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engageID // 09.14.04 the institute of design bi-weekly newsletter |
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news --> student activities: IDSAB Meeting Recap; About, With and For --> internship spotlight: Brandy Fowler - Gravity Tank --> of interest: ID International Dinner, Life in Chicago |
| Welcome back all! And welcome to our new
students! |
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news All this news and more is available on the ID website at: http://www.id.iit.edu/news/news.html |
| About, With and For Approaching About, With and For, the student-run conference focused on user-research and its evolving community, is coming up in just a few weeks! Registration prices go up for everyone after September 24, 2004 - that's next Friday - so please get online and register: http://www.aboutwithandfor.com Speaker confirmations are rolling in and all the loose ends are coming together. The conference planning team is working hard to make this an even larger success than it has been for the past two years, and we could use extra volunteers. Please watch for emails about how you can help make this year's conference a humdinger. back to top |
| International Dinner This Friday, September 17, at 7:00 PM, IDsocial will be hosting the ID International Dinner. This event gives all students a chance to share the food, drinks, and traditions of their country / culture with all of their friends at the Institute of Design. Please come to the 4th floor to represent and partake. Also, if you wish to share the music of your culture with the school, please drop PG-rated mp3's on temp in a folder called "Intl_Dinner_mp3s" to have them added to the playlist. Music files are to be used for this one event, this is not an illegal operation. back to top |
| Brush up and submit your resumes for submission to the fall
RecruitID Resume Book! We are now accepting resumes from any students wishing to participate in this fall's RecruitID, a student-run one-day recruiting event where prospective employers schedule interviews with students based on student resumes. One-page resumes will be collected from students and assembled into a Resume Book which will be sent to the potential employers attending RecruitID. Resumes are due on Thursday, September 23 before midnight. What do I need to do? 1. Send an attachment containing your resume as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file to Brandon Schauer. ( Please see email from Brandon sent to bulletin Board for Resume details and ruquirements*) 2. Compose a blurb (see detailed explanation of blurbs below**), then visit this URL where you will find a Blurb Submission Form: http://www.betterbrushes.com/surveys/public/survey.php?name=fall_recruitid back to top |
| Lecturette: Blogs, Wikis, and RSS: Collaboration and Communication Wednesday, September 15, 12:15 PM to 1:15 PM - 3rd floor round room Jed Wood will cover what these things are, how they relate to each other , and how they can be helpful in school / professional work, as well as in your personal life. He will also demonstrate how to set them up. Lunch will not be provided, but feel free to bring your own. back to top |
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| IDSAB, First Meeting of the Year This past Monday, several ID students got together to talk about the Student Activities Board (IDSAB), and we were pleased to see a strong showing of new students interested in becoming a part of the operations. The following is a list of committees, chairs, and projects: connect Cobie Everdell, Chair Projects: - Recruit ID engage Phillip LaFargue II, Chair - engageID Newsletter - New Student Initiative - ID Glossary - About, With and For inside Laura Patterson, Chair - Lecturettes - White Paper Surveys - Fulfilling the tangible needs of ID students social Hillary Schuster, Chair - International Dinner - Beer Socials - AWF Social Event - Student Show - Coffee and Donuts Forgive me if there are projects I've failed to mention, but the important thing is that the student body understands what the purpose of these committees is: to spend their money. Using voting and project importance weighting, the IDSAB manages money obtained from the "student activities fee" tacked on to each student's tuition. So please get involved; everyone is invited! Contact James Schulman, IDSAB Chair, or any of the above-named committee chairs for details on how you can be a part. Its a great opportunity to use our resources to further establish the excellent student-run events that exist, or may exist in the future! - Phillip LaFargue II back to top |
| About With and For Conference Update With only about a month and a half to go, the content team of About With and For (myself, Laura Patterson, and Kris Marich) have definitely had our hands full. We received over 80 submissions to our call for abstracts around the conference theme of “Involving, Engaging and Educating Others”. The call for abstracts was a new approach to organizing the conference content and proved to be a successful one. The abstracts we received covered a range of topics relating to design research and the conference theme, from professional project case studies to new techniques and methods to academic achievements, from subject areas on design education to healthcare to universal design to dog food, from issues on client collaboration to internal decision making to stakeholder alignment to participatory design. We received a variety of abstract submissions from abroad, Finland, England, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and Canada, which is a huge breakthrough to open up speaking opportunities outside the comfortable ID circle. We are awaiting confirmations from our speakers, but can give you a glimpse of the conference schedule, divided over two days: 2 keynotes 21 1-hour presentations 6 2-hour hands on workshops 2 panel discussions 1 closing panel Unfortunately, we can't say who any of the speakers / companies are until we get confirmations, but keep checking back on the site for updates. We should know in a couple of days. Also, be sure to register BEFORE SEPTEMBER 24TH , as this is the date that fees will increase! http://www.aboutwithandfor.com/ Lucas Daniel back to top |
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| Brandy Fowler Gravity Tank Internship Summer 2004 Tell me about yourself. What is your background? Well, I studied studio art in undergrad – I hand built ceramic sculptures. Then I moved to NYC where I worked in architecture and urban design. I worked for an architecture firm that did school projects, so I worked on a lot of model-making and autocad support for the teams. I also worked for a smaller company where I did an apartment renovation, and then I worked for a digital model-making company and a transportation-engineering company. Sometimes I got to lead the projects, while other times I didn't have as much responsibility. I liked the companies where I could lead projects a lot more, because I felt like I had more autonomy. How did you end up at ID? I was applying to graduate schools in architecture when I found ID. I applied to 4 graduate programs in addition to ID. I came across ID when I was looking at programs, and in the end chose ID because my architecture friends felt that I would have more options coming out of here than if I had come out of an architecture program. So tell me about your internship search last Spring. Well, I went to recruitID. No luck there. I also sent stuff out to a bunch of architecture firms. No luck there either. Then a friend of mine who worked in architecture was going to hire me, but that also fell through. Finally, I spoke with Chris Conley, who is a faculty member here and he suggested that I apply to work at Gravity Tank. What was the application process like for Gravity Tank? Chris told me to call Michael Winnick—he went to ID during our Foundation year, so I already knew him. Michael told me to contact Cira, who is a partner at Gravity Tank. So I did, and she told me to go down there for a 45 minute interview. I brought my portfolio and we flipped through it together – it was Michael, Cira, and I. The interview was pretty conversational, focused upon the projects that I had worked on and my other work experiences. Since I already knew Michael from when he went to school here, it was pretty casual. We also talked about the projects that Gravity Tank was working on during the summer, and what my role would be. What was your position there? Describe a typical day. Well, the whole summer I was responsible for my own project, which was space planning. They were moving their offices so that was my responsibility to plan. I also floated around and helped other teams with pieces of their project. For example, I helped with a quantitative research piece—a survey—for a project dealing with retail and paper-organizing products. I worked with the lead researcher to write and review the survey questions, and also kept the client informed about how the mini-project was going along. In effect, I was the “mini team lead” for this part of the project. I also conducted retail field observations and shop-alongs for a tire project. I didn't know much about quantitative surveys and how to do those, so I learned a lot about that. Also, it was helpful to work on these qualitative research pieces with experienced researchers—I learned what to look for, how to conduct myself, etc. What did you think of Gravity Tank? Chris Conley, a member of our faculty here at ID, manages it, doesn't he? I loved it, I really did. It's a really tight team over there (about 12 people this past summer and I think its growing) but they are all very smart, motivated people. So it was great. It was like taking ID and turning it into a professional experience. Because Chris is there, it was nice to work at a firm that actually uses the methodology that we are learning at school. Also, because it was a smaller firm, I felt like I got a lot of responsibility and it wasn't like I got lost, like I might have at a corporation. Also, all the different groups of people there worked together on a daily basis, they're not very segregated, so I got a lot of exposure to different kinds of people and different kinds of work. Would you work there after graduation? Is it the type of work you imagined yourself doing after you graduated? It is. It is exactly the kind of work that I would like to do – applying ID methodologies to the kind of work I want to do after I graduate (hint, hint, Chris). What advice would you give to ID students looking for summer internships? You've got to have a contact. Do not send your stuff to every Chicago firm. After two summers of doing this, I found that if you don't know anyone at the firm, it is basically a waste of time to send them your stuff. It doesn't help at all to have your portfolio rejected. The contact is really key—whether it's a friend or a family member or someone you've spoken to at school or whatever. Any last remarks? I don't have anything else to say. -Jenny Fan back to top |
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| International Dinner this Friday, September 17th 7pm - ?? 6th floor Steelcase room Every year (sometimes twice), ID holds an International Dinner to celebrate the diversity of our student body (& to eat some danged good food). We are holding it this Friday, the 17th*! Following classes, come and bring your family/whoever, as well as some food & drink (beer & soda will be provided). You should bring food from your home county if you are an International Student. If you are from the States, bring "American" food or something that represents your nationality. The kitchen on 6 should hopefully be open most of the day for you to bring your dishes in/to prepare them. Please email me (hillary@id.iit.edu) if you have any special requirements (like being near an outlet). If you have any questions about the party, just ask me or a returning student. To recap, what you should do: - make food - come to the party - encourage other people to come to the party - drink when you come to the party See you there! - Hillary Schuster back to top |
| Life in Chicago - According to Hillary I was thinking that new students probably don't know where to do or get things near school (heck, I still don't know where the Kinkos is). Since I'm in charge of Idsocial, I figured that I might as well be the one to start the information flowing. When I sat down to think about it, the project started to sound too big. Therefore, you are not getting an all-inclusive, unbiased look at the stuff around school; you are getting my life. Maybe each newsletter, someone else will add the list? Keep in mind that this is just stuff in the River North or Loop area—which I am never in, except during school. Hillary Schuster Product Demo Student Where I… Eat Lunch Cosi - on the corner of Clark & Lake Burrito Buggy - in the scary food court on the corner of Clark & Lake (across from Cosi) Potbelly - I prefer the one on Clark, between Grand & Illinois (it's open until 7pm) Jamba Juice - in the Mart (not exactly an entire meal...but, hey) Redfish - on Kinzie & State (from 2-7pm, or after 10pm, they have great happy hour deals) Grab a Drink Shamrock - on Kinzie & Wells (it's across from the Mart, just past Kinzie Chophouse) Go on Break from Class The Wine Cellar (a.k.a. illy) - on the first floor of the Mart, by the South entrance (best coffee by school, amazing but expensive sandwiches, gelato, etc.) Au Bon Pain - across from The Wine Cellar, baked goods/pastries are ½ off from 4-6pm Bake for Me - on Clark, just South of Kinzie (second best coffee, after 3:30pm their baked goods are buy one get two free) Shop Michigan Avenue - it has everything–really–and usually more than one of each store (Borders, H & M, JCrew, Banana Republic, Gap, and Nordstroms–which has the best shoe collection) Washington & State - less crowded (H&M, Nordstroms Rack, Old Navy, Borders, and International Bead & Novelty, which is one street East, on Wabash) Get Cultured Museum of Contemporary Art - on Chicago, just East of Michigan Ave (admission is free on Tuesdays 5-8pm, otherwise it is $6 for students) Museum of Contemporary Photography - is in Columbia College, at 600 S. Michigan (very small but free and worth the trip) See a Movie AMC River East 21 - 322 E. Illinois, a few blocks East of Michigan (plays all big stuff and has a student discount) Gene Siskel Film Center - 164 N. State, near Randolph (plays weird stuff, like cool G.I. Joe art pieces) Navy Pier IMAX - on Navy Pier, at 600 E. Grand (if you are, you know, into shark movies and stuff) Relax Millennium Park - on Michigan, between Randolph & Monroe (the main part of it just opened and has some amazing pieces of art & architecture–check it out at http://www.millenniumpark.org/) The Playroom (a.k.a. The Make-out Room or Student Lounge) - on the 5th floor of ID (this room should be used only for fun or relaxing or reading–no work!) Mail Things US Post Office - first floor of the Mart Get Supplies for Prototyping or other Projects Pearl - on Chicago & Franklin/Wells, just off the Brown Line (get foam core, paint, architectural modeling stuff, pencils, straight edges, etc., etc.) Get Hardware (for Prototyping or other Projects) Clark & Barlow - on Grand & Orleans (although they always laugh at the random stuff that I buy) Buy Office Supplies Office Depot - on Grand & Orleans Got My Computer (When my Old One Crashed During the Last Week of my First Semester of Foundation) CDW - on Grand & Orleans Jump Rope & Drink Shared Bowls of Polynesian Liquor Through 5ft-long Straws Trader Vic's - in the basement of the Palmer House Hilton on State & Monroe (it's best if it follows a delicious meal at the oh-so-classy Beef ‘n' Brandy) Find Out Other Places to Go or Things to Do Metromix - http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/ Chicago Reader - in print (free) or at http://chireader.com - Hillary Schuster back to top |
// Editor: Phillip LaFargue
II |