Lara Federspiel and Matt Ahrens (S2 E8)

Hi everybody, welcome back to the inFLUX Podcast! My name is Corey West, and I am the newest addition to the inFLUX Team, serving as your Podcast Cohost to the one and only, my partner in crime: Belle Duffner. In today's episode Belle and I sat. down with Denise Pilar; the UX research expert and our newest addition to the SCAD UX faculty. Tune in as we talk about all things UX research, AI development, and more. And just remember, you can listen to previous and future inFLUX episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. —— Visit our website! www.scadflux.com And a shoutout to our sound designer! @meghann.rrose

Growing into yourself and your career role in an ever-changing fish pond can instill a lot of pressure. However, with acceptance, willingness, and moral passion, you can find much more dexterity to run your own race.  In this episode, we talked with our new SCAD UX Professor McLean Donnelly, and learned a few things about the hard and soft skills behind what makes a “good UX Designer,” and how we incorporate them throughout our career journey.  This episode is a wonderful introduction to gain some tactical insight into the tech world, or even just a fun listen to learn more about our new UX professor and his views and values.  —— Sound Designer: @meghann.rrose Visual & Social Media Designers: @ghalibicious @seth_stormberger

The good, the bad, and the ugly of interning--all answered by our five wonderful UX internship panelists: Vincent Lee, Erika Williams, Varalika Mishra, Jacky Lo, and Laura Lopez Andreu. This session was a special one because YOU the audience were able to participate and ask all your dire internship questions! So, a big thanks to all our lovely inFLUX fans.  All of our panelists are SCAD students, between Juniors or Seniors that have studied UX. For some, this is their first internship, for others, this process is nothing new. In this episode we cover the many hats a UX designer wears between internships; the diversity of job and coworker atmospheres and how to manage them; reaching out for interning mentorship, and the research that goes into learning about the position long before the interview.  --- Sound Designer: @meghann.rrose on Instagram Visual Designer & Socials: @ghalibicious, @seth_stormberger on Instagram

On Nico's and Varun's last episode before graduation, we are happy to say that we have a great guest to celebrate the end of an era. The guest is none other than Khoi Vinh, Design Director at Adobe. Khoi details his journey as a designer starting from Otis College of Art and Design to his time at The New York Times to his current position at Adobe. Varun and Nico also pick his brain on the difference between artists and designers as well as between generalists and specialists. Furthermore, Varun was excited to have Khoi on the podcast to talk about his love for movies and his blog, Subtraction. As the last episode of the quarter and 2021-2022 academic school year, this episode is unmissable and a farewell letter to everyone who has listened for so long. That said, I'm sure Nico and Varun will be back sometime or another.

Prior to this spring's FLUXathon, inFLUX hosted their first ever live conversation featuring two incredible IR student guests interviewed by the next's year amazing hosts. With the addition of audience interaction, this episode dives deep into the  intersection between IR and UX, a very topical talking point considering the increasing popularity of IR technology and the metaverse. Sit back and relax because there is a lot of information in this one.

This episode has been in the making since the very start of the podcast. It is with none other than our editor, Josh Willey. Josh is a SCAD Sound Design graduate that is now freelancing. He has been good friends with Varun for a few years now and this podcast would not have been possible with him. Listen to this episode to get the scope on how Josh joined the podcast, his experience at SCAD and his opinions on listening in on Varun and Nico for so many episodes.

Today is a special day because we will be introducing the new co-hosts for the coming 2022-2023 academic school year, Belle and Amadeus. Amadeus has been on the podcast before while it will be Belle's first time. Together, with Varun and Amadeus, inFLUX is bringing one of its longest episodes till date where we not only talk about the future of the podcast but its past too along with some fun new hot takes.

As the last episode of winter quarter, Nico and Varun bring on Lara and Matt, the new co-directors of FLUX for the upcoming academic year. Together, they talk about both their SCAD and FLUX journey up until now, while sharing some of the excitement for next year. The fun, goofy dynamic between Lara and Matt is not worth missing.

This delightful episode brings back SCAD alumnus Erin Imhof to talk about her journey post-SCAD in which she took some time off for herself and eventually ended up at Visual Logic as a User Experience Designer. Her story will resonate with a lot of seniors that are currently nervous for graduation and are hunting for jobs. Beyond her post-SCAD journey, Nico and Varun were able to dive deep into her amazing UX projects at SCAD which were not only impactful but amongst the most joyful projects seen by the department. A fun little bonus for our passionate listeners, Erin also happens to be our editor Josh's girlfriend, so tune in to hear how they met. 

For the first time in inFLUX history, Nico and Varun didn't have a guest on the show and had the fearsome task of just talking to each other. As scary as it was, they managed to have a fun time by diving into senior studio, talking about the elusive Nort (AKA @scadshed on Instagram), and ending the episode off with a conversation on the media they have been consuming. If you enjoyed this style of episode, let us know and there may yet be more to come.