When Priya first walked into Emerson’s design studio as a first-year student, she assumed she’d spend most of her degree behind a screen. Three years later, a summer internship with a local product studio changed that assumption completely.
“I was expecting to shadow people and make coffee,” she laughs. “Instead, within the first two weeks I was sitting in client meetings and sketching concepts on the whiteboard.” The experience pushed her to rethink her senior thesis, shifting it from a purely digital project to a physical product redesign informed by real user interviews she’d conducted on the job.
Her professors noticed the change too. “Priya came back from that internship asking sharper questions,” says one faculty mentor. “She wasn’t just designing for a grade anymore — she was designing for people.”
Priya graduates this spring and has already accepted a full-time design role at the same studio where she interned. Her advice to incoming students: “Say yes to the opportunity that scares you a little. That’s usually the one that teaches you the most.”
