It’s been a week since my first year of grad school has ended, and I’m still trying to make sense of what just happened. It’s definitely been a roller coaster ride, and probably the hardest I’ve worked in my entire life. (This is saying something, because there was a time not so long ago when I had 2 degrees to simultaneously fulfill + a job.) But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! Or at least craftier with your time management.

Perhaps one way of making sense of all the people I’ve met, texts I’ve perused, lectures I’ve absorbed, things I’ve made & helped make, and ideas I’ve tinkered with is to line them up by themes. So let’s see… what are some of the most memorable themes of my first year at SVA IxD?

Exploration and Storytelling
Perhaps inspired by this overwhelmingly multilayered and colorful city of ours, exploration and storytelling kept coming up over and over in conversations and classmates’ projects. Ideas for unlocking the secret narratives of NYC abounded, mostly paired with mobile platforms. As Rob Faludi taught us, the most interesting thing to humans is other humans. And what are humans but stories on 2 legs?

Projects I liked: LBRNTH, an outdoor game by classmate Kristin Breivik, and New York Narratives, by classmate Chris Cannon. Also, my classmate Erin Moore is obsessed with stories and tells some very good ones about adventures abroad and at home.

Mindfulness
Knowing what’s around you and/or inside you, both in breadth and depth. Technologies that get you to look closer, reflect more deeply, choose more wisely, and in general imbue the simple act of living with more purpose and determination. I helped with graduating classmate Beatriz Vizcaino’s project, Slow Eats, which helps you taste and savor the food you’re eating. I also loved the Small Steps project by a team of classmates for the Physical Computing midterm. It displayed the # of people who took the stairs vs. the elevator to/from our 6th floor studio. I think stairway usage actually increased drastically while the project was up.

Connectivity
Bridging gaps between different groups of people with shared interests. This is kind of my pet favorite theme. Graduating class projects that shared this theme included Secret Mission Me (bringing together kids and parents), Oasis of Healing (bringing together different stakeholders to incorporate more nature in hospitals), Cultivate (bringing together scattered teachers), and Homebase (helping people find roommates based on specific criteria). Projects from my year included Favorous (classmate Sera Koo), Time Auction (classmate Catherine Young), and my own project for Entrepreneurial Design, 2gthr.

Visualizing the Unseen
Using technology to extract, process, organize and reveal information in our raw environments. One way of doing this is through data vizualization. When you can wrangle it into a form that doesn’t look like numbers in jail cells, it can tell some good stories, like the evolution of the matchbook industry (Phillumeny, by classmate Dave Bellona). Another way is augmented reality. I especially enjoyed my classmates’ project Subwomp for Prototyping class. Also, another of Dave’s projects, Ghost Bikes.

The Need for Scale
A lot of the ideas discussed in class and beyond relied on large amounts of people (think thousands, minimum) coming together towards some common purpose or goal. This goal usually involved populating a designed context or framework with relevant content, e.g. a seat picker app with user-uploaded photos of stadium views (Peanut Gallery by classmate Cooper Smith). The big challenge is convincing people to participate, but the reward is new, unprecedented kinds of value.

There you have it. In all fairness, this is the greatest hits album, rather than the complete discography. But for now it will do.

A couple final thoughts: writing this entry has made me realize that being in this program has actually helped me develop some new ways of seeing the world. (Hey, sometimes the change is so gradual you don’t realize it’s happening, especially when under a lot of deadlines.) Now I look for stories everywhere I go, and wonder constantly about the ways I can solve problem X by getting group A to talk to group B. Exciting times!

Secondly, this has also made me deeply appreciate the people I share the program with, both my year and graduating (I will miss you!). Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to know them because I see them every day while in varying states of tired/overworked stupor, but it is a rare thing to be surrounded by so many sharp, inquisitive intellects, all striving to do their best and learn as much as they can. These people are why I went to school, and they are also why next year will be just as much of a formative experience as this one. So thanks, everyone, for helping make grad school all that it has been so far. Yay!