This class was a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a first for me, I was very much enamored with the grandiosity of the establishment and equally amazed by its impressive portfolio, featuring history’s finest relics.

For the class, our first stop was an exhibit titled “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room Bulletin”, orchestrated by a collective of Black artist such as; California-born Nigerian, Ini Archibong, South African ceramist, Andile Dyavalne, Haitian sculptor, Fabiola Jean-Louis, African-American author and illustrator, John Jennings, and Kenyan visual artist, Cyrus Kabiru. As implied in its name, this exhibit fully centers on Afrofuturism, a term coined by American author and cultural critic, Mark Dery, who defined it as “a speculative fiction that treats African American themes and addresses African American concerns in the context of the 20^th century technoculture.” However, the term’s meaning has evolved to be a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science and history, that explores the developing intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology.

The exhibit is largely inspired by Seneca Village, a predominantly Black and vibrant, 19^th Century village, located in present-day Central Park. The settlement was synonymous with Black prosperity and flourishing but unfortunately, ended up suffering the same fate as its much latter Oklahoman successor, Tulsa. Set within the context of a “domestic space”, the exhibit features an assembling of objects and furnishings obtained from “fragmented history remains, rejecting the notion of one historical period”. These exhibit is a consolidation and a celebration of interconnected African and African-American diasporic beliefs viewed through the lenses of Black imagination, excellence and self-determination.

Amongst the beautiful pieces featured in this exhibit, they were a few in particular that caught my attention and particularly resonated to. The first is the Prestige Stool: Leopard from the Bamileke and Bamum tribe of Cameroon. A 19 by 16 in, wooden sculpture, wrapped in printed cotton cloth and adorned with glass beads and cowry shell, this piece was a personal standout of the exhibit. The once united Bamileke and Bamum, also known as People of the Grassfields, are the largest ethnic groups in Cameroon, with the Bamileke being native to the West and the Bamum to the East. Both tribes are known for their culture and expression through color and their masterful beadwork as featured in this piece. In our culture the Prestige Tool is exactly what its name indicates, it represents power, it is usually used during royal ceremony and is only sat on by the Fon, the Bamileke ruler, the notables, and elders. The stool is an indication of how high one is in the hierarchy within the members of the court. The reason I immediately gravitated to this object after laying my eyes on it is because as a Bamilke from my maternal side of my family, I was proud to see my culture take such a prominent position in this exhibit and how it contributes to furthering the conversation on the progression of the diaspora through the lens of Afrofuturism.

Made of inked paper and ornamented with Swarovski crystals, lapis lazuli, labradorite brass and resin, Fabiola Jean-Louis’ “Justice for Ezili” sculpture was another personal highlight of the exhibit. As a passionate of ancient world history, cultures and religion, this piece is an homage to the Haitain lwa Erzulie Dantor. Vodun, in its prime, originated from the Dahomey Kingdom, present-day Benin, West Africa, and after the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the traditional African religion was adopted by Haitian people in the Caribbean. Haitian Voodoo deities are known as Lwa, which is variation of the French word, “Loi”, meaning “Law” in English. These deities are divided into nanchons (“nations”) or fanmi (“Family”) namely Guede, Rada and Petro, with the Erzulie lwa family belonging to the latter two. Lwas operate as counterparts of each other between nanchons and between their respective family, in the case of the lwa honored in Jean- Louis’ sculpture, Erzulie Dantor is the Petro aspect of the Erzulie family. Often depicted as a fearsome Black woman, she is the fierce protector lwa of women and children and is known to bless her worshippers with spiritual knowledge to help them as they navigate the material realm. As a passionate of Haitian mythology, I was attracted to this object because it is a testimony to the traditional practices my African ancestors have been practicing during pre-Colonial times. Furthermore, the fact Erzulie Dantor’s brooch was pinned to the regal attire of a time period she predates, highlights the transcendence of traditional African beliefs and how the celebration of Blackness in all its forms, is not limited to the bounds of time itself.

A fashion aficionado, I could not help but make my way down to the lower level of the museum, where was held the first part of the fashion/costume, titled “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” An exhibit featuring archival pieces from the most iconic American fashion designers the likes of Ralph Lauren, Thom Browne, Anna Sui, Vera Wang, Charles James, Tory Burch, Halston, Donna Karan Oscar de la Renta. I further appreciated that the exhibit was inclusive to prolific Black fashion designer both alive and dead such as Patrick Kelly, Christopher John Rogers, Pyer Moss, KidSuper, Hood By Air, Savage X Fenty and Dapper Dan of Harlem. Many of these designers rank among my personal favorites for whom I hold a great deal of admiration, however, a profound and delightful feeling of pride and content filled me up when I laid eyes on the La Vie by CK number

La Vie by CK is a Los Angeles based fashion brand founded by Cameroonian born designer, Claude Kameni. Kameni is known for her stunning African-inspired designs and garments, and her use of eye catching and colorful prints such as the African wax prints. Inspired by the batik or wax-resist cloth from Indonesia, these fabrics have found immense popularity and wide use in West and Central Africa. Kameni’s exhibit dress is a plunging neckline, mermaid silhouette dress made of cotton with a “pattern arranged to complement the curves of the figure and accentuate the flowing tiers of the skirt.”

As a fellow Cameroonian with fashion aspirations, I was extremely happy to see African contemporary art being positioned on such a prestigious stage for the world to see. Kameni is a 27 years-young designer not even a decade into her career and she is already featured at the MET amongst the greats. I felt extremely happy to witness this career milestone so early in her career as well as inspiring for me to pursue my fashion dreams to maybe someday be featured within the halls of the MET.

Our presence was required on campus only when a specific task or event called for it, such as in-person student outreach, during which we would go around campus and interact with students to introduce them to NYPIRG in the hopes of inciting engagement through volunteer work. Being an introvert, this was particularly difficult for me because of my sore social ineptitude, and I found myself falling short of completing the task with success. For my shortcomings with in-person outreach, I fared better at phone banking, which were student outreach via phone to students to let them know about NYPIRG related events such as rallies and our most recent Eco Fest event for climate change. For phone banking outreach, we would be given a call list database of students’ phone numbers and a script which let us know what to say, which I found easier to perform because I did not have to deal with stares and glares and just recited my script.

Of course, other events called for more collaborative efforts between I and my colleagues, Adrian McChurchin, Teandra Adonis, and Billy Shi. An example would be the second of two tabling events we did for our Spring Menstrual Product Drive at Target where we worked together to encourage ongoing shoppers to donate women’s menstrual products such as sanitary pads and tampons that will then donated to the Women’s Resource Center. At first, our shared apprehension for approaching strangers was to our intimidation but that was quickly dispelled when we started giving each other tips on how to operate after one of us found success in performing. This resulted to a successful turnout and we usually collected more donations than we had initially expected. This teamwork was not only exclusive to NYPIRG City Tech as our first menstrual drive tabling was done in partnership with our colleagues at the BMCC campus where we had actually seen greater success. Other team efforts events we held was a rally at City Hall where we called upon Mayor Eric Adams to improve public transportation access so that students can be able to go to school with better ease. These displays of teamwork helped me understand the importance of community and how when a group of people who share the same goal and equally invest their hard work, they are more likely to succeed in the goal they are trying to achieve as I witnessed with our tabling events.

Throughout my internship, I always found myself to be asking to perform assignments within my discipline and thankfully, Jenna was receptive to my demands. She consequently began to assign me graphic design work such as designing Instagram posts for our weekly chapter meetings and screening events, the latter for a watch party for “Pandora’s Box” a documentary addressing the plight of menstruation faced by women around the world. Also, I equally got to design flyers we used to promote our Spring Menstrual Product Drive campaign. These creative projects allowed me to implement the teachings I received over the 4 years of my academic journey at City Tech, starting out with research, then sketching, then testing, trials and errors until I finally came up with the best final version of each project. Furthermore, it also strengthened my sense of comprehension in regards to following rules as I was handed the NYPIRG design guide which stipulated the organization’s visual identity rules I had to adhere to in my design, such as the colors and type to use etc. Jenna was very appreciative of my work to my utmost pleasure as it was a solid indication that I was doing my job well, therefore, proudly positioning these projects in my portfolio.

Easy-going, is how I would describe the working environment at NYPIRG with a particular emphasis on the flexibility of our schedules which had to remain within the required weekly 8-16 hours. This was a detail Jenna had to made sure to let us know of, we could work any day of the week including weekends as most of our duties could be performed remotely. Casual is another word I would use to describe NYPIRG’s working environment, as there was no strict dress code and we essentially could dress as we desired while of course within the bounds of decency. In terms of structure, our schedules operated more on a weekly basis through which Jenna would communicate to us mainly via email. Our weekly schedule went as such, on Mondays, we would meet via Google Meet with Jenna where she would brief us on the upcoming events to be held during the week, specifically Student Leader Meetings.

Student leader meetings were virtual, half an hour meetings with other NYPIRG campus leaders, volunteers and interns alike where would we dedicate each day to a specific NYPIRG area of interest and discuss issues, strategize solutions and celebrate achievements. On Wednesdays, Jenna will occasionally hold one on one meeting with each intern, where we would discuss our progress and feedback either party may have for the other. I felt quite validated during these because Jenna commended my performance, particularly my sense of organization and punctuality, highlighting me as “her most active intern”. Lastly on Thursday, we would have our chapter meetings in the library, during which student volunteers where invited to join and we would discuss upcoming events and campaigns organized by NYPIRG. With our flexible schedule, we did not have a specific start and end time to our work day and could therefore work as we pleased. Personally, I aimed to remain as organized as possible and therefore usually would perform my social work/cleric duties during the day and afternoon, and my creative ones during the evening or at night. Other tasks were optional, such as one page response papers to various news articles that could be used for various NYPIRG endeavors.

My internship role was one that consisted of various responsibilities which to my dismay, commonly deviated from my academic discipline and career interest. As a Communications Design major, I was hoping to do extensive design work in the hopes of honing my skills and consequently begin to truly solidify my career as a professional graphic designer. Instead, my duties were mostly geared towards social work such as student outreach both in person and via phone, and providing my assistance for tabling events to my supervisor, Jenna Bessette. Jenna is the project coordinator at NYPIRG City Tech and was my interviewer when applying for the position.

The in-person interview process was a smooth sail thanks to Jenna’s friendly and relaxed nature which was to my utmost comforting. During the interview, she inquired about many topics such as my background, career goals and mostly importantly, my stance of social activism, the latter on which we found commonalities. Furthermore, she was equally open and receptive to questions I had concerning NYPIRG and their work, highlighting their most recent and ongoing women’s health campaign. The interview went so well that I was offered the position immediately on the spot. Admittedly, this was not my desired career choice but because the semester was halfway through the end, I found myself running against the clock to complete my required 120 hours and since my goal is to graduate this June, I was faced with no other choice than to take it. Throughout my internship, I always found myself to be asking to perform assignments within my discipline and thankfully, Jenna was receptive to my demands. She consequently began to assign me graphic design work such as designing social posts for our weekly chapter meetings and screening events as well as designing flyers for tabling events.

My internship journey begun with The New York Public Interest Research Group Fund, abbreviated NYPIRG, at the City Tech campus. Founded in 1976, NYPIRG is a non-partisan, non-profit, research and public education organization. Their work is led by and is focused on students, with their issues of interest ranging from free and higher quality CUNY education, environmental issues, protecting voting rights, combatting poverty, fixing public transportation, and advocating for consumer justice. 4 years at City Tech and the name NYPIRG was one I had never heard of and as such, I was unsure of what to expect from working at this organization and how my overall internship experience will turn out. However, fun fact about NYPIRG, Barrack Obama was once a member of this organization during his college years, so the fact that the 44^th president of the United States of America begun his career at this organization and elevated to this current icon status, meant that the same could be me of one day, right?

Thanks to another suggestion by Professor Shaton Winston, I also attended the D&G Brave Tour by David & Goliath, a California-based advertising agency. The company has an incline to work with clients they refer to as “challenger brands” or underdogs which take pride in mindset rather than market position. To be honest, I did not connect with this company, for some reason, I was not excited at all by their company at all. Also, I was even more uninterested because they did not actually have any summer internship opportunities. Although, I found their company ethos in catering to the underdogs inspiring. Also, I appreciated that they seem to have strong female workforce because all the conference hosts were women.

Through the Internship Coordination website, curated by Professor Goetz and at her suggestion, my search continued with the AIGA Virtual Job Fair where I had the opportunity to inquire and converse with representatives from 17 design companies from Team to Gallagher & Associates to Champions Design to Kettle, and more. This job fair was quite an insightful one as it gave me little peek into these companies and their practices, ethics and overall ethos. I was able to inquire about their hiring practices, qualities they look for in internship candidates, workflow and recent projects, and my biggest question of all, how do they contribute to make the industry more inclusive to Black designers. Of all these companies, I was most pleased with Kettle, who literally have a mapped out inclusion plan for the utmost racial and sexual inclusivity. It was a delight chatting with Alyssa Buono and Richard Sancho about Kettle’s pledge to end the pervasive and systemic racism rampant within the industry.

My biggest take away from this job fair was the opportunity to further expand my network by connecting with these prominent industry professionals. Also, I was glad to see that they are actually willing to connect and are responsive to questions and advise beyond the setting of a job fair.

1. I once heard someone say, “there are three things that are hard to find in New York, a house, a man and a job”, these words could not have been any truer for the last one. As my first-time venture within the professional world and my search for my first ever job as a graphic designer, I was oblivious to how laborious and quite honestly daunting this process can be. The start of my internship seach began with the creation of my resume and this was quite a hard process for me because I never had any prior solid work experience and therefore felt very insecure about my lack of professional experience and how that will more than likely play against me. I had done some freelance work for startup companies, but I was unsure if that would be recognized and acknowledged by potential employers. Also, as a graphic designer, I had to make sure that my resume reflected my line of work, meaning, I had to inject some design flair into it. I was advised to do so by professor, Tanya Goetz, as she explained it provides a preview of your skills to potential employers and further helps your profile standout amongst the competition.

Before the beginning of the semester, I connected with Professor Rebecca Riviera, a CUNY Advertising Professor and recruiter and her help has been much valuable and insightful ever since meeting her. Professor Riviera along with Professor Goetz helped me a lot with my resume and how to improve it even further to establish me as a strong candidate when internship hunting. Through my conversations with them, I got to understand how to better organize my resume by highlighting the most relevant information about me and my work as well as being as direct and concise as possible. After multiple back and forth and reviews, I finally got to a point where I was confident about my resume and the way it represented me.

2. Networking has been an essential part of my internship search, and LinkedIn is the place to be. Building my LinkedIn profile and network is one of the most important elements of networking because it allows me to connect with professionals from everywhere with whom I potentially share mutual interests and aspirations.  I got to connect with many of CityTech’s faculty and some have proven themselves to be very helpful. Thanks to Professor Riviera and her leads, I was able to apply to 21Grams, a marketing and advertising agency that specializes in healthcare. My application was well received by Phoenix Moore, the company’s Talent Acquisition Manager, with whom I interviewed. The interview was via phone call and simply put, that was one of the most nerve-wrecking moments of my life. I was so nervous that through out the whole interview, I was speaking with such a low and monotone voice and I am afraid I came as less enthusiastic. I am hoping that I get to the next level and get an interview with their art department as that is the one that is going to define if I am good fit for the company or not.

3. Unfortunately, the 21Grams opportunity went down the drain because my status as international student rendered me ineligible for the internship. Distraught, I did some research and discovered that international students are required to have a CPT, Curricular Practical Training to be allowed to legally work an internship in the United States. Since I don’t have that, I am therefore not allowed to get a paid internship, and this is especially disappointing because I was not made aware of that. On some good news, I got another interview with Angry Young, a startup marketing and advertising agency. The interview went quite well but I have to say that I was taking aback by some questions because they forced me to think deeply about my work in a way I have never really done before. I am hoping that this will lead to an internship because this seems like a place where l will learn a lot and elevate my skills further.

I recently got an update with Angry Young, they wanted to test me to see if I was a good fit but unfortunately, it was on such short notice as I had prior commitments to attend to. Now, I am left under the strong assumption that I might not get this internship because that test was a make it or break it factor to my application and since I could not take it, I think they will pass up on me. Luckily, I have a plan B and C, which are Women’s Press Collective and NYPIRG, the latter with whom I had a successful interview and was immediately accepted.