For my client in the English department at City Tech, I was in charge of creating a series of posters to offer the regular English courses and also design illustrative posters for the different special courses each semester. I was overwhelmed with work and other requests coming in from different directions and also from my classes, and I didn’t know what to do. I had a creative block.

Fortunately, Dorian Valentine, my co-worker at Faculty Commons offered to help me create some posters. So we came together, worked on some ideas and he illustrated some of these courses for me. So it became a collaboration half way through. We submitted this series of English posters as a “Special Project” at the Honors Scholars Poster Presentation.

Below is our poster for the presentation event.

We submitted a few “Special Projects” to the Poster Presentation and received our certificates at the awards ceremony.

After interning for one semester, I jumped right into the trainer position. My good friend and co-worker Patricia Persaud and I developed the official Faculty Commons recruitment and training manuals. We worked on both the content and design of the whole package, with the guidance of Professor Jordan.

This summer will be my fourth semester recruiting and training new interns. From the in-person interviews to the actual 2-week training program, I’ve learned many things from the new interns. Being a trainer doesn’t mean you are always teaching or demonstrating something for the trainees. You could also be learning from one another because after all, we work as a team here.

Prepping paperwork and setting up the table for the interviews.

Last semester’s trainers: Raciel Guzman, me, and Dorian Valentine.

In addition to teaching each other new program skills in a design team, one can learn that giving and taking feedback is essential to success. There are some individuals who get easily offended with negative/harsh critiques. It’s important to know that you can turn negative feedbacks into a positive ones by suggesting alternatives rather than just saying “this looks bad” or “you have to change this.” But, you must be very honest as well.

I took advantage of the opportunity to have valuable feedback from a team of designers and non-designers (in person) while I am working in the Faculty Commons office. Not only can they help you with visual feedback and show you different ways to create something, but they can also help you check the content. Oftentimes I am working on poster and I’ve been staring at it on the screen for hours. Even if there was a typo, my brain will fill it in as if it was correct. It’s different when you have a pair of fresh eyes to go over the grammar and spelling of the poster’s text.

If I were to work on my own on freelance projects, I would probably have to reach out to my friends, and they are probably busy with their lives. So, if you work with a team, do take advantage of it!