In high school I dabbled in lots of mediums: photography, video production, web design, graphic design, fine art and other things. I remember being frustrated that as a freshman at college I was suppose to pick one of these disciplines to focus on for the next four years.

Then I found the industrial design program. I saw all kinds of creations tumbling out of department: photographs, videos, 3d models, and more. I instantly knew that it was the major for me.

As I got deeper into the curriculum I found out that not only did industrial designers create in every medium, we also borrowed methodologies from an ever wider range of professions.

A primary focus of my education was using contextual research, personal interviews, and other techniques developed by anthropologists to observe and understand how people used products and the personal relationship that people form with the things they use and experience.

One of the foundational classes that I’ll be taking this quarter is Interaction Design Research and Synthesis (taught by the fabulous Lauren Serota) which builds on a lot of this stuff. I’m very excited about spending time sharpening my skills and looking at all of this stuff anew. This definitely one of the skills I haven’t been using near as much as I could.

First class is tonight, I’ll let you know how it goes!