Our campus is supported by our extraordinary Student Assistants – come meet them for yourself! We wanted to give them a spotlight as they are working hard behind the scenes to ensure our faculty and students are supported within the building.
This is part two of our Student Assistant spotlight series that will be brought to you throughout March! We have several types of Student Assistant positions throughout our campus such as Communications and Event Assistants, Lab Coordinator Assistants, Research Assistants, and the Mindful Campus Ambassadors.
In this issue, we will be highlighting the Communications and Event Assistants who work in supporting the Wilson School of Design Social Media channels and on-campus events. We will also be highlighting the Research Assistants who support specialized projects in our school community!
We asked our Student Assistants the following questions:
- What is your role as a student assistant? What is your favourite part about your role?
- What made you choose your particular design focus?
- What is your dream job?
- Out of all the projects you have completed in your program, which one has been your favourite and why?
We hope you enjoy getting to know our Student Assistants!
COMMUNICATIONS AND EVENTS
Sarah Collister — Fashion and Technology, Second-Year
Communications and Events
What is your role as a student assistant? What is your favourite part about your role?
I work as a Student Assistant with the Communications and Events team. We manage the social media, websites, school events, and most importantly share the stories within the school community! My favourite part of this role is meeting and celebrating the students, faculty, and alumni of the Wilson School of Design through our social accounts such as this very blog post!
What made you choose your particular design focus?
For as long as I’ve known I’ve loved to sew and design clothing. Fashion Design was a hobby and activity I’d do for free, I figured I’d try my best to make a career and life out of it. I found the Wilson School of Design a few years before I graduated high school and made it my mission to attend for the Fashion and Technology Program. Well… here I am!
What is your dream job?
I like to think I have many “dream” level jobs ahead of me. I hope to be a fashion designer, but I’d also like to work in colour and raw materials, as a patternmaker, maybe dress a celebrity or work on a movie set!
Out of all the projects you have completed in your program, which one has been your favourite and why?
My favourite project I’ve completed so far was my International Designer Project from my Fashion Theory and Process 1 course last term. I explored the design styles of Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad and created a design to fit into his collection! The project was super creative and we were given free rein over what to make; my classmates’ projects are shown in a reel on the WSD Instagram. You can check out my other projects at @svcoutfitters!
Sarah Nelson — Graphic Design for Marketing, First-Year
Communications and Events
What is your role as a student assistant? What is your favourite part about your role?
I am a Student Assistant for Communications and Events. In this position, I get to assist in sharing information through all the Wilson School of Design’s different media channels. We help to promote events, share stories, and communicate directly with faculty, staff, current students and potential students. My favourite part of my role is coming up with creative ideas to increase the reach of our social media accounts.
What made you choose your particular design focus?
Before I became a GDMA student, I was in the Foundations in Design program.
Throughout the FIND program, I got to try a wide variety of design types, but I always seemed to enjoy the graphic design projects the most. I love the process of problem-solving through visual communication.
What is your dream job?
My idea of my dream job is constantly evolving as I get to try different types of graphic design. That said, I have always had an interest in working in graphic design for film. There is such a vast variety of project types to work on in that industry.
Out of all the projects you have completed in your program, which one has been your favourite and why?
My favourite project was when I got to design a tourist guide for Vancouver. I loved the challenge of creating a map that was both detailed enough to follow, yet simple enough to not confuse the reader. It allowed me to visualize the area in a completely new way as I came up with simplified icons for the places that I see every day.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
Irene Lu — Technical Apparel Design, Second-Year
Research Assistant
What are you currently working on as a research assistant?
Review textile equipment and manuals, compile operation tutorials and signage.
What made you choose your particular design focus?
I value products being practical/technical/functional over fashionable. The Technical Apparel Design program at WSD was the only program I could find that focused on technical apparel at the time.
What is your dream job?
Work in product development or material team for a company that I can align my values with.
Out of all the projects you have completed in your program, which one has been your favourite and why?
This is a hard one, but if I absolutely must choose then perhaps the snow sports outerwear project in the Strategic Design class. It was a type 2 fun kind of project – challenging yet rewarding. Working with an unfamiliar activity, pushing myself through rapid prototyping, planning and conducting usability tests. This project was almost a summary of all the skills I learnt in my first year, and through it I saw how much progress I’ve made and it was a great feeling.
Klara Joubert —Product Design, Third-Year
Research Assistant
What is your role as a student assistant? What is your favourite part about your role?
Currently, I am involved in 2 projects. The first one entails working with my awesome fellow RA (shoutout Irene). We are slowly but surely cataloging all the equipment in the materials testing lab, and creating video tutorials for how to use the equipment so that more students can use the equipment for projects and personal development! Secondly, I have been working on a research project in collaboration with UBC where we are looking into promoting the circular economy of cellulose material in BC. We aim to do this through engineering/creating man-made cellulose fibers (MMCFs) that perform better than cellulose fibers currently available on the market! The project is 3 years long and is currently at UBC, but will be back at KPU in a few months!
What made you choose your particular design focus?
It’s actually a funny story! All throughout high school, my teachers encouraged me to take science-based subjects, as they were my strengths. Generally, students were discouraged from pursuing creative arts in school, as there aren’t as many stable jobs in that field in South Africa. In light of that, I never took an art class past grade 8! When the time came to apply to university, I was all set to apply for marine biology. At the last minute, I changed my direction and applied for commerce, psychology, creative arts, theatre, and interior design (quite the mixed bag of applications – I know). I was accepted to my top choices of programs (including interior design at KPU) but I didn’t feel right about it in my gut. Two hours before I had to submit my decisions, I was frantically googling “University degree I can apply to today,” desperately looking for another option. I looked again at WSD’s website as I was weighing my options and spotted the Product Design page. I must have skimmed past it when I initially applied. I phoned the Product Design office and asked if they could take a look at my Interior Design portfolio (which was bleak at best, considering my lack of art in high school). Ruffino (whom I now think of as my guardian angel) contacted Interior Design and received my application shortly before the deadline! Long story short, I ended up transferring to Product Design – all thanks to last-minute intuition!
What is your dream job?
This is a question I’m sure every student ponders often, and to be completely honest with you – I’m not sure yet! There are so many amazing opportunities and jobs in Vancouver (and across the world) that it feels hard to know where to start. I am interested in social innovation design and research/innovation within that context. I would like any student to know that if you’re not 100% sure what you want to do or where you want to go – you’re not alone! It can be scary, but sometimes the unknown leads you right where you need to be.
Out of all the projects you have completed in your program, which one has been your favourite and why?
I am currently working on a team project in my Studio class where we are designing clean-air shelters for wildland firefighters. Even though we have just entered the ideation/conceptualization phase, I can already tell this is one of my favourite projects that I have worked on! We have had the opportunity to do in-depth research to understand the problem: guest speakers from BC Wildfire Services have shared their insights, material specialists have weighed in, and filtration experts have given us an overview of the technical side of things. We have also had a collaborative class with KPU Fine Arts students, and a guided workshop (by Liz Toohey-Weis) where we worked with charcoal collected from wildfires and painted with paint made from wildfire ash. I have attached an image of how we were able to use these medias to understand the environment we are designing for, and how these medias may interact with our chosen materials. I’m excited for the next steps in the project and look forward to seeing our final design! I think I love this project so much because we have the opportunity to hear from so many different people affected by the problem, and our design stands a chance to seriously improve the quality of life by those affected by wildfire smoke.
Learn more about our dynamic programs here.
