The Fourth Year

My favorite time of year is here, it’s finally time for a little self-reflection over my past 365 days on earth. Lucky for me they were very eventful so I have a lot to share. I last left off telling you about my spring 2018 semester where I took my first steps into the realm of branded and interactive experiences with my project ZenSpace.

From there I worked at Landor, a marketing consultancy in downtown Cincinnati, as a brand experience intern. That internship really pushed my mental and emotional limits as a designer, but it really taught me a lot about myself and how I handle stress and anxiety. It made even more apparent where I begin to falter a professional environment, both communication and self-confidence. I’ve realized that I have a hard time saying no to extra work and I have asking for help with work, which is a dangerous combination ending in overtime and stress. This can also lead to my self-confidence in my abilities crumbling because I, and I alone, hold myself to unrealistically high expectations. But, it also taught me a lot about how to apply existing skills effectively and how to learn new skills quickly to create an even better design/experience. Speaking of which, take a look at the intern project I completed during my time there. All in all, my time at Landor was very impactful for both me and my career and I am forever grateful because I grew tremendously from the experience.

After Landor, I had about a week to decompress before moving to the Netherlands. Woo! I lived abroad for roughly 6 months and loved every second of it. You can read the full reflection here. I grew so much from living abroad. The longer I was there, the more I saw, the more I learned, and it really helped to put living and growing up in the U.S. into perspective for me. It pushed me to acknowledge the best, the worst and the ugliest parts of American culture and the role they play in my life. Studying abroad was definitely a humbling experience that forced me to come to terms with the bubble that I grew up in, to go outside of my comfort zone, to recognize my privilege, to understand what I value most in my life. This gave me the perspective necessary to actively try and begin making a change, starting with myself.

Next stop on the 2018-2019 year tour is co-op number four in a place affectionately coined the steel city, Pittsburgh, PA! I’m currently wrapping up my time here Pittsburgh and it is a bittersweet farewell to say the least. I’ve been posing at a resident Pitt student all semester and have had a blast, but it has also made me appreciate UC and my time that much more. I have also had the opportunity to intern at a very cool experiential marketing firm called Deeplocal and let’s just say they take the maker slogan “Make cool sh*t.” to a whole ‘nother level. See a project I worked on here. I have to say, I am starting to see a pattern across all of my co-op experiences. (Spoiler alert, it’s not that they are all crazy cool companies that have provided great experiences, even though they are.) It is that I never fail to second guess myself and my capabilities. I could be thriving at a company and all it takes is a little whisper in the back of my head that snowballs into self-doubt. Doubt that I’m not doing work quickly enough, or that I’m not communicating well enough, or that I’m not doing a good job. Its this dark little spiral that starts with me comparing myself or my work to another and ends with me questioning my worth as a designer and as an intern. Heavy, right? Well, what I can say is that I can see this coming from a mile away now and I would like to think that I am beginning to get a grasp on identifying it and stopping it in its track. But, it’s all a work in progress. Everything is a work in progress.

I’ve learned a lot over these past four years. But, that may just be the biggest takeaway, everything truly is a work in progress. There used to be a poster in DAAP that said, “the work is never finished.” This poster used to really upset me because what an unfair standard to set. I am supposed to be consistently working towards this unachievable finish line? The finish line seems to be a step away, but I can never quite reach it? That seems . . . unfair. What I have come to realize is that it is important to control my perception of what it means to be finished. I can decide to be finished. There is always the opportunity to return and pick up where I left off or I can choose to be done. Forget the others, my finish line isn’t their finish line. The saying is run your own race for a reason and I literally just got that. Wow, who knew.

Anywho, I will try to constantly remind myself of this as I move forward. Check back next year to see if it worked! Speaking of, this time next year I will have one more co-op under my belt and will be wrapping up my last year of undergrad. Wild! Can’t wait to see how that ends up, until then catch ya on the flippity flop.
 

Until next year,
Alexis Begnoche