individual children receiving the bikes upon completion, and Volunteers of America will lead a presentation on their work with foster children. The event will conclude with a bike safety check.
“I think they’ll probably have fun with the event itself, but when they find out exactly who the client is, it’ll take on a whole added level of significance for them,” Duplechain said. “To know that this isn’t just a team-building exercise, but they’re actually doing something really special for these eight local kids.”