2019–20 was another jam-packed year for us — we held over 40 events, ranging from workshops to socials to large-scale events like Design Frontiers and Stride. This past year was also filled with a lot of “firsts” as we continued to build an inclusive community of student designers. With the 2020–21 school year fast approaching, we wanted to highlight all the new events and initiatives that were launched.
September 2019 — Rebrand
We kicked off Fall Quarter by launching a full rebrand of our organization. We changed our name, brand, visual identity, and we updated our mission statement and values. You can read more about our rebrand here.
October 2019 — Design Buds
We introduced Design Buds, a student-to-student mentorship program for those who wanted to better integrate into the design community at UCSD. Over the course of a year, our design buds community has grown to over 150 members strong.
November 2019 — Women in Design Panel
Even with current development in workplace diversity, women still struggle to hold their place in design. Nastasha Tan (Head of Design @ Uber ATG), Teena Singh (UX Strategist @ ServiceNow), and Caitlin Flint (Design Lead @ Intuit) came to UCSD and spoke to students about their career journey and inclusion in the workplace. This was our first event aimed at a specific demographic group and open to the general public.
November 2019 — Portfolio Day
Student designers came out of this event with a stronger understanding of the importance of a portfolio, what should go on it, how to write a case study, and so much more. A guest from Webflow came and taught students how to use the program and create a customized portfolio.
February 2020 — Design Co Fellowship
We created our Design Co Fellowship to showcase three students (Syed Adam Emir Putra, Braeanne Oribello, Tanish Jinal) who have been a part of Design Co for a while and have grown through the design community. Fellows were able to attend our annual Bay Area Trip with us to see the day-to-day life as a designer in various companies, including Instagram, Square, Workday, IDEO, Uber ATG, and Figma. You can read more about our experiences here.
April 2020 — Community Page
As Spring Quarter kicked off, we launched our community page. Inspired by Blacks Who Design and Women Who Design, this page is an online directory aimed to connect all UCSD student designers and alumni with each other. Our goal is to cultivate a vibrant community where people can share their work, build new relationships, look for mentors, and so much more. You can check it out here.
April-June 2020 — Virtual Office Hours
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to suspend in-person GBMs during Spring Quarter and replace it with a virtual office hours series. These events were meant to be more casual and were centered around a different topic each week. Over 10 weeks, students were able to attend events like Democratizing Design Resources, Portfolio Critiques, Job Hunting Tips with Design Recruiters, Adobe Effects Tutorial, Prototyping with Figma, and much more. Job Hunting Tips with Design Recruiters also marked our first ever cross-campus event, bringing attendees from colleges across the country.
June-September 2020 — Level Up
To help students who may have lost their summer internships due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched Level Up, a 10-week summer design program. This summer, we hosted 20 student designers and 8 industry mentors. With the guidance of 2 mentors, each team of five worked together to develop an innovative solution to a real-world challenge, ranging from helping small businesses recover to improving the voting experience. You can check out the projects here.
Looking Forward
Thank you to all our student members and corporate sponsors who have made this year nothing short of amazing! As we continue into this new school year, one of our top priorities is to hold events centered on diversity and inclusion. To do so, we’re focusing our efforts on reaching out to those who come from different backgrounds and being more intentional with the speakers we invite. We also plan on taking advantage of Fall Quarter being online by continuing to host more industry-related events and cross-campus collaborations.
We’re looking forward to meeting you all (virtually) this year!
