Andrew McAlinney
Achievements: 1st 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
Kin + Carta Connect Project Below:
