School: By Design gives students a chance to make a difference in their school. Source: nolaclutterbustersGetting our youth involved in design mentoring programs is one of our goals with our Designing the Next Generation initiative, which is why we often use our blog as an opportunity to share mentoring success stories.

One unique program that we wanted to mention is School: By Design, which pairs under-served high school students up with mentors that are either in college or design professionals. Through this one-of-a-kind program, the students will collaborate with their mentors to redesign their schools, which will in turn expose them to architecture, industrial design, graphic design, environmental graphics, interactive design, illustration, and photography. Ultimately, these disciplines encourage creativity and new ways of thinking about things, which will be useful skills that the students will be able to use throughout their lives.

The overall goal of this six week program is to get the students thinking outside of the box about solutions to problems and challenges that currently exist within their schools and finding ways to address them. Together, the teams will work to develop solutions that not only will improve the quality of learning that students will receive in the classroom, but also in the local community as well.

To conclude the program, students will be able to exhibit their design plans in a public venue to help share their vision with peers, school administrators, and the local community. As mentors, there is so much that we can learn from this experience, and getting our youth involved and excited about the world of design is key to a successful future. To learn more about how you can participate in this program, please complete and submit the registration form to Worldstudio.

To learn more about design mentoring programs, please contact us at the Over My Shoulder Foundation! We also invite you to SHARE your mentoring success stories!