USC Residential

Ah to be a student again.

Just completed the Design@USC IYA Residential and it was exhausting but pretty great. Getting to meet my classmates and profs in the flesh was great and made the whole program more meaningful. It was fun being on campus mid-term and being around the energy of other students. It helps that the campus and grounds are kept in a pretty pristene condition and.

Here is some information: Integrative Practices Residential. Basically, it was like a hackathon for design, in this case, a little bit of product design, some interaction design, some experience design. We were designing a museum exhibit which ends up touching every piece of design, proving the program's design cleverness.

Side note: USC cares deeply about the user experience of its students. There is an on-campus Starbucks and pretty great dining options. The on-campus bar was another surprise. This was a severe shock after Harvard in the late 90s.

I achieved my two major goals: play nice with others and keep an open mind. Both succeeded and I suppose underneath those is a sense of humility I wanted to enforce in myself. Not that I am so arrogant as much as to make sure I didn't let my caustic sense of humor and sense of performance get the better of me.

Our group grew close and I have to say they are all so, so talented. The Jellyfish Group, that later became the Jellyfriends and Jellybabies and Squid Kids because I kept forgetting the name of our exhibit's central theme.

I learned three things about myself.

1. I can still work like a dog and keep up with 20somethings.
2. I am more creative than I had realized and have been seeking outlets since.
3. What I lack in artistic talent I make up for with daring and gusto. This is also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.