Hi! I’m Maddy and I’m a Graphic Design student at Emmanuel College in Boston!

If you were to tell me a year ago today that I would be working for Hasbro, a company whose products and brands impacted my childhood, and doing it all from HOME, I would definitely not have believed you. You can probably imagine how excited a mega Disney/Marvel/Star Wars fan was to find out they would be interning at a place like Hasbro in the middle of their senior year. As I finish up my 4 months as a graphic design co-op on the FurReal and Baby Alive team, I am super thankful to look back and think about how much I’ve learned and experienced.

Taking a gap semester was definitely something I never thought would happen during my time in college, but to be fair, a pandemic was even more unexpected. I truly believe that my experience at Hasbro not only taught me important graphic design skills, but also taught me a valuable lesson of flexibility. I have to remind myself sometimes that swaying from your plan is not a bad thing, especially when you have the opportunity to go down a new path that will benefit you in the long run.

At first, not being at school like I planned and waking up every day to work from home felt extremely wrong for me. Somedays I felt isolated knowing that my classmates were back in Boston, like I was supposed to be, completing their last semester of school, while I was at home doing something different. It at first was difficult to be brand new to the job, as I wanted to make sure I was on the right track, especially when I was miles away from my coworkers. But, thankfully, my manager and his team made sure to include me right away in small projects and meetings, making sure I felt welcomed and prepared.

Aside from gaining new design skills and learning new Adobe tips and tricks, I also had the opportunity to work on my own pattern illustrations for packaging, help art direct at a photoshoot, put together merchandise guides for both Baby Alive and FurReal, and collaborate with other co-ops to develop a product concept where I got to put my newfound knowledge of branding to the test. Thanks to the amazing designers on my team and other co-ops who I had the opportunity to work with, I always felt 100% comfortable to share my ideas and design plans. I can confidently say that Hasbro has helped me become more confident in my abilities as a designer but also helped me to realize my career path is my own and does not need to resemble my classmates in terms of time.

I’m so pleased with the time spent working at Hasbro and am so unbelievably thankful for all of the amazing people I was able to connect with!

Madeline Kew

Emmanuel College Boston, MA