Some people grow up knowing exactly what they want to do someday. I was not one of those people. I knew I wanted to go to college but as the later years of high school rolled around, I felt increasing pressure to decide what to study. I remember thinking, “I bet there’s a good match for me somewhere; I just don’t know about it yet!” Turns out that was true in the industrial and innovative design program at Cedarville University in partnership with the International Center for Creativity (ICC). It’s no surprise now that it took me a while to learn about industrial design considering that I have come to expect the question “what is that?” after I tell someone what I’m studying.
What I Was Looking For
For me the journey started by looking at what I knew I enjoyed. I loved people and wanted a major where I could help and work with people. I considered nursing, but there were reasons I didn’t see that as a good fit. I enjoy problem solving and often that gets paired with engineering, but I also knew that I didn’t want to do any of the math involved in an engineering major so that ruled that out. I liked things that were hands-on and I didn’t want to sit at a desk all day, but I enjoy using my mind as well. Others called me a “critical observer” and I’m rather detailed in how I see the world around me. As a part of that I really enjoy aesthetics and how both the function and aesthetic of a product or place can change the quality of your experience with it. Art wasn’t a good fit though because I wasn’t actually a true artist –– I couldn’t draw for the life of me (then) and I couldn’t get over how impractical a major in art would be. When I heard about design it was the first major that seemed to capture all of these things.
How I Found the Industrial and Innovative Design Program
Originally, I wanted to be an interior designer. I have always been interested in how spaces work, particularly small spaces. I love the ways that kitchens utilize a space for storage and functionality or how you can compress a living space into an RV. In interior design you get to work for and alongside people, solve problems, work with details and aesthetics, and do more than sit in a desk chair all day, everything on my list. There was just one problem: I couldn’t find a school I liked with an interior design major. There were some options but I didn’t think they were as good as Cedarville. I discovered the Industrial and Innovative Design (IID) program and started wondering if it might also be a good fit for me. The way that someone explained it to me was that an interior design program would go really deep in a narrow field while the IID major was a much broader overview of many fields, including interior design. I figured that since I had recently stumbled across interior design and wasn’t completely sure about it, a broader education couldn’t hurt. And I preferred going to a school I loved with a good overall education than going somewhere just because of a more specific major that I was still learning about. So that’s why I chose my major. Interior design seemed to be the only thing that combined my interests and skills and the school that I wanted only offered industrial design which seemed, in my opinion, close enough.
Design Is for People
Now that I’m about to graduate with my degree in IID I can see clearly the many reasons that I’m glad I chose my major. The first is that it’s all about people. Good industrial design is user-centered, meaning that every decision made along the way is made to help the specific needs and desires of the various stakeholders in the product. One of my favorite parts of the design process is gathering research and the process of empathy where you try to put yourselves in the shoes of the people you are designing for so that you can better understand them. Sometimes this can be quite literal! I had the opportunity to do a design research internship where the first phase was to simply go work the job of the people that I would later be designing for. In user-centered design you also consider how it is that people feel and think about the things around them and design so that a product is easy to use and creates an enjoyable experience. We’ve all experienced that annoying door where you try to pull when you were supposed to push or vice versa and find yourself hoping that no one saw that you were struggling to perform such a basic task — opening a door. This would be an example of bad user-centered design and not designing in such a way that the door is intuitive and easy to use.
Design Is With People
Another way that design is all about people is through collaboration. I have loved the opportunity to work on group projects throughout my time at the ICC because in the end, the projects are better as we play to one another’s strengths. When I’m stuck in a rut, someone else’s fresh ideas can pull me out and I can do the same for them. While one person may be really great at creating a CAD model of a product, someone else may be better at rendering it out to photorealism and making it look like something the client can get excited about. In design we not only collaborate closely with other designers but across other professions. You’ll often find us working alongside engineers, marketing, graphic designers, or architects, among others.
Design Is Problem-Solving
Design is all about problem-solving, just like I was looking for. We are trained to both find problems and to have tools to go about solving them with. I had never thought about how important it is to find the right problem to solve. It’s easy to think you know where the problem lies when there’s actually a root cause you missed that is more important to address. Throughout the design process we learn how to step back and find what it is that actually needs to be solved. One of the most fun parts of design is brainstorming when you take the first step towards finding the solution to your problem. It’s in this phase that any idea goes no matter how crazy it may be, and trust me, I’ve seen some pretty crazy ones during my time at the ICC. Using various design thinking techniques, we are trained to be able to approach a problem without getting stuck in a box and think of truly innovative solutions that are both blue sky ideas but also real-world and practical. The ICC does a good job of teaching us about manufacturing and helping us to recognize that just because something looks good on paper doesn’t mean that it will work. I enjoy the challenge that comes from working within the many constraints of manufacturing, the functionality of the product, and how to make it aesthetic all so that in the end you have a realistic product.
In Design You Are Constantly Learning
The versatility of our projects and how we constantly get to learn new things is one of the things I didn’t even think to look for before choosing the major but that has come to be one of my personal favorite parts of design. With each new project we get to become mini experts in a new field. I’ve now learned about furniture frames and upholstery, how electric toothbrushes work, the details of the brand language of large corporate brands, the materials and aesthetics of a certain toy line, what all the external visual elements of a car are called and so many more things throughout my various projects. The more I know about something the more interesting it becomes and with each project I tend to get a little lost as I dive into a new field. It’s fun to then make unexpected connections and pull in elements I’ve learned about from unrelated products to help guide the way towards a fresh solution.
Why I’m Glad I Didn’t Study Interior Design
The Industrial and Innovative Design major at Cedarville University is intentionally a very broad program. As someone who wanted to do interior design, I now have learned about product, automotive, interior and exterior design as well as the many skills throughout the design process such as research, sketching and ideation, prototyping, CAD modeling, and rendering. Getting exposure to these skills and fields has helped me to learn that I enjoy things I never would have learned about and has equipped me to be able to pursue a career in a number of directions. The program is set up such that we can learn what it is that we most enjoy and are good at and then can focus on honing those skills with what we choose to do for our capstone. Some people find that they specialize in one area while others maintain that broader but less deep skill set. It’s a major that you can in many ways make your own.
For Those Who are Picking a Major
So that’s the story of why I chose my major. If you are still in the process of trying to decide what to study, I hope that hearing one person’s story can be an encouragement to you. I remember well the days of looking around at everyone around me with their nicely packaged up life plans wondering what it was that I was supposed to do. So let me leave you with this. God is faithful to direct His children in His good and perfect timing. There are many times in my life where I questioned God’s leading or where I had questions that I wanted the answers right then. But it is in those times of waiting and uncertainty that we learn to trust and walk more closely with Him. His guidance may not come in the time that you desire but His ways are higher than our ways and sometimes we learn more in the waiting than we would if He worked according to our time schedule. So, keep exploring and asking questions and thinking about what it is that you enjoy. Just like me, you never know what may be hiding out there that you didn’t know about. But in the midst of all of it, remember that, as Dr. White likes to say, God is faithful, and you can trust Him. There are two Proverbs that come to mind, they are well known and so precious during these times of big decisions. The second one reminds me that our every decision should come with some humility knowing that ultimately it is the Lord who is directing our steps.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
“The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
Major & Year: Industrial and Innovative Design, Class of 2023
Favorite Bible Verse: Revelation 21:1-5
Favorite Song: “You’re the Inspiration” by Chicago
Tags: #academics, #choosingmajor
Posted in: College Life, Student Guide