Radhakrishna Aekbote

“RK is a very thorough and detailed. He helped me understand design through real-world applications. He is also very down-to-earth and I recommend him for any student looking for a mentor who has great teaching abilities.”

“RK has been a great mentor throughout Foundations! I came into the course with a visual arts background, but no experience in design whatsoever. He was kind and patient with me as we began to build my basic skillset and always pushed me to go the extra mile with my designs. RK never limited my creativity and ‘bold choices,’ as he would say, but instead taught me how to refine them into real-world design standards. He continuously asked me about the choices I was making behind my work, which encouraged me to think critically when designing. I left each session with a list of ways I could improve upon my work. Additionally, I was determined to finish the course in four weeks instead of the typical eight, and he was super accommodating with my hurried schedule. If you come to your sessions with well-thought-out questions and confidence behind your work, you will have great success with him!”

“"I was so lucky to have RK as my Foundations mentor. From the very beginning, RK encouraged me to trust my design decisions and have confidence in my presentation. He was the perfect balance of positive AND honest when providing feedback on my designs. I also loved that he gave me optional challenges outside of the DesignLab curriculum - these challenges helped me start to see the world with a "design-filter." I felt more equipped to recognize good and bad designs all around me. You know someone's a good teacher when you keep growing and learning from them long after you leave a mentor session."”

“Radhakrishna mentored me during my Foundations course. After my eight weeks in the course, I can truly say that I've cherished the mentorship experience I got from Radhakrishna! He has taught me a lot about the field and beyond. He always provided insightful feedback and challenged me to think beyond the limitations in my mind. He truly cares about the success of his students and aims to sharpen student's strengths and work on the skills they need improvement on. My greatest takeaway from this course was that he instilled the confidence within myself to present my work.”

“"I definitely enjoyed having RK as my mentor. He has good teaching skills and he really cares about his students - willing to go teach more than his assigned time. Also he questions his students about their design decisions which really helped me get better at explaining my design decisions and think more about the design goals as well. Before the start of the course, we as students had to write about what our weaknesses were. RK took note of this and tried to help me improve my weaknesses by making it challenging for me in the right way."”