The First Step of a Professional Designer in the Real World

Interning at BMW Group + QUT Design Academy over the last 3 months with professional colleagues has been a special opportunity for me. The experience allowed me to learn and enhance not only my UX/UI and graphic hard skills, but also my personal and professional skills. It was challenging working in a new industry and learning new skills, however, it was rewarding and enabled me to experience a design project outside of the traditional classroom setting.

BMW Group gave us a brief to design and develop a working prototype for a UI/UX project. We started with detailed research and then created many different iterations and designs based on the feedback we received from BMW Group and Academy staff. My goal for the internship was to develop my design skills and learn from industry professionals. While I was initially very nervous about working on a project for BMW, I quickly overcame those feelings, and I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed my time as an Academy intern. The internship pushed me to use the skills I had learnt at University, plus acquire new skills along the way. Working in a pair with another intern, I was also able to see how important collaboration was as well as the benefit that teamwork can provide for learning new skills.

I consider this internship highly valuable, especially as my first design internship. I will certainly be able to use the skills I learnt during this internship in my future career, and I would encourage all other students to apply for the Academy Internship program.

Best regards,

Jun Kim
BMW Group + QUT Design Academy Intern, Semester 1 2021