Students Lead Summer Shareout

At the beginning of the fall semester, the Institute of Design witnessed an inspiring student-led initiative called Summer ShareOut. This event, organized by Tanvi Waghray (MDes 2025) and Sanjana Kumar (MDes 2025), provided a platform for students to share their summer internship experiences, job searches, and project insights with their peers.

The event showcased a variety of internship experiences across different sectors:

Apple: Human Interface Systems Design

Tanvi Waghray shared her experience as a Human Interface Systems Designer at Apple. Her internship involved:

• Deep exploration of Apple’s design systems
• Working on pixel-perfect designs for components used by billions
• Contributing to design system practices to improve workflows
• Fostering effective cross-functional collaboration

Tanvi emphasized the culture of curiosity at Apple, the responsibility of decision-making, the importance of precision in design, and the value of effective collaboration between designers and engineers.

Taiwan Immersion Program

Samantha Chandra participated in the Taiwan Immersion Program (TIP), sponsored by the Far Eastern Group. This six-week design project in Taipei involved:

• Immersive collaboration between the ID team, Professor Martin Thaler, fellow students Bhavani Shivaram Prasad and Han Wen (Vanessa) Chang, and the in-house innovation team, Drive team members, of the Far Eastern Group in Taipei.
• Research and development of a service blueprint for wellness and mental health service.
• Collaborative workshop with client teams.
• Presentation to the President of Far EasTone Telecommunication.

UChicago Medicine: Service Design

Sanjana Kumar worked as a Service Designer at UChicago Medicine, collaborating with Kim Erwin (Associate Professor of Healthcare Design and Director of the Equitable Healthcare Lab) and Meghna Prakash (Assistant Director and Design Researcher at the Equitable Healthcare Lab) to design for postpartum care and patient education.

Other Internships

• Robbie King (MDes 2025), User Researcher and Innovation Strategist, Sound Transit
• Michael George (MDes + MBA 2025), Experience Designer and Project Manager, Institute for Translational Medicine
• Amulya Kaipa (MDes + MBA 2025), Project Strategy and Design Intern, Institute of Indic Wisdom 
• Andrew Russell (MDes 2025), Strategist, Myriad Genetics
• Yuhan Ke (MDes 2025), UX Designer, Inclusive Data Lab
• Daniela Vélez (MDes + MBA 2025), Strategic Initiatives Intern, Institute of Design

Students shared various approaches to securing internships:

• Early and widespread applications
• Networking and reaching out to professionals in target companies
• Building connections within desired industries