Since I heard about Bucknell, the MIDE major has always stood out to me because it seemed flexible, in the best way. I often feel like some majors can be so constructed and consist of lectures, essays, and multiple choice tests. In high school, I always felt like the pressure of tests got the best of me and my desire to actually learn. I would create flash cards upon flash cards to memorize everything and the minute I walked out of the class, boom nothing… I couldn’t remember a thing. I have always found my passions in art, movies, advertisements, people honestly. So, obviously I was very excited to get into this Imagination workshop.
Right off the bat we created an apple picker, a robotic one. Somehow my mind jumped to sculpting a giraffe that eats the apples and then the apples go into his belly where the human can retrieve them. I mean, who knew I could really be a kid again, look through the world with a child’s eye lens. Notice opportunity, build something out of nothing, constantly ask questions and learn. The greatest lesson I walked away from in this class is the ability to look for the little girl in me. Not to focus so much on what everyone else is doing, to simply create from what I knew, what I wanted. That is how design works best, doing the unthinkable. I bet no one else has thought of a robotic giraffe, nor will they ever have to… but no one ever planned for COVID-19, or thought they had to, therefore the ability to constantly be able to problem solve for the most unpredictable scenarios.
I have always had a habit of waiting for the last moment to do something. This was the first class that I caught myself naturally working on the work gradually. Through our mind maps, I recognized that you simply need time to understand and connect the dots clearly to understand how to express the articles. Even with meeting our company that we planned to do a website for, we met them took notes, got to know their stories and tried to exactly meet their needs. After the professors immediately called us out for rushing the process, we all sat together for a couple hours thinking through every element of what was being presented before us. We changed the entire presentation to how it should have originally been. In the real world, the greatest success takes time, thought, and collaboration. I
The next chapter of our lives after graduation will not look anything like Bucknell and that is okay, and scary. We live in a world with constant great unknowns, the ambiguity of what’s to come next is on all our minds. Sitting at home creating my humor board was something even my parents could not believe I did, but both of the professors, or you professors, encouraged me to think of something positive I can bring out of this. Professor Smith said it best, practicing playfulness. I thank you guys for your time and efforts. The ability to use imagination, creativity, I felt like we all simply encouraged and supported what we thought was best, as if there was never one correct answers. The room constantly was full of different ideas, and the encouragement from the Professors to push us to share and discuss brought a sense of comfort that diminished any sort of “stressful” college atmosphere.
Leave a Reply