There are those who dream, and then there are those that “Just Do.” Let me tell you, collegiettes: Melody Kim, a 21 year old Cognitive Science major, is undoubtedly a doer. Her creative mind has brought her success, particularly in her efforts to conjoin the arts with engineering. She brings a student’s perspective of design and engineering to UCSD through her organization, UXSD. As vice president of the organization, Melody works to foster a creative environment where students from a diverse range of majors can come together to share ideas, create new and efficient designs for a range of platforms, and celebrate the art of design. Melody enjoys teaching those around her about design, and she is a strong advocate for female designers! May her interview be an inspiration to all collegiettes who share a passion for the creative mind and life.
Please tell us a little about UXSD.
UXSD is an acronym for “User Experience San Diego,” and the organization was really only established about a year ago. It kind of emerged from the ideas of a lot people in the HCI programs. In those programs, we basically weren’t able to meet with other people who were interested in User Experience or design, and that was hard. We put this organization together to kind of unite the community around it, and it’s taken off since.
This year, we have launched initiatives to try and get a design studio, so there’s more of a collaborative environment for people to work on their design projects in a single place. Right now, in the classes we have, we kind of experience the programs; we don’t, however, get to interact with engineering, computer science, and all of these other disciplines more frequently. This design studio will hopefully be that one place where we can all come to and work on these cool different projects.
That’s where Design UCSD, our newly launched student design competition, came from. This competition is basically a way to unite all of the students from all of the different disciplines around the question, “How do we improve UCSD?”. The challenge is introducing them to the idea of “design thinking” or “innovation thinking” of the design process. We are trying to view and promote tackling the design challenges on campus as a different way of problem solving. We find that this way of problem solving, based on design, has been adopted by industries. Corporations from Microsoft to JC Penney are figuring out how to solve problems more creatively and through a design approach, and that’s what we’re trying to introduce to the campus.
Are there certain majors that this design initiative really benefits?
No matter what field you’re in, whether it’s sociology, philosophy, or the more humanities based majors, in any type of industry, you will be working with people from different backgrounds. For the most part, what helps a person to become successful is their ability to work with people that come from different backgrounds, so I do feel like the design initiative benefits everyone. We’ve also seen that people who have come from different backgrounds have interesting views and perspectives to add into this design process. Engineering majors can really benefit from learning from the humanities perspective because they begin to learn about the people their designs are affecting.
How did you personally get involved with UXSD?
It was founded last year, and I was quite close to the founding members and for the longest time I think a lot of what we’re doing has come out of what I have observed in the program throughout the years and how design education could be improved. We didn’t get a lot of chances to meet with other people, and I was so hungry to meet other cool, passionate people who want to build things and there wasn’t a lot of ways to do that. I wanted to build this community out of my own needs for design education, community building, and connections to the industry. Over the past three years, I’ve had to try really hard to get internships and get connected to network. Because UXSD is rooted in the Cognitive Science department, I really wanted to bridge the student-industry relationship. I also wanted to have a way for alumni to give back.
What contributions have you personally made through UXSD?
I have been involved with the idea of the design studio and Design UCSD. The design studio was something I wanted as a physical place for everyone to come and collaborate; there hasn’t been a place for the Cog Science students to come and do that, and I thought and think it would be valuable. With Design UCSD, the idea was about putting together the competition and working really closely with the designer at IDO. I’ve done a number of design competitions previously, so this was right up my alley, and I wanted to bring something like this to UCSD.
How do you try to stay inspired, and inspire those around you in your daily life?
I stay in touch with a lot of the news going on in the design field, so Twitter is one of my best friends – I’m on it during almost all of my spare time. I stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the field of design, and that’s super important because we think a lot of the time about what’s immediately around us, but a broader knowledge brings in different ideas. These ideas will influence how we go about UCXD. Also, I stay inspired through side projects, and I like going to concerts and other types of art forms like going to museums, going to see shows, and traveling. To inspire others, I love mentoring. Since I post a lot in our group, people ask me a lot for tips and if they should be in majors like Cognitive Science or if they should drop out and go to art school. Even though I haven’t spent a lot of time in the industry, I think it’s been awesome to kind of be able to share about my previous experiences in industry, start-up, and the university.
What advice would you give to students entering fields driven by creativity?
My favorite piece of advice would be “Just Do”. I think there’s a lot of fear that people have about entering this kind of world. It’s really daunting; everything is just overwhelming, but the idea is just to start small. Doing small projects will help you get your foot in the door. People’s biggest fear is “How do I get my first job?” while having no experience, and I’ve just been telling people to go and Google how to build an interface. Or look up a Photoshop tutorial. Just start building interfaces, or pick something and redesign it, because then you’re all of the sudden building up a portfolio. You might not be able to talk about it like a designer would, but just doing little things like getting a coffee with someone in the industry or asking them for a phone call is so valuable. Just emailing people and getting your name out there is the only thing you can do.
How will you translate your experience with UXSD into life after UCSD?
I’m currently interviewing right now at different places, so I definitely hope to be going into the design field. I think design education is something I’m really passionate about, and I’m also really passionate about staying in touch with UXSD and contributing to what’s going on here. I think it’s a really historical time for design here at UCSD. Staying in touch with the students and making sure that they’re getting what they want out of the process is something really important to me. Spear-heading little organizations like this and getting the word out about design education is something that I really want to take up.
What song are you currently obsessed with?
I just saw James Vincent McMorrow last night, so I guess “Cavalier,” because we’ve been singing it all day yesterday and today.