It’s been a busy first quarter here at Designlab! Our internal team, mentor roster, and student community has grown over the past year, and with it our capacity for improvements. Read on to discover more about what’s changed in our admissions process, opportunities for the community to gather and grow together, and in-platform updates to things like dynamic instructions, submissions, and capstones.
New: The Student Life Committee
The Student Life Committee (SLC) was born this quarter as a student-led initiative that intends to help promote and increase engagement throughout the UX Academy community. The committee currently has 20+ student and alumni volunteers who are maintaining subcommittees with different initiatives like content, design, events, and alumni. Two exciting monthly events focused on networking and learning are already being hosted by this committee: Virtual Field Trips and Empower Hours.
During Virtual Field Trips, students attend design-related events together and then participate in a Take-Away Talk to discuss their learnings and experiences from the virtual event.
Two different types of Empower Hours are held monthly as meet and greet virtual events. The first is held at the end of each new cohort’s first week, and all members of the UX Academy community are encouraged to attend, including mentors and alumni. These are great opportunities for new students to make connections with current students.
The second Empower Hour is a lunch-and-learn that can be hosted by anyone in the community. The topic can be design-related or not, but is meant to encourage learning and foster relationships through common interest.