Final Reflection Essay
Coming into the History and Ethics of Design I was not entirely sure what to expect. It was the first class I logged into during this online education quarter. Sitting in my childhood bedroom and scrolling through pages of the large Zoom call, I recognized so many familiar faces from my previous Product Design courses. This served as such a wonderful comfort to see my friends once again in an academic setting. As the class continued, I was pleased to realize that this class would also be anything but a typical Product Design course.
After many quarters and many courses in the department, I have sketched hundreds of pages of iterations, spent countless hours in the PRL, and worked collaboratively in teams to produce rapid prototype time and time again. Despite this dedication to a varied and hands on education, the academic nature of this course was unlike any other class I have taken within the major. In fact, this would be the first history course I was to take as an undergraduate, and within the first ten minutes of the course, I could tell that this was a much welcomed change.
Looking back on this past quarter, the topic that stands out the most to me in modernism and architecture. In addition to being the first topic we talked about at length, in addition to the group collaborative aspect of the topic, it was a topic I have always found interest in but never the opportunity to study it in an academic sense.
In the group presentation of our architect story books, I was particularly struck by my class mate’s project on the Bajau Tribe of Southeast Asia. After weeks of researching my own architect, a midcentury modernist, and watching documentaries of Eames designs, I was struck by the sheer dichotomy of subject matter. It connected the topics we were studying to a world far outside of the established curriculum. Furthermore, it provided me greater insight into the interests and expertise of my classmates. I would encourage further variation in the origins of design studied in the future to provide a greater world view of the design principals we discuss.
As for Wednesday lecture and guest speakers, I was consistently impressed by both the willingness of the guests to share their story and the quality of questions asked by my peers. Given the physical barrier of a computer screen and the longer time allotted to ask questions, I found that these discussions were amongst the richest academic discussions I’ve witnessed as a student. Furthermore, the variety and availability of guest speakers over Zoom is something I can celebrate and point to as being a major benefit of online education. Moving forward, I hope you continue this process of hosting and moderating guest speakers from a variety of backgrounds to support and supplement the course material.
Reflecting on this past quarter, I have learned about architecture, data, ergonomics, and so much more from the readings, movies, and articles assigned. However, more so than anything else, I found ways to collaborate, go through an artistic critique, and create personal relationships over intrinsically impersonal technology. I appreciate the willingness of my fellow students and the teaching staff to log onto every discussion section energized and prepared to discuss any number of topics, and I value the consistent open communication established in this course.
