By Loren Taylor, 2021
Despite having a relatively short contribution to the project, in just four weeks it has been a pleasure to learn and work through different elements of the role. Aside from the design aspects of the project, I have had the opportunity to consult with groups of both students and industry professionals, which has been invaluable in building my confidence with having a leadership position within a group session. It was particularly useful and interesting to hear from staff within the higher education sector, specifically, the different areas of the project concepts that I possibly wouldn’t have thought about before. Also, financial implications of making impactful design decisions. I am equally grateful to have had the support of my mentor, Hiral Patel, who was an approachable guide that I was able to work with and learn from week-by-week. Although the internship has been based online, she has consistently ensured that I had clarity and a vision for where the project was going and how it was developing. However, I feel that I could have immersed myself into the project and developed it further if I had been given a longer time frame for the internship. In addition, the experience would have been more reflective of the working world if efforts could have been made to facilitate some face-to-face hours, with the implementation of face coverings and any necessary measures, as regulations had begun to ease before the time that the internship had commenced.
