Is it necessary to go abroad for graduate study in interior design? Today, let's see how natural light students apply for RISD indoor award offer across disciplines. From cross professional scene design to interior design, it took one year to complete four groups of portfolio projects, but none of them was very "interior"!? Today's case hero, Zhang, under the guidance of the natural light professional teacher, used his original professional background to amplify his personal advantages, and showed excellent comprehensive ability in his works, which finally won the favor of the admissions officers of five schools, and successfully won the Rhode Island Design Institute, Savannah School of Art and Design, Syracuse University, New York Institute of Interior Design Multi school award-winning offer from Boston Institute of Architecture!
Zhang, a student of natural light interior design, was admitted to:
Rhode Island School of Design Rhode Island School of Design
MDES Interior Studies Demonstration and Negative Environment (scholarship: 7000 $/year)
Syracuse University
MFA in Design (scholarship: 20000 $)
Boston Architecture College
Master of Interior Architecture
New York School of Interior Design
MFA in Interior Design
Savannah College of Art and Design
MFA in Production Design
Zhang studied scene design in Italy as an undergraduate. He said that because the teaching conditions in Italy were really limited, he planned to go to the United States to continue studying scene design. Fortunately, he met a group of responsible teachers and a group of students who love learning during his undergraduate period. In addition, Zhang's self-discipline habit has also benefited him greatly from his three years of learning. However, after learning that there are few schools in the United States in this field, I chose the major of interior design with the teacher's recommendation.
At the beginning, he was also worried about changing his major, but after coming to Natural Light to receive professional guidance, with the deepening of his study, he found that there was not much difference between the two majors. One of the works collection projects was completed by the teacher using the scene design he did in school, which just highlighted Zhang's original professional background and understanding of space design. By constantly challenging myself and breaking through the bottleneck of the major, I was finally admitted to RISD, an immortal college that I thought was unattainable!
Is it necessary to go abroad for graduate study in interior design? See how students apply for RISD indoor award offer
Q: Congratulations on getting the offer from Dream School. How long have you been on the course of your portfolio? How many projects have been done in the collection?
A: It took just one year to prepare the portfolio. During this period, I spent more than four months in Italy to complete my graduation thesis. During that time, the portfolio courses were mainly conducted online. I took more than two months of basic courses before the course of portfolio.
Q: How many projects have been done in the collection? Let's talk about these projects in detail?
A: I have done four complete projects plus some paintings and digital art works.
Project 1.
The site of this project is a 550 meter long mural on the bank of the Tiber River in Rome. This mural is still very famous in Rome, but few tourists know about this place. I learned about it because a teacher of my undergraduate course took us here to paint. Therefore, I plan to build a park here to attract tourists. At the same time, considering its unique geographical location and its functions, I will finally imagine a long strip park with the same length as the murals.
Project 2.
This project is called the artist's virtual residence. It is a project produced after I participated in a studio. It is a very abstract space design training (a definition I gave it). It integrates many concepts. First, it extracts concepts from the selected artists and their works to generate a base, Then, some concepts are extracted from the artist's personal personality combined with relevant psychological knowledge to generate a residence. The whole project attaches great importance to the application of concepts and theoretical research.
Project 3.
This project is derived from my graduation project. It is a film scene design and a project that reflects the major of undergraduate stage. Just on this basis, in order to reflect the integrity and logic of the project, process descriptions such as separation, concept evolution, space composition explosion diagram, etc. are added, so that teachers of interior specialty can more easily understand my project.
Project 4.
This project is a temporary exhibition in the city, mainly to popularize some simple medical knowledge for the public through visual expression.
Q: Which project is your favorite? Can you share the reasons why you like it?
A: The second artist's virtual residence is my favorite project, probably because I have never done a similar project before. It is totally different from the other four projects. In addition, it is very abstract, so it can be regarded as a great experience. It also makes me feel a sense of achievement that I can finally produce a model with a pattern.
Q: Which project is more difficult in the process? How does the teacher help you solve problems in this project?
A: The second Studio project (the artist's virtual residence) is a very painful process. On the one hand, it is too abstract. On the other hand, the project not only requires the final output to be beautiful and unique, but also requires a strong logic design. I have made many attempts. There are both manual models and three-dimensional models. They are either too concrete or the logic of the scheme is not strict enough. However, as Mr. Lin and Mr. Liu constantly put forward suggestions for revision of my project, and absorbed some advantages of other students in Studio, my plan gradually became perfect, and finally produced a relatively comprehensive plan.
Q: Are there any interdisciplinary works in your four portfolio projects?
A: The fourth project of the portfolio is an interdisciplinary project, which is a combination of medical knowledge and space (since high school students are science students, and most of the math and art students are liberal arts students, I think this may be a time to show my personal knowledge)
Q: How do you understand the major of interior design?
A: Each school of interior design in the United States has a different focus. Take RISD as an example, the main purpose is to teach space control ability and planning ability. Your output can be any functional space. In life, three-dimensional space or plane space is everywhere, so graduates can logically cover all fields, not only indoor architectural studios, but also scene design fields (including film, television, drama, even game and animation scene design), illustration fields, web design, book design, industrial design, etc.
Q: Is there any difference between having classes in natural light and having classes in school before?
A: In fact, there is not much difference, because my undergraduate education is western education, and the teacher plays a guiding role, relying more on his own professional research, and so is the natural light class. In a sense, it is more free, because during the natural light class, teacher Liu did not specify what I should do, But I choose according to my own interests.
Q: What do you think is the greatest help to the works collection in the teacher's teaching?
A: Teacher Liu's teaching has changed my understanding of design, and let me know that design can never be taken for granted, and every part of your output should have corresponding reasons. At the same time, the natural light learning atmosphere is very good. Other students, whether undergraduate or graduate, feel that they have good ideas. Every time we communicate with them, we will also gain.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for younger students who want to apply for this major in the future?
A: Students applying for the United States must pass the language test as soon as possible, and do not repeatedly take the language test in the whole process of preparing the portfolio, otherwise, in the end, they will not be able to guarantee the completion of the portfolio on time and with high quality, nor may they be able to test their desired language scores.
At this stage, I personally think it is a ridiculous act to declare what our personal style is. Because we are still students rather than professional designers, our task is to learn, so I think we should learn as much as possible about the techniques and design concepts of different designers, and learn to take the essence and discard the dross, Until you get your own "personal style" in the future.
Q: Having received so many favours from colleges and universities, have you finally decided which school to go to? Why?
A: When I went to RISD, my major was exhibition and narrative space design, which is closely related to my undergraduate major, so I should be able to compensate for my regret that I failed to continue learning scene design. At the same time, RISD gave me a scholarship of 7000 dollars a year, which is also a affirmation of my ability.
Q: Did the teacher give you some advice during school selection? Did you encounter any difficulties in the application process?
A: Since IELTS is just 6.5, which only meets the minimum requirements for applying to American colleges, all schools with English standards have applied.
During the application process, the language preparation was very difficult. After all, I studied in Italy as a undergraduate, and English was not popular there. When the domestic students were busy with CET-4 and CET-6, I had forgotten all about English. I really made great efforts to pass the IELTS exam. At the same time, the early stage of the work collection is also a difficult stage. Because the requirements of the work collection project are completely different from the requirements of undergraduate projects in school, Italian teachers only focus on the presentation of the final effect, while the work collection attaches great importance to the early research and the derivation process of the scheme. At the beginning, they did not understand this way of thinking, so they took many detours.
Q: How do you feel about receiving an offer? Can I share it with you?
A: Surprise+excitement, because I didn't think I would be admitted by RISD at that time. As we all know, it is called "Harvard in the design world", so in my mind it is simply a supernatural institution. What's more, I think that compared with other applications Studying abroad in interior design My work is not as professional as theirs, until one day I suddenly received a call from the deputy director of RISD's interior architecture specialty, affirming my comprehensive background and expressing willingness to accept me as a member of RISD. After hearing this, I was surprised, and then rationally told him that there was nothing in my mind except happiness.
Q: What is the experience of studying in overseas schools? Is it different from what you think?
A: Language is really important. No matter where you go, you can't learn anything even in a good school. At the same time, don't be naive to think that if you go abroad for a period of time, you will have no barriers to communication. You must learn more and speak more to achieve this effect.
Because of the accumulated learning experience of undergraduate, Zhang Students have a better ability to control the space, and then under the guidance of the teacher step by step, slowly developed design thinking and vision, and worked with the teacher to overcome professional problems and win the offer of Dream School. As Zhang said, "Design must not be taken for granted, and every part of your output should have a corresponding reason." Is it necessary to go abroad for graduate school in interior design? Today, we saw how the students applied for RISD indoor award-winning offer across disciplines. Natural light is the most supportive. We are willing to be your guiding light all the time!
More recommended articles for studying abroad in interior design:
Interior design works collection won the first and second interior professional offers in the United States
Edinburgh Master of Interior Design, detailed explanation of real interior design project application experience
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