Playgroup

Mentor Me

A few months back I was kindly asked to be involved in a new initiative called "Mentor Me". It was set up in response to the lack of industry support for creatives in higher education. Mentor Me offers 10 graphic design students the chance to be paired up with 10 design professionals to help mentor them through their 3rd year giving them industry experience and helping them with the transition between being a design student and working commercially within the industry.

So far as Mentors we have met the students at 15 Queen Street in Colchester and gone through a 'speed dating' style concept with a show tell tell in order to meet some students. They all brought some great visual talking points with them from things they had made to drawings and I even received an Instagram inspired cupcake! The students then had to apply by reviewing the designated mentors, selecting their preference and submitting an application through our online web form and complemented by uploading photographs, illustrations, video, audio, animations and more. The winners have now been announced with all the pairings on the site. I was lucky enough to receive a number of applications so I was asked if Dan could also be involved as a mentor, he happily agreed and is now the Mentor of Laura Kerry and my lucky mentee is Katie Gisby!

Over the next week or so we will be meeting our mentees and going through the next stages. It's a project I'm very pleased to be part of and its nice to be able to give something back as I was in their exact same position 6-7 years ago. I know I would of really appreciated an opportunity like this and I'm sure it will be a rewarding process as a Mentor.

Check out the website.
www.mentorme.org.uk