Educating:
Parsons: Thesis
I have taught and coordinated the BFA Communication Design thesis many times over the last decade. The course synthesizes the previous three years of learning into a self-driven project or series of projects that demonstrates the students’ individual critical thinking and design skills.
In 2011, there was no connection between the 8–10 sections, some were media-specific, and in many sections, students would just meet with their faculty for ten to fifteen minutes once a week, alone. Together with both full-time and part-time faculty, I created shared structures to transition the course from its 1:1 and 1:15 routines to include both small groups and large-group activites that command the energy of the 100+ students in each cohort.
We aligned the course times, created a system for manually placing students into course sections, instituted an all-cohort thesis fair for students to share work with each other, and redirected the exhibition budget towards a printed and virtual catalogue.
In the last few years, we added shared workshops on writing and intellectual property, lectures with practicing designers, a coordinated critique with 45+ external critics, and external lectures in weeks 12–15 addressing the job market, money, etiquette, and print production.
Collaborators: Matt Barnes, Luke Bulman, Paul Carlos, Ingrid Chou, Dinah Fried, Pascal Glissmann, Tom Griffiths, Geoff Han, Allen Hori, E Roon Kang, Lynn Kiang, Hoon Kim, Jieun Kim, Caspar Lam, Andrew LeClair, Prin Limphongpand, Joe Marianek, YuJune Park, Damien Saatdjian, Sam Sherman, Lucille Tenazas, Kelly Walters, Dave Yun
Virtual catalogue ︎︎︎
Thesis 1 course template ︎︎︎
Thesis 2 course template ︎︎︎