PDW Reflection

15.03.2023 - 19.03.2023 (Week #8)

Seerat Tayyab Mukhtar Qureshi - 0345576 (BDCM)

Major Project

Professional Development Week Reflection

---

PDW Reflection:

This is my first time attending Professional Development Week at Taylor’s. I was looking forward to all the talks since some of them sounded really interesting. The more general talks were interesting too but I found the design-orientated one more intriguing. We were originally meant to start with financial literacy with Maybank, but the topic was changed last minute. I was slightly disappointed as the new topic was more about working in Maybank and not relevant to my field. However, I understand why the topic had to be changed and found it interesting to learn about how other industries work.

The LinkedIn webinar by Petronas was also quite useful because I am someone who doesn’t have much of a presence on the platform. The webinar was interactive as well so that added another level of connection and learning.

The webinars I found the most interesting and useful were the ones by CULTCREATIVE and Et Al Design. Cultcreative provided us with an in-depth overlook of their website and how it is tailored for creative careers. I really enjoyed learning about how it came to be. It was exciting to see all the opportunities you can have through that platform. As a designer, I do often feel that there aren’t many resources specifically tailored for us, so it was a refreshing change to see one that solely caters to the creatives. 

The Et Al talk was conducted by Phil Cleaver who is a renowned graphic designer. I enjoyed this webinar the most because he had a lot of experience in the design world and he shared it very openly. It was very inspiring because he began with his experiences as a youth and how he slowly developed his design sense. His works were super professional and really unique. It was a really hopeful and optimistic webinar in my opinion. It showed me that graphic design can be a long-term career and you can actually create long-term meaningful works.

I also attended another design talk by the University of Dundee Scotland. They were showcasing their student works and one of the projects heavily used AI-generated art. AI art is something I don’t really agree with at all because it is often unethically sampled. So, I was pretty shocked that they allowed and accepted that. However, I do understand that technology is continuously developing and changing. It’s okay to disagree with some practices and strive to make work in a responsible manner

After PDW, I do feel quite inspired. I enjoyed being exposed to different fields and industries. There were also a lot of unique perspectives from people in different parts of the world. Overall, I had a good time and definitely took away a lot from the experience. I look forward to practically apply my learnings from PDW in the future.