Meet OmniSci Designer
Jolin See  

What are you studying?

 

I am an exchange student doing psychology and arts management.

 

Do you have any highlights of your uni career so far?

 

Recently my friend showed me around campus. Parkville in particular is really pretty so I guess it would be a nice thing to romanticise your student life. I think that was one of the highlights. She showed me the secret garden at the Bioscience Building, which was really nice. It’s fun to just explore and stuff.

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What is your role at OmniSci and how would you explain it to someone?

 

I am an illustrator. I guess using visual cues and using design processes to communicate text, communicate ideas. That’s how I would describe my role, or describe what I want to do when I illustrate.

 

What first got you interested in science? 

 

I don’t know, I think this is my attempt to reconcile both arts and science. I feel like a lot of artists try to stay in their own little circles. Like if you’re doing art you just do art. If you’re doing theatre you only know how to do theatre and you never branch out to visual art or music or even psychology… But I think it is good to have many disciplines under your belt. 

 

You don’t have to be super good at every single thing, but I guess it helps in every single thing that you do if you have knowledge about everything else. Like you can transfer skills or knowledge from one discipline to another. I think that's very valuable. That’s what got me interested in science, because I'm not doing science in school, except psychology. 

 

Back at the management university where I’m from we do more managerial psychology, like HR and marketing, we don’t really do clinical psychology. It has been interesting, because here in UniMelb I am doing a clinical psych mod, which is very very different from what I do back home. Like the topics they choose to uncover are very different. It is expanding my knowledge, my horizons. 

 

And what stage are you up to in the process now? 

 

Just reading the first drafts, so familiarising myself with them. Trying to grasp the ideas, because I think a lot of them are beyond what I’ve ever known, so trying to grasp that first. 

 

How did you get involved with OmniSci?

 

I heard about it first at O-Week. I met you [Editor-in-Chief Caitlin] at Southbank campus, so then we talked. I was planning on joining clubs but I didn’t know what club I wanted to join. This is one of the two clubs that I joined—I also joined the Bubble Tea Society. 

 

I just wanted to do something meaningful and nice while I’m here, rather than just travelling and having fun and everything. I thought it would be nice to get to know people and talk about our ideas and see how our perspectives are different, especially because I’m so far away. And also reconciling art and science. 

 

We always highlight the differences between science and art, but I thought that OmniSci would be an amazing place to create a bridge between that. I’ve also had ideas of starting my own communications channel about psychology facts, because a lot of things that I’ve learnt at school have been very useful in my own personal life. 

 

Perhaps this way of making science accessible through art would be helpful for the general public. There are people out there who want to share and impart the knowledge that they have. I thought OmniSci might be a nice place to start doing that.

 

What is your favourite thing about contributing at OmniSci so far?

 

I think having the opportunity itself is the best part. It takes a lot to start a magazine on your own, so to have that platform is a big thing. The accessibility, the opportunity given to put your work out there, or have your ideas made concrete and shared with everyone. I think that’s the best thing. Low barriers of entry!

 

Can you share something you're excited about working on this issue?

 

Collaborating with the writers! It’s one thing to work alone and develop your ideas, and it’s another to develop them with someone else. I’m really looking forward to exploring how my style can adapt to newer themes.

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What do you like doing in your spare time when you're not contributing at OmniSci?

 

I like to go to book stores, art galleries, theatre…just a bunch of arts stuff.

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Do you have any recommendations for theatre, anything that you’ve seen recently?

 

I was at Malthouse Theatre a few months back, and it was really good. I really recommend Malthouse.

 

There’s a State Library Exhibition on fringe festivals in Australia. I really believe in fringe stuff, so I think that’s a really thought-provoking exhibition to reflect on what we define as “good” and “bad” art.

 

I also went to watch Patroclus and Achilles at the UniMelb Shakespeare company. It’s important to support student theatre because that’s where future artists start out!

 

Which chemical element would you name your firstborn child (or pet) after?

 

Oh my god, it’s so painful…I’m going to go with Potassium, so I can nickname them K. I’ll call them K all the time, except when I’m mad—then I’ll call them Potassium.