Prepping for Grad School

Hello Core77!

For as long as I’ve been following this site, it’s a shame I haven’t been involved sooner. But here’s why I’m reaching out now:

ID is not new to me, but up until completing my undergrad (in 2009) it wasn’t the career path I was gravitating towards. Over the past number of years those ambitions have progressively changed and I’m ready to go back to school specifically for ID. My undergrad degree is in Industrial Engineering in a program that focused on product development. In addition to that, I spent my senior year taking product design courses for fun (because hey, that’s why we got into it in the first place!) so I do have some basic background.

I’m looking for some guidance and feedback from the Core77 community on developing the basic ID skills to create an awesome portfolio (from scratch). Any specific projects or studies that you all found helpful during your schooling or career that you would be willing to share is greatly appreciated. Some of my fairly recent stuff is online at marcsweet.com, but these images were entirely just for fun. Now I’m ready to get down to business.

I have plenty of time and motivation to work on anything thrown my way, so expect frequent responses if things start moving! Thanks in advance for all the fun!

Marc

Marc,

My biggest advice is to work on what you love. That will keep you motivated through the process. What types of projects would you like to design?

Hi Yo,

I can definitely agree with you on that! Ideally I’m looking to focus on outdoor recreation; the gear people use for their outdoor endeavors, how they interact with the outdoors in general, and what happens to that equipment after it’s ‘retired’ from field use. For example, the ‘Sly Fox Nutrition’ page on my site hit the first two points I’m looking at since it started as a study in helping my friends and me excel in our backcountry pursuits.

Just for fun, this was a photo I took while Old Faithful was going off at Yellowstone NP. I found it entertaining that no one actually watched the geyser, but instead chose to view the event through their phones. (I’ve seen it go off before, so I was more interested in the people watching).


Marc