Cristo Rey Kansas City is a Catholic, college-prep school that incorporates a work-study program for students to give them the best chance at success for the future. Each student is assessed for their skills, interests, and ideal career choices, then are placed with a company that can help them gain real world experience.
Over the next few weeks we will be sharing profiles of the Cristo Rey students at PRIER, and hope you enjoy learning about them as much as we do.
First up is Maya Coker, a junior, who aspires to be a graphic game designer, animator, and language interpreter. She is on her second year as an intern at PRIER.
As a manufacturer of plumbing products, it would seem that finding a place for an aspiring animator would be a challenge, and at first it did seem that way. Through some trials in other departments the first year, we realized that here in Marketing, there was a hidden need for Maya’s creative flair.
With the full Adobe Creative Suite at her fingertips, she’s been learning the basics of graphic design, photography, and illustrating. Once given a task, Maya takes it head on, and with minimal training, learns the technical skills at a shockingly quick pace. This is the beauty of working with the youngest generation who have grown up immersed in technology.
She is a quick learner, but she is also creative. When asked to come up with some new ideas of how she could contribute her artistic skills, she offered to create an animated intro sequence for our video production. What a gift! She is jumping right in to her first animation project, and we get to have a piece of digital media that can be applied to countless promotional videos.
In addition to learning animation, Maya has been busy with editing photos, working on product illustrations, and filling in on just about any marketing project thrown her way. The goal is to give her the chance to try out some of the tools she will use in her future career while contributing to PRIER, and so far she is nailing it.
“I’ll use my experience at PRIER to help me with creating flyers in Adobe InDesign, using Adobe Photoshop to help bring life into photos, and to make animations to help my future employer catch the attention of others,” Maya explains.
We are excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for Maya during her internship, and will check back in towards the end of the school year to show off some of her creative work.
To learn more about Cristo Rey Kansas City, go to http://www.cristoreykc.org.
