Alumnus Inspires Alleyn's Youngest Pupils!

Kicking off the last half term of the year, our youngest pupils enjoyed an inspiring assembly from alumnus Max Taylor (Brading’s 2011). 

Max, who is a UX Designer at Google, shared his journey from Alleyn's Junior School and beyond with the pupils and a few things he learned along the way. He shared his early passion for Art and Design at school and for doodling (all over his schoolwork!) and how, after being at Alleyn’s Senior School, he decided to pursue a career in architecture. 

After a Foundation Art course and studying architecture at university, Max told the children how he had found working in the industry rewarding but realising it wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his career and making the switch to a career in UX design. 

Max shared his passion for UX and challenged the pupils to think about the design of the everyday products they use, as well as explaining how digital products are getting more complex and integrated into our lives.  

Concluding his assembly, Max gave the children three pieces of advice: 

• Don't be afraid to change your mind 
• Try new things! There are so many opportunities in the school - and everything you do you can learn something from for the future. 
• Focus on what you're interested in and enjoy doing. 

The children asked lots of questions, from what was his least favourite subject at school (maths!) to ‘Why did you choose to work for Google instead of Apple?’ 

To that, Max said:  

“That is a fantastic question! The reason I like working for Google is that their mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful and that’s a really interesting thing to be involved in – it touches so many different aspects of life, be that google maps or things that you do with documents all the way to healthcare.” 

Thank you, Max for returning to Alleyn’s and for inspiring our youngest pupils!