why mentor?
Youth Design Interns bring enthusiasm, intelligence, fresh ideas, and make valuable contributions to their workplaces.
Energize your workforce with community outreach!
Connect with some of your area's most highly motivated and talented kids.
Help grow your community's creative workforce—give back to and promote the creative profession!
what's involved?
Planning Work
Ideally, the intern’s job will be a balance of work that is useful to you and your firm, and engaging and educational for the intern (work is considered engaging when an intern can clearly make a connection between their tasks and your firm’s products and services). We encourage you to try to outline such connections, especially when interns are doing what they may perceive as “busy work”. If you are having trouble finding specific tasks for your intern, here are some suggested educational activities that you can use:
- Job Shadowing—Allow the intern to spend time observing and interviewing different staff members about their job responsibilities
- Research Projects—Develop projects where interns can research different aspects of design
- Professional Development Assignment—The Professional Development Series encourages ongoing educational assignments, which are to be completed by the interns during their hours at the firm. These will be ongoing personal projects that interns can have as a physical product of their summer’s work. You should allow your intern to work independently on their professional development assignment, but also make time to guide, assist and give advice.
- Portfolio Piece—Interns may also work with their mentors to design a piece for their portfolio. Any advice or ideas on how to create comprehensive portfolio pieces, as well as interview tips will be helpful to the intern.
- Resumé Design—Interns can work on a resumé that demonstrates design competence and may serve as a tool for future career development. Supervisors should assist interns in this project. It is a good way to help them develop their design skills.
