Undergraduate / Changing People's Minds; Stanford - What Matters to You [3]

William and I scrambled around the EcoClub booth frantically collecting surveys and passing out Dixie Cups filled with water.

We were doing a water taste test in our school's cafeteria to show that filtered water, bottled water, and tap water tasted exactly the same. We would hand out a survey, ask anybody who came up to our table to drink the three types of water: tap, filtered, and bottled, and label them on the survey.

During lunchtime, a group of freshmen passed by our table, and a girl clutching a Fiji water bottle in her hands walked up to me.

"Hi, would you like to take our survey?" I said.
"You think I can't tell the difference between tap water and bottled?"
"Why don't you give it a try?"
"Fine, pass it over."

Once the group had left our table I specially marked her survey so I could come back to it. Later that day, we went through the results; fifty percent of the students chose filtered water and the rest were evenly split between tap and bottled water, 25%-25%. Most people thought filtered water tasted the best, but when I checked the survey that I had marked I saw that the girl with the Fiji water liked tap water the most.

At lunch the next day we set up our booth again. As I set out the surveys a familiar face passed by. I called her over to tell her her results.

"Do you want to know which type of water you thought tasted the best?"
"Let me guess... bottled?"
"Well actually you put down tap as your first choice, and filtered second."

I tried not to look too satisfied with myself, but I let out a huge grin when she walked away and threw her water bottle in the recycling bin next to the door. I realized that it was fulfilling to change a person's preconceived notions.