I am currently taking my time to define my research topic. I am aiming to select a research that resonates with my interests, that can add value to my practice (MA’s Fashion Design Management), specific enough, feasible, and related to social/racial justice.

Within my personal experience at the FBS, I’ve noticed how the students struggle to find a placement or a job once they finish their studies. They are very well prepared, with a high level of knowledge and eager to work. However, at the end of the year there are always some students who reach out for help to start their professional career.

At the same time, the UAL and the FBS are offering multiple options to create interactions with companies to increase the networking among the students and with professionals. Few of these options are: Graduate Futures, the Mentoring Network, different industry projects throughout the year… I wonder if the students are fully aware of all these opportunities and if they are able to define goals which will help once they start their professional career.

A very high percentage of the students move to London for the first time, they start working while they study, they have multiple projects to work on during their MA’s year and in addition they should be thinking about their professional futures. My aim would be to make MA’s FDM students’ journey easier, to empower them, to help them with their inclusion in the university as well as with their future employability by offering a clear “one page” guideline which contains all the possibilities that the University offers in terms of networking. In addition I would like to go deeper in the topic and provide an easy tool to define their networking goals as well as follow up. To make the journey easier and to empower all the students would be my commitment with Social Justice.

In order to define my final research, it was very helpful to casually chat with few UAL colleagues as well as with few students. My next step will be to define a proper survey as well as formal interview framework respectively. 

A possible ARP title would be:  “Effective networking tool box for MA’s Fashion Design Management students”.