WIT’s Head of Careers and design lecturers at WIT worked closely with students to help them realise promotional and professional opportunities
WIT’s Head of Careers, Angela Collins has won an employability award for work carried out with art and design students.
Each year the Association of Higher Education Career Services (AHECS ) in Ireland encourage Career Services nationwide to recommend initiatives for the AHECS Employability Award. This award recognises initiatives which enhance the employability of higher education students or graduates through careers education, information advice or guidance.
Empowering students to produce Art Degree Career Handbook
This year Angela Collins, Head of Careers and Careers Advisor at WIT submitted the work she carried out with Art and Design Students which was a coordinated programme of employability initiatives for Art and Design Students targeted at career research, industry networking and providing valuable opportunities for their work to be published and exhibited.
“I was delighted and honoured to receive the AHECS Employability Award for 2019. It was a great experience working on this project with Lorenzo Tonti, Design lecturer, Sheila Naughton, retired lecturer, Oren Little one of our graduates and the students who gave 100%,” says Collins.
As part of the project, students designed an 82-page guide entitled Art Degree Career Handbook and also designed a series of posters promoting the careers centre and the services they provide.
Opening up opportunities
Lorenzo Tonti outlines how head of the Careers Centre at WIT, Angela Collins initiated a project to tease out the problems which art and design students face in gaining employment. “As creative practitioners, there are many opportunities available to them which they may not be aware of. The solution was twofold: to undertake a student project with design lecturers (Lorenzo Tonti and Sheila Naughton) to design a series of posters advertising careers in art and design, and to design an information booklet for graduates,” he explains.
The booklet was designed by Lorenzo Tonti as a collaboration with undergraduate students. This gave the students an invaluable insight into the process of Professional Design Practise.
“It taught them how to communicate information in the most effective and creative way. Both communication and problem solving skills were acquired by the students in the realisation of the project,” he adds.
A selection of posters and the booklet were subsequently used at open days and at career conferences on the WIT stand.
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