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Classroom 2010–2014
Three tech-savvy students have redesigned a BYU rite of passage: the search for Provo housing.
Katalin Bolliger’s first trip outside of the United States was just the experience she wanted—eight thousand miles away from campus and surrounded by tigers and elephants.
Four students walk into a room: a chemical engineer, statistician, computer scientist, and business strategist. It might sound like the beginning of a gag, but bringing together savvy students from a variety of disciplines is what the Marriott School’s Crocker Innovation Fellowship is all about.
Following the crowd isn’t usually a good idea, but entrepreneurs can generate serious capital by jumping on the crowdfunding bandwagon. That’s the premise of an innovative new course at the Marriott School.
Changing the missionary age infused excitement and opened doors for many new opportunities. It also created a few challenges. One of these challenges at the Provo MTC was how to prepare and serve as many as 10,000 more meals a day.
As he listened to Britt Berrett speak on the first day of class, Joseph Mount had the distinct impression he was looking at his future employer. Berrett’s passion for health care was unmistakable, and Mount wanted to be a part of it.
After standing on one foot while trying to decide which printer to buy, students hobble out of 340 TNRB with some extra credit but without the slightest clue what their answers will be used for.
Class begins with everyone looking intently at the same spreadsheet on their laptops. Today’s task: learning how to calculate financial ratios like debt-to-equity, asset turnover, and net profit margin—with the click of a button.
Signs mark the entrance: Production Area, Authorized Personnel Only. Inside, observers stand behind a line of caution tape, taking notes intently. In front of them a rumbling machine shuffles orange, green, and yellow balls along conveyor belts, through tubes, and down ramps.
A painted papier-mâché mask with a lively hodgepodge of primary colors and an obvious grin sits quietly in a Marriott School office, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the professor sitting only a few feet away. 
It may sound like the concept for the next reality TV hit: give twenty-five undergrads nearly $1 million and turn them loose. But this is no TV show; this is a typical day in one Marriott School classroom.
With laptops charged, whiteboards cleared, and markers ready, it’s now up to the Executive MBA students’ careful positioning and strategic thinking to navigate the intricacies of a simulated marketplace. 
It’s hard for many students to remember the days before iPods, Hulu, Twitter, and Skype. If you were to stroll across campus, odds are you could find all of these and many more technologies in use—they have become central to university life.
Bruce Hymas and his teammates had sixteen connectors, fifty-four sticks, and three minutes. The task: build a tower that holds up a golf ball—and make the tower taller than everyone else’s.
This class doesn’t have a textbook. In fact, some of the required reading comes from Wikipedia, a taboo for just about any other class on campus. But the syllabus states it bluntly: “Text: none; it would be outdated anyway.”