A student-centric approach to enhancing the first year experience at Universidad Iberoamericana

Throughout 2024, the MIT Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) engaged in dialogue with over 26 members across 6 universities to understand the first year experience (FYE) and how it impacts students on their learning journeys. J-WEL recently published a paper, Global Perspectives on the First Year Student Experience, with lead author/contributor, Monique Fuchs, presenting member perspectives on the FYE. The paper shows how different universities across J-WEL are reimagining engagement initiatives (i.e., pre-college programs, community building, co-curricular activities), academics (i.e., curriculum, academic services, career preparation), support systems (i.e., mental health, financial aid, faculty development), and strategies (i.e., leadership support, assessment). 

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The above framework illustrates how universities are working to address pressing challenges facing higher education, namely those related to mental wellness, social belonging, career opportunities, economic empowerment, and educational equity. The commitment to these areas looks different in each university context. For example, as the first private university in Mexico City, Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México (IBERO), is significantly smaller than larger public universities in the metropolitan area, namely the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). IBERO serves about 12,000 students and is looking at ways to increase retention and expand enrollment. Indeed, “IBERO emphasizes community and student experiences, especially because retention beyond the first year remains a challenge. Through recent challenges IBERO also shifted its strategy to a more student-centered and inclusive approach, where students have a voice” (Fuchs in Global Perspectives on the First Year Student Experience, 2025, pp. 5).

Across the studied universities, the paper finds that the FYE is critically important for individual success as well as for the success of the university in society: the FYE is integral to supporting students to reach their full potential for academic achievement, graduation, and professional skill development, and to build community amongst students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Investing in programs to improve the FYE therefore aligns with the mission of universities to drive social innovation and sustainable development. Building on this paper, in this article we offer a fresh analysis into one of the university perspectives examined in the 2025 paper, IBERO (Global Perspectives on the First Year Student Experience, 2025). 

We present examples from IBERO’s recent work which represent a university committed to improving student engagement – with a strong attention to the first year students. For instance, the university has prioritized areas such as i) Transition support through the use of centralized information and communication between students and their families; ii) Community building through orchestrating off-campus activities and building spaces for meaningful interaction and networking; iii) Programmatic approaches to reach students and understand their learning needs, social interests, and career goals; and iv) Co-curricular activities which promote connections across the campus in a socially inclusive manner. We sought to understand how these insights emerged, what forces influenced these efforts, and how the new initiatives are impacting student life.

Applying UX design principles to enhance student journeys at IBERO

Seeking to understand how the FYE programs can generate positive, university-wide impacts, we asked, how can efforts to improve the first-year experience support university-wide goals? To answer this question, we reached out to Jorge Meza, Director of Admissions and the Student Experience at IBERO. Working within the nexus of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the surrounding context, Jorge has been a full-time academic at IBERO since 2002 and was coordinator of the bachelor's degrees in Graphic Design and Interactive Design, director of the Design Department and general director of University Connection. In 2008 he founded Estrategas Digitales (Digital Strategies), an agency dedicated to strategic design and digital marketing, where he continues to participate as a researcher and as an industry consultant. Jorge and his team were responsible for executing the Marketing and Admissions strategies to enhance the FYE. Behind this workstream was a strategic initiative from the President’s Office to define a student-centered model for addressing enrollment, retention and community engagement challenges. The FYE project reflected a broad, collective commitment to understanding the student perspective and to achieving these goals, as Jorge explained:

“At IBERO, the transformation of the FYE was the result of a coordinated, cross-functional effort involving both academic and administrative teams. The initiative engaged a wide range of stakeholders—including admissions, student life, faculty from all departments, IT, planning, communications, and administrative offices—working collaboratively to enhance the student experience. This approach aimed to improve the student experience in a holistic and systemic way and to fulfill wider institutional objectives.” 

Sections below offer more lessons IBERO learned from a multi-year, campus-wide effort to redesign the FYE. 

Key challenges motivated the redesign of the FYE at IBERO

Challenge 1. Students demand more from their experience 

Surveys and feedback showed areas of dissatisfaction amongst students, including negative feedback about issues they were encountering on campus. At a higher level, IBERO was facing barriers to attracting students. Understanding these interconnected challenges in parallel inspired interest among university leaders for the IBERO FYE project. 

The initial goal of the project – to enhance enrollment – coincided with interrelated demands to enhance the student experience. The question of attracting the best candidates for the university sparked a shift towards student-centric design. The idea was to place the student perspective at the heart of a suite of university programs, giving students new or appealing options to improve their wellbeing and happiness. The challenge was learning to equip students with offerings which were“oriented to the students and the student experience.”

Realizing a need to document student journeys, Jorge started to design the journey from attraction to admission, through retention and graduation. Part of the process was to “map the actual journey and all of the pain points… before trying to redesign a new journey.” Locating the problem meant being unafraid of student feedback, including a survey to collect data on a continuous basis about the student perceptions of the campus. The constant stream of data is an impetus for reflection and an “opportunity to change faster and to provide a better experience to the students.” This initiative comes at a time when students are very concerned with their education.

User experience (UX) principles guided the team in their design process. Jorge and the team collected information from applicants, undergraduates, teachers, alumni, and families to uncover interconnections across the university population. It was crucial to understand that a problem in one stage of the journey is “not like a bubble; it’s always connected with a lot of other spaces.” By locating these interconnections, Jorge also recognized that another sticky issue with the FYE was the critical juncture between high school and college. Jorge explained that the transition can be very demanding and stressful for students as well as for their families. The fact that parents want their children to thrive has motivated university faculty and staff to consider how students are doing “holistically” rather than how they are performing academically alone. As it turned out, appreciating the whole student journey was a follow-on challenge to the FYE project, emphasizing the need to create ample social support. 

Challenge 2. Students need social support to navigate the university context 

Jorge emphasized that the student need for social support depended upon the wider context of university life. Thus, it was important for everyone engaged in the project to “pay attention to the whole journey” to identify barriers to social interaction and connection.

On the positive side, Jorge noted that in response to the transitional anxieties students often face, students build strong relationships with their classmates. The issue was that the environment was not echoing their affinity for companionship, creating an opportunity to “create a great atmosphere to give and receive social support.” The social fragmentation Jorge was seeing was in part related to the physical spaces on campus. Students reported difficulty navigating administrative tasks (i.e., ID cards, course registration, account information, etc.). The perceived frustration amongst students feeling lost about which office to visit for different administrative issues led to the creation of Central IBERO, a one-stop-shop for troubleshooting.

IBERO uncovered solutions through understanding commonalities between key challenges

Fortunately, IBERO found ways to leverage common problems into comprehensive solutions. While students were facing common problems, it was important to reflect upon how these issues reflected the context of IBERO and of higher education in Mexico more broadly. Students who provided feedback gained a chance not only to affect the redesign of the student journey, but also to share their experience with peers and with university faculty and staff – without the pressure of being evaluated based on performance. What IBERO discovered from the student input sparked various solutions, as summarized below.

Solution 1. Curating personalized experiences, community connections, and interdisciplinary collaborations

As students were demanding more from their experience, the IBERO project set out to expand offerings in an intentional manner – by curating personalized experiences, community connections and interdisciplinary collaborations. For instance, Central IBERO, a reorganization of existing buildings, has become home to staff who are equipped to deal with “the most common issues students face…they can go there and ask anything.” The maze of offices has since transformed into “a great space…where students feel happy” designed around students’ needs. Jorge indicated that students have given positive reviews to the new administration space. In the digital sphere, the idea of Central IBERO inspired a collaboration with the Institutional Communications team, who launched a mobile admissions app for class and event registration, and university communications. It allowed students to “see the connection points…in one place”; it has been used to track students’ interests in different topics.

In addition to the reorganized administrative buildings, the mental wellness center has been expanded to offer counseling for students as well as social connection. For almost three years, Jorge and the team have been hosting social gatherings on the last Thursday of every month. During this time, students meet in the middle of the campus for food, music, and conversation. According to Jorge, “a key strategy was that people would feel better on the campus in a post-pandemic world.” This notion fit into what Jorge called a broader service orientation at the university.

Solution 2. Developing programs for knowledge exchange

Every semester, Jorge organizes an experiential trip focused on understanding the student journey as a whole. The trips bring together a group of about 50 students (including representatives from the undergraduate and graduate associations and different student groups) for a retreat-style experience during the first weekend of every semester. In the relaxed setting, it is possible to “work with the students and gather feedback from them.” Jorge organized design thinking exercises to probe students about questions such as, “‘What is okay? What do you love? What don't you like, or what do you hate?’” Then, the administrative team shares the answers and perspectives directly with university leadership. One thing they learned was that students were responding particularly well to the Entrepreneurship Center programs and spaces. However, students expressed a demand for more scholarship offerings, particularly those aimed at university exchange programs at universities abroad. These programs helped to remedy the issue of social exclusion, seeking to bring students together in stimulating discussions. The university had to be open to their feedback, as well as flexible to change, in order to improve the atmosphere for learning and engagement. 

The importance of adaptive leadership, organizational flexibility, and student receptivity

These solutions happened because university leadership and staff were open to change. These organizational level shifts accompanied the changes to the student experience. Apart from meeting students’ immediate pain points, Jorge described a broader shift and “a new way of doing things” at IBERO. The focus on student success at a high level was also “about understanding what worked and what didn’t work, and then creating routines to keep striving to do better.” This idea falls under the umbrella of adaptive leadership, emphasizing the need to use insights learned in the field to retrace enabling and constraining influences. This style helps to find ways to achieve the desired goals while evaluating the situation on the ground through what Jorge called a “diagnostic mindset” to track progress and modify as needed.

While the organizational shifts are important, the solutions IBERO has developed speak to a commitment to support students’ confidence in their own abilities – their self efficacy. On the one hand, Jorge wanted everyone to feel welcome and know how to navigate the campus spaces. On the other hand, flexibility has been designed into the programs to ensure individuals can find their own way organically. For instance, students can use the Central IBERO app to seek opportunities which are interesting for them, as they have the tools to solve problems if/when they arise. The redesign, more than expanding events, spaces and supports, was about creating a culture of both student confidence and community. The centralized spaces were intentional for easing student orientation, but it was ultimately up to students to own their journey.

Reflections on IBERO’s Design Process

IBERO’s problem-finding mission reminds us of a foundational principle of the design process: empathy. Redesigning the FYE meant that university leaders put themselves in the students’ shoes, acknowledging that many students feel disoriented, overwhelmed or even discouraged during this transitional period from high school to college. The process of “Mapping the Journey,” inspired by early dialogues with J-WEL Faculty Director Anjali Sastry, allowed Jorge and colleagues to examine the social and emotional reality of being a first year student, and to assess the university culture more critically. Jorge and the team investigated how students were interacting relationally and spatially at different locations on the campus, analyzing how these social/spatial dynamics were influencing the collective experiences. For instance, they discovered that common occurrences of anxiety could be remedied with increased opportunities for engaging in shared interests, socialization, and relaxation. They also recognized how simplifying campus infrastructure could empower students to manage their administrative duties and tasks. 

IBERO’s efforts exemplify four of the key tenets of university engagement as outlined in the J-WEL paper: Transition Support, Community Building, Programmatic Approaches, and Co-Curricular Activities. 

It should also be reinforced that IBERO has significantly expanded support systems for mental health and career counseling, in addition to encouraging faculty to embrace student-centered approaches. While such holistic support systems have been well received, material supports like scholarships are still highly important and in demand. 

Feedback, feedback, feedback.

The IBERO FYE redesign hinged upon student feedback. In this case, the university leaders aiming to help students also believed in their innovative capacity, asking them to participate in the journey mapping work. The open format dialogues, including the intensive weekend retreats held each semester, allowed students to express their perceptions and exchange their experiences at IBERO. What was remarkable about Jorge’s team and approach was the level of detail obtained through student feedback. Indeed, the students tended to have clear opinions, thoughts, and ideas for how to improve their own student journeys. Together they extrapolated the most feasible ideas to implement on-the-ground solutions. 

‍Concluding thoughts

IBEROs’ FYE urges us to look forward to the evolving future of higher education, as outlined in the concluding sections of the J-WEL FYE paper (see: Global Perspectives on the First Year Student Experience). We saw in the IBERO example that university priorities to boost enrollment also connected to the need to improve student satisfaction and social solidarity. These interconnected problems ultimately motivated comprehensive, centralized solutions. By focusing their efforts on student happiness, student feedback, and student support, IBERO has been assembling key pieces of a student-driven culture in their context. The FYE programs discussed sought to meet the demands of students for more personalized experiences, community connections, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Acknowledging that students also need social support, these improvements contributed to an environment where students can exchange knowledge, share their perspectives with university faculty, staff, alumni, and enjoy the learning journey. These efforts fostered a more flexible university atmosphere which was open to students’ ideas and committed to their success – both before and beyond graduation. IBERO and leaders like Jorge are at the pulse of the university culture, making it possible to diagnose solutions to collective problems and to design solutions which promote new ways of thinking, engaging and connecting.

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