UX Internship 2023
Co-leading and kicking off Virtru’s 2023 UX team internship
I worked alongside a UX Researcher to kick off a design internship at Virtru for 2023. We tackled the process by working with our internal recruiter to create and post a job description, all the way through supporting our intern for his final presentation.
This was an 10-week internship in the summer of 2023 that I helped plan, manage, and lead.
My Role
Co-Manager
Design Lead
Mentor
Project Manager
Planner
Responsibilities
Project Scoping
Project Planning
Recruiting
Interviewing Candidates
Process Planning
Timeline Planning
Project Details
Duration: 10 weeks
Teammates: UX Researcher, HR Recruiter
Collaborators: SVP of Product
Planning
Timeline & Activities
In addition to writing a job description, interviewing candidates, and working with product management to find a suitable project the UX Researcher and I collaborated to create a detailed plan and timeline for the internship program. We knew we wanted our intern to do a full design process, from the initial idea to the design handoff.
Our planning document was divided between a more exploratory research phase and the design phase, which I actively managed.
Reflecting
Teaching Moments
The UX Researcher and myself, when we thought about our internship experiences, a common theme kept coming up. The time went so fast, and we were so busy that it wasn’t until after the internship that we had time to reflect on what we had done and learned. After the fact, context was lost, and we didn’t have access to our mentors as easily either.
To help alleviate this as a manager, I held weekly one-on-ones with our intern. During this time, the focus was geared more toward how he was feeling, and I would spend time going over what happened during the week and what he could learn or take away from it. This included reflecting on meetings, tactics I took dealing with stakeholders, what worked, what didn’t, and how he felt about each step of the design process.
Reflection Workshop
Additionally, the UX Researcher and I held a workshop at the end of the internship to reflect on the overall experience. We wanted to help take our intern through the exercise shown and have him talk about his experience and categorize the highs and lows.
The next step for our intern was to start looking for his first design job. This exercise was meant to help him better explore where he might want to start his design career as well as evaluate strengths and weaknesses.
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