College of Design and Innovation (D&I) of Tongji University started to employ the outstanding alumni as the senior students’ career mentors from 2015 so as to fully exploit the advantageous resources brought by the alumni and reform the talent cultivation mode. In this way, the students could make a more reasonable plan about their study and life, grasp the information about industry and social demands at an early stage, broaden their horizon regarding the job-hunting, set their career goals and improve their competitiveness in the job market.

On April 10, 2015, the Appointment Ceremony of D&I career mentors and Alumni Forum was held in the hall of D&I building. LOU Yongqi, Dean of D&I, FAN Shengxi, Chairman of D&I Council, and many outstanding alumni attended the appointment ceremony, including LUO An, president of TEAMS Design Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, YU Zheng, executive director and chief design inspector of Bokeh Visual, QIAN Shiyun, principal architect of Nota Architects, ZHANG Lele, accessory design manager of Shanghai GM Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center Co., Ltd, CHEN Bin, chief of Organization and Publicity Section of Jiangpu Community, WANG Shengjie, a manager of QOROS Auto in charge of distributor facilities, GAN Yifan, product director and chief branding official of Global Investment Info Technology Co., Ltd, CHEN Yuzhou, designer of business development and service system of CONTIMUUM Innovation and Design Consultancy, QIN Yulong, founder of PEAR Online Design Education Program, LIU Renjie, founder of PXKP, SHI Yingqian, interaction design manager of AdMaster. MA Linhai, Vice Dean of D&I Council, presided over the appointment ceremony.

Given Shanghai’s strategic vision and historical mission of building Shanghai into a technology and innovation center with global influence by arranging its innovation chain based on its industry chain, Dean LOU talked about the measures Tongji university has taken in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship education and the latest news about Shanghai International College of Design and Innovation of Tongji University to be jointly established by Shanghai Municipal City and Tongji University. LOU said, the establishment of technology and innovation center in Shanghai was a golden opportunity, therefore D&I would endeavor to develop itself into the “innovative center for everyone” gathering rich resources and attracting a lot of investment. Everyone in D&I would make joint efforts to solve the problems and to make contributions for a better society. He hoped that, students would increase their sense of social responsibility, view their majors and make their future plan with a global development vision, broaden their horizon about job-hunting, fully tap the advantages of design discipline, find their value and create the opportunity of innovation and entrepreneurship in the process of dealing with the problems in the way of China’s development, thus leading a successful life. He also expressed his wishes that, the alumni could give more concern for D&I development and support D&I to realize its goals, and that D&I students

Chairman FAN expressed his sincere appreciation of the alumni serving as the D&I career mentors. He said that, the career prospects of the graduates reflected the core function of a university. The alumni have made great achievements in all walks of life while D&I has witnessed rapid changes in recent years. But the precious relationship between D&I and its graduates will stay the same in spite of all these changes. He hoped that, the alumni would continue to pay attention to and support D&I development, and that D&I students would keep a modest attitude and seize the opportunity of communication with these alumni career mentors. FAN believed that students could gain inspiration and benefit a lot from this career mentor model.

After the Appoint Ceremony, career mentors met their “apprentices” and had a free talk with them.