Year 1 Recap

In year 1 I got introduced to all the expertise areas. I got quite strong in the expertise area Math Data & Computing MDC and Technology & Realization TR, but lacked a lot of depth in Business & Entrepreneurship BE and Creativity & Aesthetics CA, and was not interested in pursuing a lot of User & Society US after Human Centered Design, even though I got feedback that it would be worth it to actually reconsider that.

Year 2 - Semester 1

I started year 2 developing MDC and TR even further through Project-3 by exploring pneumatic pouches and the air pressure system using Arduino. I also created a library of shapes and interfaces for this project that was used for analysis of data and user testing. I learned this in the course Digital Craftsmanship where I made a lot of data visualizations and prototypes, which could be seen as an interface between CA and MDC that I explored through form and data. US also got integrated in Project-3 through the implementation of user testing which was feedback we got from our coach.CA got integrated through the exploration of a fully new material, that taught me how to approach and understand it from an interaction designer perspective. This is very much the surface between US and CA.

I also gained skills in BE and realized that I was already considering things from a broader designer context that the course Futures Thinking taught me. This context, whilst more focused on the business and real-world side of design, also taught me things within CA. A perspective on CA from BE that more closely aligns with how businesses tend to work and how design gets valued within these places. I also got inspired to pursue CMF design as a result from here and potentially look at internships within this CA BE interface.

Year 2 - Semester 2

In the second semester I started to understand my context of materials after making my PDP 2.2 and got more feedback to reconsider my stance on US, as it connects a lot to CA and BE which I got very interested in. Something I also realized is that because of my focus on MDC and TR I started to 'burnt out' of constantly doing the same thing, and eventually leading me to understand it's not the main direction my development was going in, but rather a part of something that I am skilled in and could apply in a broader context of CA US and a new interfacing expertise area I would like to call Sustainable Design SD.

Sustainable Design - SD

Sustainable Design is all my work that I consider to be within the domain of sustainable awareness and progress. Particularly the courses Design & Sustainability and Design for Post-Growth Living are big parts of this as I learned about the theory of planetary boundaries, doughnut model, and post-growth which all touch the fact the earth is finite and we should make sure that life is able to not only be possible for humans in the future, but should be sustained and able to go its way with little human intervention. This "boundary expertise area" actually very much ties into US and CA as I try to re-imagine design processes to be more sustainable and material use to be less ecologically impacting and even turn beneficial for human and more-than-human stakeholders.

This expertise area best describes me and how I can tie in all the other expertise areas and their boundaries to best fit my personal motivations and what I see as a future-worthy direction to take within the university and also develop beyond.

Read further -> Vision.