By Jacqueline Grima

This week, Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) Information and Communications students displayed their second year projects in a Poster Exhibition.

The theme of this year’s exhibition was ‘A Student’s Guide to Manchester’, with each team expected to produce a project that contained useful information for new and existing MMU students. Jill Griffiths Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information and Communications (Info Comms), said, “This event is a highlight in the calendar for the Info Comms section of the Department of Languages, Journalism and Information Communications. We are very proud of the high standard of work the students achieve and are delighted that many pursue this as a career, becoming Project Managers within the digital industries.”

Each team showcased a poster alongside a website created from scratch, the projects covering every aspect of student life.  Darren Blacow of Team M², who christened their project ‘Manny Madness’, said, “Our project is a student guide to the nightlife in Manchester, providing information for students in the first year and as a refresher for other students. We set out to include sections on the website regarding transport, how to stay safe on nights out and how to access student discounts.”

Another project focused on sporting life in Manchester. Jordan Robins of Team Digit said, “We discussed lots of ideas and then voted for which one we thought was best. Then we circulated a questionnaire to find out which sports students were interested in.” Jordan’s team-mate, Mo Martin, added, “We tried to include sports that weren’t directly available through the Students’ Union and looked at activities that people might not think of trying such as martial arts.”

The focus of Digital Dream Team’s project was student accommodation. Peter Siddle said, “We circulated a questionnaire through social media to try and reach as many people as possible. Our target audience are existing but also potential students so we sent our questionnaire to a sixth form college to find out what upcoming students might be interested in.”

Other projects displayed included, ‘A Student’s Guide to Killing Time in Manchester’ by Team Energise and a ‘Culture Guide’, produced by Team Concept and project managed by student Zara Shah. Zara said, “We thought it would be interesting to look at cultural aspects of Manchester and when we did our research a lot of us found out things we didn’t know.” Another project, by Team Adaption, focused on the ‘Hidden Gems’ of the city.

Skills acquired during the project, which the students have been working on since the beginning of the academic year, include project management, research, web development and working to strict deadlines. Senior Lecturer in the Department, Bob Glass said, “The exhibition gives the students the opportunity to show the wider student community what they’ve learnt in their second year at Info Comms. The posters represent a combined effort and require students to display a mixture of skills that they have gained so far.”

The work displayed was assessed by tutors, submitted with the students’ research to count towards their final grade for this module. All of the students were passionate about their exhibitions, many of them, as Jill Griffiths hoped, now inspired to pursue a career in the digital industry.

Jacqueline Grima is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing.  Her unpublished novel ‘Coming Second’ was shortlisted for last year’s Luke Bitmead Bursary.  You can find her blog here and can also follow her on Twitter @GrimaJgrima