Remote Internship Broadens Information Sciences Senior’s Experience

Rami Anguiano portrait in the i lab

Senior Rami Anguiano knew more hands-on experience in user experience (UX) design would help broaden her career opportunities after graduation, which is why the Vols Remote Internship Program was a great fit for the information sciences major.

“When I was looking at the internships, I was hoping for more experience. I do a lot of passion projects but with those you don’t have that deadline, so getting things done is hard,” she said, “And you’re not relying on anybody for any feedback, you’re relying purely on yourself.”

Anguiano wanted the opportunity to work with a team and learn how UX designers collaborate with others outside of the bubble of her classroom and passion projects. The Vols Remote Internship is a way to mutually benefit students and small organizations or agencies by expanding opportunities for students to conduct an internship remotely. 

In this case, the program connected Anguiano with Code.org, a Seattle-based nonprofit that expands access to computer science in schools. The student was tasked with creating a communication toolkit for Code.org’s initiatives, doing work such as designing handouts, social media posts, and digital screens that the organization would in turn share with its participating schools.

While this tapped into her graphic design skills, Anguiano also flexed her UX design knowledge when it came to how the toolkit would be shared with Code.org’s clients. She had to get a good understanding of the audience, what types of tools were accessible to the various schools, and how to create materials that could be shared and used sustainably. 

“I feel like in design we’ve been making a move to sustainability; my boss said, ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel.’ Sustainable design and thinking helps you get out of the pitfall of choice paralysis,” she explained. “For example, they had a badge for their district logo, and I would take that and add onto it a ribbon for certificates, just modify it slightly, so it would still be the branded identity. You can tell they have thought behind their assets, so why not reuse them and recreate them to match with their current needs?”

She used her UX knowledge to craft deliverables that were more inclusive and accessible for an online audience. She not only created multimedia products that were accessible to people with varying cognitive or physical differences, but she drafted guidelines for the organization to follow to ensure they continue to do so going forward. 

Her work so impressed the team at Code.org that they sent her to the  International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) annual conference in Denver, Colorado. This unique opportunity gave the information sciences major a peeak into how technology plays a role in K-12 education, and she networked there with professionals and companies.

Anguiano said she came away from the internship with a better understanding of how teams collaborate and how to better understand the needs of stakeholders and audiences. Even the parts of the internship that didn’t directly apply to her interest in UX, she translated to be applicable. For example, she was providing her team with a lot of options for designs but not getting any feedback. 

“We have A/B testing, that’s what we were taught—it’s not ABCDE and F testing. I realized my method of giving them too much information was overwhelming them and the reason I wasn’t getting the feedback I was looking for,” she said.

When grappling with a problem like that, Anguiano said she would reach out to either her Vols Remote Internship mentor or someone her mentor connected her with as part of the program. Anguiano said one of the best benefits of the Vols Remote Internship Program having an alumni mentor, who in her case was Andrew Todd (‘08), an alumnus of the Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations who is currently a product marketing advisor at Zebra Technologies in Nashville.

“It really helped talking to Andrew Todd. He was just great and he really went above and beyond, and I’m not just saying that out of formality. He was so intentional about what he wanted to help me with, but there’s only so much he could help me with and when it comes to technicalities, he had me talk to UX managers, UX people in corporate roles, and it was helpful to see where I was lacking in technical skills,” she said.

While Todd is not a UX designer, he understands the process a product undergoes from start to finish and the importance of UX in that process. He also works with a lot of people who do have UX roles and, as Anguiano said, connected her with them. 

“I gave her a list of people, and told her, ‘If you come up with the questions you want to ask to make these meetings meaningful, I’ll make these connections happen.’ She totally held up her end of it, she put together a list of questions and did her research,” Todd said. “She brought good questions, good energy, made the conversations flow—which to me showed a level of professional maturity that is refreshing.”

Besides leveraging his connections for Anguiano, Todd also assisted her with some soft skills to help the senior shape her resume and story. For example, Anguiano started out at Austin Peay State University as a music education major but made the switch her junior year to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and information sciences. Todd told her there’s a way to translate those skills and experiences she had in music education to what she does now, and how crafting that story can help with future employment.

“Rami is very impressive and I think she’s on the right track, as long as she keeps at it. Bringing good energy can be exhausting, but she does an awesome job,” he said. 

He said being a mentor has been beneficial for him in multiple ways. For one, he said it’s a chance for him to build managerial skills that he can showcase one day when he’s prepared to make a move for more responsibility in his career. And it got him to go outside of his normal bubble at work and speak to other people in his workplace who he didn’t interact with as much, helping him to expand his own network and understanding of workflows and roles at the company. 

“The program is awesome in terms of Devan and the whole team that facilitates it. They do an awesome job and it’s hard to believe it’s only in its second year, it feels like a fine-tuned machine. The more you can get the word out about it, it’s hugely valuable to the participants,” he said. 

Click here if you are interested in supporting being a mentor or participating in the Vols Remote Internship Program.