Today, the interviewee brought by natural light is quite special. He is not a senior in dream school, but has become a designer from LCC "off the shelf". Today, he not only brings us the application experience from fine arts to service design, but also successfully entered ethics in six months, From the perspective of a graduate, we also introduce you to the most authentic LCC service design major. What is the experience of studying abroad for Lunyi's master of LCC service design? Let's take a look.
Wei Xuechang, Lunyi, Master of LCC Service Design, experience sharing:
Q: Hello, Mr. Wei. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience of studying abroad with younger students. Let's introduce ourselves first~
My name is Wei Zikai. I majored in fine arts as an undergraduate. In fact, I prefer art and teacher training. At that time, after graduation, I wanted to learn more and more about design, so I came to the natural light. I learned interaction design with Xiaohua for six months. He told me a lot of business cases, including some knowledge about experience design and service design, and then recommended many books to me. Later, I gradually became more interested in service design, and finally chose to go London University of the Arts LCC majored in service design.
Q: After reading service design in LCC, what do you think are the characteristics of this major?
Lunyi LCC service design master's degree is divided into four semesters in total. The master's courses are all project based. Each semester has an independent large project as the main course. The teacher will give students more freedom to play. In class, it is group based. The teacher will divide the class into different groups. In this way, the scene of future work is virtually simulated, which I think is quite special.
Similar to the educational philosophy of overseas art colleges, natural light has always rejected the production of model works by assembly line. We firmly believe that each student is different, and everyone has a natural creativity and artistic perception. Therefore, we emphasize the excavation of students' unique personal characteristics, teach students in accordance with their aptitude, and guide them in teaching, While retaining students' personal thoughts, we should maximize students' artistic literacy, stimulate more creative thinking, and make everyone's works unique.
In addition to the main course, it also has some additional small auxiliary courses. These courses will also be interspersed with many stories, and people in the industry will be invited to do some sharing. This is also a very good point. The teacher will invite many experts or practitioners from various industries to our school to give lectures and share some experience. At that time, I felt that it was a good way to communicate with people in the industry and have a deeper understanding of the industry.
Natural light has long maintained cooperation with brands, designers and art institutions in the industry, and has many domestic and foreign art resources. In the past teaching, just like overseas art schools, they regularly held some celebrity sharing meetings, theme forums, or took students to lectures and other activities, such as the Third International Forum on Digital Design Education, WoSoF Global Fashion and Jewelry Innovation Design Forum, Natural Light x WEWORK Space Linkage Theme Forum, etc.
In the activity, students can contact and exchange with the industry leaders face to face, and even discuss the problems encountered in the creation together. Such activities can not only update their cognitive level, but also learn from their development experience and design experience, and transform into their own growth.
Those who go there to study, especially for our major, are all interdisciplinary, such as brand, market, industrial design, human-computer interaction, and no one is an undergraduate.
Many people go to graduate school after work, so many of your classmates may be 45 years old, 35 years old, or 30 years old, and have had seven or eight or eight or eight or nine years of work experience. At this time, you work with them on projects. As a person who has no work experience, it is very helpful. No matter in the process of communication or in the form of work, you can learn a lot from them in life.
The studio mode of art colleges is the core of teaching, and the natural light has always adhered to the combination of studio courses and many to one teaching system. Students develop comprehensive abilities of communication, collaboration, expression, leadership, etc. in studio courses. In the many to one teaching system, we will make more accurate customized guidance according to the characteristics of students and the requirements of target colleges, so as to ensure that each student can develop in all aspects and produce the best collection of works.
Such studio mode can also ensure the improvement of students' interdisciplinary thinking. The interdisciplinary system of natural light has been put into practice since 2016. In the process of continuous upgrading, the national teaching and research team has exclusively developed a teaching model combining interdisciplinary and six major departments. While its own disciplinary knowledge system is professional enough, get More rich disciplinary experience, explore innovation in complementary learning, maximize the competitiveness of works collection, and cultivate the interdisciplinary creative ability preferred by colleges and universities.
Q: From what you just said, we have fully felt that this is a very interdisciplinary major. Will there be some interdisciplinary cooperation with other majors or departments in the school?
There will be some doctoral students from other majors to share, and some people will be selected from the class to cooperate with other majors such as design management and interaction design on some small projects. Such opportunities are available, mainly through the selection system.
Q: During your study, have you ever done any projects that are impressive or interesting?
One project that I think is very interesting was the cooperation project between the school and the government of a certain district in England at that time, helping a department called social care under the district to optimize a digital platform. The main purpose is to help local vulnerable groups redefine their applications and optimize the process of selecting candidates.
What I thought was more interesting at that time was that the government also provided some professionals with arrangements for us to conduct 1V1 interviews. And we can go to the local community to carry out some in-depth research to understand their pain points and needs. The collection of this information can help our entire project. Finally, the project output is also good. They also found it helpful to report to the government.
Q: In your opinion, during the period when you were preparing your work collection for natural light, what would be helpful for you to learn after entering Lcc?
Before going to Lunyi LCC Master of Service Design to study abroad, Xiaohua has taught me how to use some tools of service design, including the whole design thinking and some detailed flow charts, service blueprints, user concept maps. So it is very helpful for some projects in my group and in the process of the group there.
In the past teaching, we also emphasized the cultivation of basic ability and design thinking when faced with students who are pressed for time or have a certain foundation. Many students did not understand why the teacher should arrange courses like this at the beginning, "wasting" valuable time.
Wei's London School of Communication The case of LCC Master of Fashion Design studying abroad can tell us that even with art design background, when changing majors or applying for overseas colleges, students' past learning and future learning habits need a transition period to adapt to the pattern of overseas art education and ensure that they can keep up with the progress of learning.
Based on years of teaching and research experience and admission cases of international top universities, Natural Light is synchronized with overseas universities, and seamlessly connects the overseas teaching curriculum system in the form of literature, tutorial, workshop, studio, etc. from the four dimensions of arts, technology, design thinking, and creative practice, so as to comprehensively cultivate students' comprehensive artistic literacy and scientific teaching mode, It will bring more long-term development to students.
Q: In addition to studying, what do you think of studying in Lunyi LCC Master of Service Design or living in London?
I think life is very interesting. Free time is enough. Because there is a lot of time for design projects that can be allocated freely, there is time to explore London. No matter you go to play with friends, including downtown, you will feel like living in a tourist city every day.
I think a good place in London is that no matter where you go, there must be a park within 5 to 10 minutes. They do a very good job of greening. In addition, once you go to the park, you will feel very comfortable. Many people lie on the ground to bask in the sun.
Q: For those who also want to apply Service Design Study Abroad Do you have any suggestions to help them go deeper into this major?
Before going abroad, lay a good foundation, especially the ability to use design tools. Especially during the collection of works, get familiar with the process of design thinking. Then we need to read more books, which can still be used for reference. First train the basic ability, and then go to Britain to consolidate their skills and theoretical knowledge in practice.
What is particularly recommended is that in the UK, in addition to school resources, I should find more extracurricular resources. I think extracurricular resources are very helpful to me.
I recommend two APPs, Meetup and Eventbrite in the UK. There are a lot of interest groups on Meetup, and they will publish some activities regularly, such as the Service Design Alliance. They may hold some activities regularly, all of whom are designers in the industry. Or go hiking on weekends. Of course, I like hiking very much. They have many local hiking groups. You can also relax and go out with them on weekends. You can find various interest groups in it. I think it is very good to learn computer knowledge, photography and art.
Like Eventbrite, it is more like an official platform. There are many official large companies, or some very formal activities, some workshops, and design groups. For such activities, they will send some tickets on it. It is also very interesting if they can participate in these activities.
The rich life can not only relieve the pressure of students, but also provide inspiration and improve cognition for designers. In the fully upgraded product system 4.0 of natural light, we have set up a new student club to provide students with different activities, such as taking students to participate in art museum cooperation projects, going to art exhibitions or festivals, design weeks, leading students to participate in international design competitions, and so on.
These targeted activities and practice opportunities not only enable students to gain growth, but also increase experience, enrich personal CV and enhance the application background.
Q: Knowing that you have been preparing for the interview, do you think the experience of studying abroad will help you to apply for a job?
As far as service design itself is concerned, China is still at an initial stage. The establishment of relevant disciplines is relatively preliminary in China, and there are very few schools that may be opened. So I think if I have studied service design abroad, it will be relatively advantageous for China to find a job in this area.
Q: We know that applying for a position requires a portfolio just like applying for an institution. Do you think there are any differences between a portfolio for job hunting and a portfolio for study?
There are some differences. The focus of the collection of works is also different for different companies.
The companies I applied for were all consulting companies. If they were like this, they would prefer to display the process. The display of this process was similar to the collection of works when I applied for colleges and universities at that time, and would focus more on showing my thinking ability, thinking process and project process. For the final exhibition, it will be relatively weak.
However, if you apply for an Internet company, you can pay more attention to the interface, or the requirements of starting projects directly are higher.
As Wei said, applying for different companies and positions is the same as applying for college portfolios, which need to be adjusted according to the needs. Each country, college and major has different requirements and preferences due to different needs. From time to time, we will explain the requirements of the portfolio to students in various activities.
The above is the experience shared by Wei Xuechang, who brought us Lunyi LCC service design master's study abroad experience. I see that Wei has made progress in the design, from natural light to LCC, from LCC to industry, and will play his part as a designer in the future. I am happy for him, but I am also very pleased, and I hope that natural light can give more students a better value than expected future.
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