Mentoring adventure

In response to this little red robin, I spent this afternoon with two lovely people who have encouraged and motivated me since my first day at university...Christine Kingsley and Louise Valentine

To give a little background information 'Design Studies' is a module in the undergraduate Product Design and Interactive Media Design Course at the University of Dundee. Design History Theory and Practice is also a part of this module.There are many wonderful characters involved in the running of this module, who all have different backgrounds and interesting stories to tell...

I could chatter and type about Design Studies forever....I believe Design Studies is all about thinking, learning and understanding. Becoming more 'worldly aware', learning how to work as part of team and recognise the strengths of others. Learning about the 'social responsibility' of being a designer today and the importance of multi-disciplinary collaboration. Learning how to recognise your skills, your process and way of learning/thinking. Keeping sketchbooks, presenting, collating,story-telling, reading,writing, reflecting and visualising...most importantly - realising where and how design fits into the real world - it is all extremely good stuff :)

I am so excited I am going to be part of it all again :) Myself and my classmate Giorgio Giove are going to be working within the Visual Expression module. The end article the students have to create is a magazine article for the Guardian Newspaper.

This opportunity is a peer learning experience. We will be guiding students...teaching them and learning from them. Tutorials, presentations, surgeries and managing processes and people.

It is very exciting and I am really looking forward to this experience! I have to really think about what I want to get out of it, how I can leave my mark on the students' minds and what I want to learn from it all :)

I downloaded Tony Buzan's iMindMap software today, I created a mind map to summarise the meeting today.  The website describes it as 'software that helps you think'. I like that. I am testing out the free trail...so we shall see how I compare it to lovely pen and paper in the end...

A definition that made me smile ( thanks to Jennifer Mackie): Read - er 1. a person who reads 2. a book of collected or assorted writings.