Auburn University’s School of Industrial and Graphic Design will be making an extended home in Mobile, Alabama, this coming fall with a unique internship experience for its students.
Futures Studio, as the program is being dubbed, will be a new opportunity for Auburn students to gain internship experience while enrolled in the college. Students will have the privilege of working as designers for local companies in Mobile.
This studio joins two other studios available to students in Birmingham and Newbern, Urban Studio and Rural Studio, respectively. The studio is considered a satellite institution of Auburn University.
The design majors at Auburn University are strictly planned out by each semester, so it is important that the Futures Studio program will not push back any student's graduation date, as it works with their schedule. That is one of the selling points for the innovative experience.
Fifteen third-year students will be making the port city their home as they take part in the Futures Studio beginning this fall, with another 15 succeeding them the following semesters.
"The program was designed to give design students real-world experience," Auburn University professor Randall Bartlett said.
The program will take place in the newly opened Fuse Factory in Downtown Mobile in Government Plaza. The building is an office space available for nonprofit businesses. The Futures Lab program is planned to have its own space within the building.
Students taking part in the program would move south to Mobile for the semester and be taught by visiting Auburn professors.
“[The city is] extremely excited that Auburn University is willing to make a commitment, an investment in Downtown Mobile,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said.
Mobile was chosen for the new studio destination because of its growingly progressive attitude, according to Bartlett.
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Mikayla Burns, senior in journalism and Spanish, is managing editor of The Auburn Plainsman.
