Any skills or techniques you have learned during the first 6 weeks?

Since I have graduated and will leave Faculty Commons in June, I will talk about my takeaway from working here. Aside from the technical stuff, I’ve learned a lot about the importance of building relationships. In the past month, three of my clients from Faculty Commons actually contacted me for freelance work. One of these projects is working with Professors Liou-Mark and Blake on a new website design for REU-CREST. This design project will be funded by the National Science Foundation.

In addition to that, I keep in contact with many of my professors. In COMD, the professors are usually really good in encouraging us to apply for internships and attend industry events. One professor had asked me to do a demo/workshop in the beginning of his class about a month ago. Of course I said yes; I felt so honored! Just a week after, he offered me the opportunity to have an interview/meeting with a UX lead from Google!

Thus, I encourage my fellow student designers to always keep a good relationship with their professors and clients. You never know what they could do for you in the future and vice versa. Building a network is important!

Here’s my advice:

• be professional in communicating and your work as well
  (email etiquette, in-person meetings, creative process, etc.)
• be organized and realistic with project plans/schedule
• be reliable so you can build trust in the relationship
• be patient and understanding–clients are usually not designers!
• be sure to close the loop and say thank you

–Mandy Mei