Creative Stockport Students Given Real World Experience

Students at Stockport College are set to experience genuine workplace learning without leaving the classroom – thanks to a design agency’s decision to move their entire workforce into the college as part of a GMSA funded project.

30 BA Honours Graphic Design students are working with design company, Thoughtful, and a chosen six will produce a Rough Guide to the Creative Industries when the company completes the move in January. The guide will be aimed at 14-19-year-olds considering a future career in the sector.

One student, Carrie Tate, 20, from Stockport, said: “We are working on real projects; it’s like work experience, college and a job all rolled into one. It makes what we have already learnt on the course seem a bit more real.”

James Corazzo, the course tutor, said they have been given a unique opportunity to develop the employability skills most students cannot: “Each of them was absolutely blown away by the opportunity.

“The core benefit is having a fully functioning design agency working in the department. The students get to see the reality of the design business; they understand the key skills and attitudes needed to succeed; they also begin to see designers as ordinary accessible people. So far they have responded brilliantly.”

“The initial impetus actually came from my growing frustration in trying to find good work placements for design students. I started to wonder whether I could reverse the dichotomy – rather than place a load of students in design agencies, could a design agency could do a placement at the college; essentially creating a real world experience within the walls of the college?”

The project has mutual benefits for both Thoughtful and the students, according to James Graham at Thoughtful. He said: “We are interested in finding new and different ways of doing business – from the ideas we generate, to how we work with our clients.

“The college came to us because they were looking for an agency that could work like this. When they initially told us of the placement idea, it immediately struck a chord with us.

“The original plan was for us to attend college for one day per week, but we felt we could commit to a bit more than that, so proposed that we move Thoughtful into college full time.

“As far as we know, this has never been done before. We’ve never heard of an agency packing up and moving into a college or university.

“Thoughtful is nearly two years old now but we have the same three people we had on day one. This will certainly change the dynamics of the studio, and will force us to adapt to managing a bigger team a lot faster than we would have done naturally.

“We’ve no doubt that getting out of our comfort zone now will be hugely beneficial to us in the long run. Hopefully by the end of the placement we’ll have learnt as much as the students have.”

The Rough Guide to the Creative Industries will outline education and career pathways in the sector, supporting the GMSA Pathways online enquiry service which gives vocational learners access to higher education opportunities in all sectors.