Graduation

Well guess what – tomorrow is graduation. After a busy nine months I’m all done! I will be a graduate of one of the leading design and innovation graduate programs with a Master of Design Methods degree under my arm. And it flew by!

As those of you who have followed along know, this has been a great experience. I’ve learned a ton – from user research and rapid prototyping to analyzing data and creating and evaluating concepts. I’ve learned to “cut cubes out of fog” using design strategy from Doblin’s Larry Keeley, innovation methods and frameworks from Professor Vijay Kumar, the intersection of design and business from Jeremy Alexis, user observation and human factors from Judith Gregory and so much more.

I’ve met incredible fellow students from all over the U.S. and all over the world – China, Germany, India, Japan, Kuwait and Korea – and from all disciplines – car designers, architects, graphic designers, interactive marketers, brand strategists. Even a cook and a former DJ. It was hard quitting a great company like Harley-Davidson to go full time but looking back I wouldn’t change a thing.

So what’s next? I’ve interviewed with a range of companies and consultancies and narrowed it down to a few I’m super interested in. I’ll be making a decision in the next couple of weeks and will be sure to let you know.

Also, just because I’m graduating doesn’t mean the blog is done. I’ll keep posting with thoughts, musings, articles and questions (hopefully more regularly now that school projects are done and interviews are wrapping up).

As always, if anyone is considering applying to the Institute of Design please don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail with questions.

Don’t forget next week is the Design Strategy Conference. Unfortunately, I will not be in attendance as I’ll be on a relaxing vacation. I’m bummed I’ll miss it but enjoyed working with the team Vince LaConte ran to pull together some great material for attendees.

Hopefully you can make it!