Andrew McAlinney

Achievements: 1^st Class BA Honours, placement at Kin + Carta Connect & Freelance with Bearded Fellows
Progression to: Employment @ MAC Clinical Research

In joining our course Andrew had his sights set pretty high. He jumped onto
our top BA (hons) with an impressive portfolio (and qualifications to match),
but as a self-supporting mature student, recently settled in Manchester from Belfast,
he desperately needed a job to quickly follow his graduation.

Andrew’s fist unit was Professional Practice, an industry-supported unit,
centred around motion graphics. The unit is designed to be challenging and
demanding conceived through consultation with international digital design
experts Kin + Carta, the project being run my alumni Lisa Dale. Students benefit
from visiting their premises for a briefing, campus visits from Kin + Carta for
lectures and skills sessions. The unit concludes in final pitches at their
board room in competition for placement opportunities.

During these sessions’ students get a chance to make an impression on
Lisa’s team, which Andrew did – thoroughly answering the brief and taking it
further than Kin + Carta had expected… he went on to pick up a month’s
placement with them before the national Lockdown in April 2020. During Lockdown
Andrew secured himself several interviews, collaborated with Bearded Fellow’s
on two freelance projects (with one of his graduating peers) and was afforded
the unusual position of weighing up two job offers, before achieve his goal of
working and living in Manchester as a graphic designer with MAC Clinical Research.

“Honestly I’m gutted I haven’t been on the course since YR 1. The working environment’s been so much more personal, I’ve felt so much more encouragement here to do my best than I ever did on my previous course. You can really tell the difference going from being a number on a screen to a person.”

Andrew McAlinney