The most meaningful collaborative experience I have had during this internship has been working with the other interns on the Alumni Spotlight template. What started as an individual design task became a much richer process once I brought the rest of the team into it.
The senior intern was particularly valuable to this process. She had context I did not have yet: an understanding of what the department actually needs from a template, how approvals move through the various teams, and where the execution tends to get complicated. Rather than learning all of that the hard way, I was able to sit with her early and get an honest picture of what I was walking into. That kind of institutional knowledge is not written down anywhere. It lives with the people who have been there long enough to have run into the walls.
Her input helped me think through the template not just as a design object but as a working document that multiple people would need to use, approve, and maintain. A template that looks good but creates friction in the approval process or is difficult for non-designers to work with is not actually a successful template. Thinking through those pain points before I got too deep into the design saved me from having to backtrack later.
The collaboration also reinforced something I think is easy to underestimate when you are early in your career — other people’s experience is one of the most useful resources available to you, and asking for that input directly is not a sign that you do not know what you are doing. It is exactly the opposite. The interns who learn the most are usually the ones willing to ask the most honest questions.