Northwestern University
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications wanted to do something a little different for their 2021 Graduate Student Orientation.
Akeya Porter, one of the event coordinators, said that the goal was to bring something new, cool, and exciting to the orientation event, and she thought that visual notes were exactly what was needed to deliver that goal.
The student orientation was split up into two parts – one in-person, and one virtual. And Akeya reports that the students were super excited by the visual notes!
“We missed being in-person with our students, so seeing the in-person notes come to life with our group was great. The artist was set up off to the side of the speakers, and during breaks, students were able to get up to look at the visual notes to take pictures.”
Akeya Porter, Assistant Director of Career Management
Sometimes clients can be apprehensive about the presence of our visual note-takers next to the speakers. This is what Akeya had to say about that:
“In person, the visual notes were not intrusive at all. It was like she was integrated into the orientation, but not disruptive.”
Visuals are a powerful translation tool
Medill also has a large number of international graduate students in their program, and they wanted to help these students more easily connect to and remember content from the orientation. Sometimes if English is your second language, it’s not always easy to keep up with presentations.
Akeya’s team finds that visuals help these ESL students connect better to the presentation content and more easily decipher the information.
Visual notes are reliable, even in uncertain circumstances
While the in-person visual notes were a huge hit with Medill’s students, part two of their event was held virtually. Not a problem for our visual note-takers, as we can easily screen share digital notes in practically any online meeting platform. For part two of this event, they chose to share the visual notes during breaks for students to review after each presentation.
Visuals add value even after events end
Medill has the in-person visual notes on display in their student lounge where students can refer back to them, so what was discussed in these orientation sessions is always present. Medill also found the visual notes useful for supporting another event they hosted, where they brought the boards in to help inspire discussion on a new topic.