Stride 2025 Recap
Intro to Stride
Ready, set, Stride! Stride is Design Co’s annual uniquely design-focused career fair. The full-day event brings students and companies together for networking, lightning talks, and meaningful connection. Stride aims to empower students interested in design — whether that’s product, research, or engineering — to explore diverse career paths and learn how to effectively showcase their strengths in professional settings.
How do we pull off an event with 200+ attendees, guest speakers, and recruiting companies? Divya Menon (Industry Relations Director) and Lauren Cheng (Creative Director), two of Design Co’s executive members involved in planning Stride this year, offered a behind-the-scenes look at their creative vision, challenges, and favorite moments.
Divya Menon: Industry Relations Director
As Design Co’s Industry Relations Director, Divya owned this initiative for the design community. This year, her goal was to expand Stride’s reach and broaden the diversity of opportunities — bringing in roles outside of design such as engineering, and opportunities beyond internships to include entry-level and freelance work.
Divya wanted to move away from the traditional corporate environment that made career fairs seem intimidating; instead, she chose the Stage Room, which reflected a more intimate setting designed to encourage conversation between students and recruiters, in order to foster more genuine connections.
Menon began planning Stride in early August 2025, starting by setting clear expectations for her team and reaching out to companies, student organizations, and former Design Co board members. After compiling a list of existing Industry Relations (IR) connections from previous years, she reached out to them through LinkedIn. In parallel, she worked with Design Co’s Operations Team to manage booking a venue to set the stage for the event.
Divya shared a personal story of when she bumped into a friend on her intramural volleyball team at Stride, where she connected with them in an entirely different context — this time through a shared interest in design. Beyond conversations with recruiters, Stride is a unique opportunity to meet your design peers and potential future colleagues, something she hopes students can take away from the event.
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Overall, Menon hopes that Stride fosters opportunities for students in the future, even if they’re not immediate. Every connection you make — whether it’s with companies or peers — is valuable 1, 5, or 10 years from today.
Lauren Cheng: Creative Director
As Design Co’s Creative Director, Lauren led the visual branding for Stride, shaping the website and promotional graphics from concept to launch. Initially, each Visual + Brand Designer in Creative creates their own mood board—whether that be hand drawing their own concepts or bringing in fun visuals from Pinterest—before the team converges their ideas into a cohesive brand identity for the website and supporting graphics.
With the help of Creative’s developers, Stride evolved into a creative playground to implement interactive web elements—including breaking icebergs and messages in bottles—that doubled as engaging, helpful resources for prospective Stride attendees.
Following an agile method, Cheng leads her team’s designers to first design an MVP (minimum viable product) of the website, before handing it off to developers and partnering to bring the website to a higher-fidelity version. From there, they work with the Marketing team to craft UX copy that aligns with the visual messaging, and finally, release the graphics and website across DCo’s social media platforms for students to register. Months of preparation and collaboration between Creative, Marketing, and Industry Relations help ensure the visual identity not only attracts students, but also clearly communicates the value students get out of Stride, turning registration into meaningful engagement for every attendee.
Closing comments
We can’t wait to see what the future holds for the design community, and hope this gave you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes to make DCo’s large-scale events possible.
