After going through many processes, I ended up attending the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. I joined the Design Engineering Program.
Harvard GSD is primarily known as an architecture school, but in order to enable designers to be more inter-disciplinary among the rising complex problems around the world, Harvard inaugurated a novel program called Master of Design Engineering(MDE) in 2016.
What’s noteworthy is that this unique program is a collaborative program between the GSD and SEAS, the engineering school at Harvard. Professors are from both the GSD and SEAS and students are able to take classes both at the design school and the engineering school. (and for that matter others schools, even at MIT too!)
I wasn’t aware of the program at all, but after being accepted as a Fulbright Scholar, I had to look into additional schools to apply to other than MIT Media Lab, and I eventually came across this interesting program.
Usually, at work, I am required to work on building a solution for my clients in multiple domains, but when I was looking at the problems that the students are addressing in the program here, I was impressed by the multilateral perspective on the solution domain. At the MDE program, students are challenged by the following questions and build a solution to address these questions.
- What is the future of food in the context of global warming, the explosion of the world’s population, and the need to deliver quality food that is affordable?
- How can industries responsible for mass pollution, such as the fashion industry, be reinvented to reduce waste, improve the economic condition of workers, and satisfy the everyday consumer?
- In cities faced with rapid urbanization, how can technology be affordably deployed to inform decisions by policymakers and improve the quality of life?
- How can the healthcare delivery system be transformed to yield better outcomes at a lower cost?
Looking at the above, I was inspired and aspired to become an individual that would be able to bring a solution to these world-class problems, and decided to apply to this program. Below is a breakdown of what I submitted to the admission office.
Personal Statement Part 1
This is the regular personal statement any applicant would submit when applying for graduate school. Since I had to submit for MIT Media Lab first, I modified the statement to fit this program.
Personal Statement Part 2
What’s interesting about the MDE program is that there is a second part of the personal statement. When I applied, the following was the prompt.
- What attracted you to the MDE program?
- What interesting perspective, experience, or knowledge do you believe that you bring to the MDE program?
- What are you hoping to learn from the MDE program?
- What are you hoping to learn from other students?
- If you are admitted, what plans (if any) do you have after completing the MDE?
I passionately wrote about my story in relation to why I decided to go to graduate school.
GRE
This was the tough part… For my case, given the overall schedule, I took the GRE test twice. I studied the content on Magoosh. I took the first GRE without studying a single minute, and after cramming for about a month, I took the second one. Funny story, the first GRE was better. I ended up applying with a score that is slightly lower than the overall average (V:157 Q:159 A:4.0) of incoming GSD students.
TOEFL
Since I did my undergraduate program in the US, there were some schools, such as MIT Media Lab and NYU, that didn’t require me to take TOEFL. However, the other schools still wanted me to submit the score so I took TOEFL once. I was reminiscing the past when I had to take this test multiple times during high school, but also realized that all the people taking the test were lot younger than I am (probably high school and college students) and couldn’t think how old I have become since then.
The format of the test since the time I was in high school and I was surprised by the fact that TOEFL now has a speaking section. On IELTS, for example, you actually speak in front of a human being which makes a lot of sense, but for TOEFL, you “talk” to a computer. Moreover, at the test center, all the other participants start the speaking section randomly so I got really confused when I started to hear other students mumbling to the computer.
In comparison to IELTS, my scores on speaking, reading, writing, and listening sections were drastically different. Considering the fact that I graduated from a US institution, I could not believe my reading section on TOEFL, but on IELTS it was a full score. Given that these tests need to evaluate the participants’ ability in a certain period of time, it makes sense but I understood that the test scores are not the true reflection of one’s ability in English.
Portfolio
I was required to submit a portfolio, so I made a 30 page PDF using illustrator. I had to do a lot of writing explaining each of the projects, but luckily I had done this due to all the advertising awards I’ve submitted previously. It took about a month to complete the portfolio PDF.
It’s important not just to put the result/output of the project but also write about what kind of research was done and the process that lead to the output. I also added a few projects which I participated as a creative technologist to show my technical capabilities.
Letters of Recommendation
I asked 2 of my bosses at work, and one my mentor from college.
Interview
While I was going through tons of interviews for MIT Media Lab, I also got an invitation for an interview in early February. The interview was about 20 minutes long. Most of the conversation was about what I wrote in my personal statement. We had a nice chat and finished with a good ending.
In early March, I got the admission offer. It was the first offer I received among other schools. I looked at the offer when I was outside using my smartphone, and I remember being exhilarated and raised a clenched fist in the air. Harvard was very nice to give me a call to Japan to congratulate on the admission.
Despite the fact that I’m the only one coming from an advertising agency, I think this program is interesting for those coming from an agency looking for a place to exercise one’s ability in building a solution.
