Hear from one of our students

For the past 20 weeks, I worked remotely on a project for The Balean Foundation. One of the reasons I chose a remote assignment is because it gives you the opportunity to connect and collaborate with people from different places, which I think is really special. It also gives you a lot of freedom in how and where you work.

Especially in a creative project, I really liked that flexibility. Creativity does not always happen at one fixed time or place, so it helped me to be able to switch between working from home, libraries, cafés or school. A big plus was that I could easily plan interviews and feedback sessions with different people because location wasn’t a barrier.

Before the project started, we already had an online introduction meeting to discuss the assignment. That gave me a good first impression of how the communication would work. During the project, we had a weekly meeting to stay aligned, ask questions and discuss progress. For smaller updates, we used Slack, which worked well.

In the end, I experienced remote working as very positive. It gave me a lot of independence and freedom, but also taught me to take ownership of my own planning. That can be a challenge, because when working remote you really have to create your own structure and be proactive in your communication.

My tip for others who are going to work remotely would be to plan regular check-ins, communicate clearly and not be afraid to ask questions. It also helps to create a routine, but at the same time make use of the freedom to work from different places if that helps your focus or creativity.