Hi everyone,
I am applying to TU Delft for MSc in Industrial Design Engineering.
I erased some personal information the university name and replaced a country with "my country", so please understand.
The required questions to answer are the following.
1.Your motivation for choosing this MSc programme.
2.Why you are interested in TU Delft and what you expect to find here
3.If this MSc programme has specialisation(s), which specialisation interests you the most and why?
4.Describe your hypothetical thesis project: what kind of project would you prefer? What would you want to explore? Please limit your answer to three possible topics.
5.Summarize in a maximum of 250 words your thesis work or final assignment/project. Please include information about the workload.
After four years of design education at 00 University in 00, I believe I have acquired the basic professional skills to handle complex design projects. I was, however, motivated to deepen this knowledge and understanding through continued education by my first ever trip to both Amsterdam and Europe a few years ago. The way the Dutch approached design fascinated me as they approach social problems from an experimental perspective to reach creative solutions such as spatial programs that suggest alternative ways of living. I believe that its attitude towards diversity and cooperation allows the Netherlands to distinguish itself internationally.
Throughout my entire life, I've been pursued a sense of home. As a child, I came to know, firsthand, the many ways that spatial design can alleviate social problems. Due to an oppressive family environment, my parents' divorce, and frequent moves from region to region, I was a child who didn't fit in anywhere. During this period of my life, I found pleasure and joy in simply drawing floor plans of desired spaces. The formative influence that spatial design had on my childhood, it's no wonder that I decided to pursue it professionally.
At the same time, I kept trying to learn working in diverse design fields. During my time in multidisciplinary design studio, I have come to expanded my border integrating approaches of fashion, space, business to one. Most importantly, my experience at a social enterprise called 00 gave me the opportunity to redefine my sense of value. Dealing with housing model and community, the interest from the previous fantasy which was continued from my childhood has transformed into a strong self conviction that I want to give a positive impact to people and society.
Looking back my past activities, I've undergone a gradual process experiencing a field of design, art and business, and social management to discover my aptitude as a designer. I consistently considered about the change which I can give an influence through my journey establishing my identity. By beyond designing physical infrastructure revealing the unseen matter, I now want to design and provide a better life for others.
In my final year, I've done two design projects each having a workload of 10 ECT credits. For one project, we aimed to design a furniture which reflects the contemporary issue as a two member team. "What does cooking mean to modern people living in the 21st century?" The question became a milestone to lead my final assignment.
In my country, usually women are left with doing household chores whilst the number of double-income family increases. The goal was to break the fixed gender role and suggest the possibility to encourage people to be more intimate. Empirical research conducted shows that, cooking can be used as a medium to educate children through following certain instructions, and to prevent dementia and elderly depression. The focus was on the communication.
During design process, we played with shapes to define an idealistic shape of a kitchen island so that we could design an alternative kitchen island which assist physical activity, support communication, with flexibility in function and shape.
To combine two different modules-the round table and trolley-, rail system was used so that users can push and pull the trolley easily and rotate its angle. We spent plenty of time drawing sketches and making prototypes to stable the center of gravity. With the help of this project my basic knowledge about engineering got enriched. Ultimately, it supports people from different life stage, generation, and gender to share pleasant time together during a process of cooking and eating food.
To deal with a question where not always a ready-made answer promises to be challenging one; uncertainty always makes people anxious. However, studying at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering worth my time and it will enable me to acquire ability required to think creative solutions up for contemporary issues.
The basic motivation for TU Delft came from strong interdisciplinary and multicultural education background. I found that the research project carried out at TU Delft are outstanding with various theme and labs of research. As I want to strengthen my ability in researching, planning strategy, I feel that to be associated with this group for my masters would stand me in good stead for my future career to become a front-end designer.
Also, I've heard that students in TU Delft are offered to interact with people from other fields and countries. By given the opportunity to be exposed to new people, places, ideas, I expect to learn in the inclusive and multicultural environment which will help me to gain insight so that I can tackle global problems and cultural issues during my master course.
The three MSc programs in IDE all have a close correlation with technology, people, and business. Since I want to focus on people, I've chosen Design for Interaction(IDE) to apply. I particularly have an interest on user interaction and user research. However, I wouldn't neglect other components. I'm always open to adopt new ideas and approach, and combination of disciplines is needed to think critical, creative, and innovative.
I totally agree with the educational philosophy of DfI that user-oriented approach in design process will influence people's lives in many aspect. I believe the importance of designer's role in modern society and human-centered design approach will lead to change a personal sense of value, communities, and ultimately, societies. Although my country has recorded remarkable economic growth, many social, economical, technological issues are remained leaving a gap for designers to fill with creative solutions.
DfI is an interdisciplinary program which I can weave all my experiences, educational background, and diverse interest in urban regeneration, architecture, housing model, community, education and etc into an integrated outcome. Combining my background as a space designer with user-oriented approach in industrial design field, I'd support to help my motherland and the world combined.
For my hypothetical thesis project I would like to explore and design a new way of living. This would be a main theme for projects below.
To be more specific, I'd like to delve deeply into tightening the connection. Connecting people to people, local community, infrastructure, resource and etc. It might be a technical or economical approach, however I pursue emotional interaction which will allows us to live in a collectiveness.
Ideally, I would like to do this through the lens of healthcare, which to pervades our everyday life, in order to holistically improve the quality of life of an entire community. The paradigm in the healthcare industry is shifting from curing and caring, to preventing. This is particularly true in my country, where the percentage of the elderly is increasing, and as a result is facing an urgent need to take an action to manage its aging society. Improving the way of healthy living whilst fully reflecting the community's need is necessary to improve the quality of life.
This is something that I believe I would be able to explore in the Netherlands, which has defined itself as a shared city borrowing the idea first conceived in my country. With rich resources in the Netherland and close interrelation between the Netherland and my country, I wish to provide a practical and effective solution during my thesis project. Ensuring the impact to be delivered, I expect to foster positive business relationship working with startups, businesses, governments and NGOs worldwide rather than staying at the academic level.
I am convinced that a Master's degree in IDE will be a milestone for me to achieve my goal. The dedication and sincere effort I've made has matured me to be an advanced designer. Given the opportunity, my time during IDE by learning from high quality faculty with remarkable group of people will enable me to be at the forefront of innovation so that I can contribute to my country and the world. Taking all these factors into account, I am sure that TU Delft is the best place for my graduate studies and I am excited to contribute to ongoing research work at TU Delft cooperating with great people, company, and any other organization. It will remain with me for life, making me an adaptive and well-rounded professional.