I'm doing an independent study with two Industrial Design students this semester. Last semester Austin asked me last semester if I would do the independent study as a class and then Casey asked me over winter break if I would be her mentor. They are both working on their Senior capstone course so they have a show at the the end of the semester where they present their work and research. Casey is doing a lighting project and Austin is doing the electric motorcycle. I'm really enjoying the interactions with them both We have great conversations about design and process and I've found myself engaged in some philosophical conversations about what it means to be a maker of things. They are both hungry to learn things and last week asked for a casting demo. They also showed me their timeline for creating their work. It's interesting working with them as some parts of the teaching is similar to my art students and other parts are radically different. It's not the first time I've encountered this during my years of teaching, but I would generalize that the majority of the design students from industrial design and architecture have been more engaged with their own work than the art students as a whole. Don't get me wrong, I have had some amazing art students who were super engaged, but it's just not the case with the majority of art students I've taught. I walk away from these interactions and wonder what the difference is between the student groups that causes this phenomenon.
This semester I do know... that teaching motorcycle design just happens to be of extreme interest to me. I feel like I am drawing from close to thirty years of obsessing about, reading, and looking at motorcycles so I find the conversations to be easy to facilitate. I went back and looked at some of the pictures of building my triumph chopper when I was in school and I feel like I've learned a lot since then and I've been telling the Austin how lucky he is to live in a time where so many things can be manufactured via a desktop/laptop and some low price CNC machines.
I wish I could do classes like this all the time. I'm not getting paid or getting any credit for teaching this course, but that's ok. It's just fun to know that I'm helping to facilitate something that Austin and Casey are into and I hope the experience helps them get a good job in the future.
2 comments:
yuck ID students that make things are overrated. :) :) sarcasm obviously, i think it's also helpful to realize the potential gaps in the teaching from the ID perspective that you are very likely filling. such a good marriage of two curriculums makes you wonder how they ever became so siloed.
It does make you wonder why they became siloed. I wonder if it was due to the stupidity of academia and the bureaucracy of institutions. I'm just thinking of how things get structured and restructured as things fall in and out of favor with administrators who are desperately trying to leave their mark.
Sidenote:
I sat through a meeting the other day where people were insistent that students needed to receive microcredentials to be more employable by companies. It's like a "Boy Scott's merit badge" system to prove that you know something.
I think an ideal system would be to couple the craft based media with industrial design and use the craft classes as a foundation for design. It would create better informed designers who understand material and process like yourself.
Oh well what do I know...?
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