January 2021
Could you help mentor some of our students?
Can you remember being in your final year of your degree course? The stress, the late nights, the uncertainty – the relief when it’s over followed by the realisation… erm, what do i do now?! Now imagine being a final year student during a pandemic. Our current third years have been producing some amazing work, demonstrating enormous resilience in very difficult circumstances – but they need a bit of extra help. Most have been working alone and really miss the usual social interaction of being in the studio and chatting with tutors, visiting lecturers, graduates and guest speakers.This is where you come in. We’d like to build a mentoring network which allows you to pass on your knowledge and advice, whilst building their confidence. It might involve looking at their current projects, listening to their concerns, acting as a sounding board, reassuring, reflecting and possibly some frank conversation.
We’ll partner you with a student, which will then hopefully lead to a meaningful, long term dialogue. Whilst we don’t expect this will take up a lot of your time, we would suggest that a phone call or Zoom chat once a month until they finish in May would be a good starting point. We’ll provide you with guidance and we’ll clearly explain to our students what’s expected from them.
We’re looking for mentors from a wide range of backgrounds, levels and creative disciplines, not necessarily ‘pure' graphic design or illustration. You don’t need to have years of experience and you don’t need to be working for a high-profile firm. As long as you’ve been working professionally and feel that you might have some useful advice to pass on, we’d love to hear from you.
If you want to get involved, complete the form here︎︎. We’ll pair you up with one of our third year students who has similar interests. In turn, they will have to mentor one of our first and second year students, creating a hugely valuable support network during these tricky times. If you’ve got any questions, please Nick Lovegrove︎︎ the Programme Leader