Essentially, after a lot of thought I know I want to have a career in design; however, within that, things get really confusing. When applying to schools I got into RISD and was awarded a scholarship, but I was also accepted UC Berkeley. Essentially, at the time, I wasn't sure if I wanted to work in design, so I chose Berkeley as it would allow me to kind of figure stuff out (hopefully). Now, after completing my fall semester of freshman year at Berkeley, I'm still just as confused as of where to go, but understand much more in terms of the work I want to do. I'm making a discussion because I'm confused as to which school would cater best to what I want to do and am willing to reapply to RISD as a transfer with the hopes of getting in.
My main interests have been in bio-inspired design and material and technological innovation within design. For example work from the Tangible Media Lab at MIT, most specifically the work of Lining Yao I have found very interesting. One of the teams recently worked with a textile manufacturer and created a textile of bioluminescent silk. They then created couture gowns using the textile, and then displayed them in a showroom hosted by Gucci (super amazing and awesome). What I'm interested in the moment is wearable tech and sustainability within fashion by using material and technological innovation in design practices. That being, if you look at the teams at MIT, there is simply nobody that's the scientist as well as the designer. There's one of each.
So where I'm stuck is, I know I want to work in design, but I find myself wanting to make the tech as well as the design. I have no clue what kind of jobs I could even get with this, but I understand that a masters and PhD degree at MIT in the tangible media lab are almost all expenses paid. The problem now becomes, I still have no clue if I want to be the scientist or designer, and honestly will always question the role I choose because I want to do both. Also, there's the idea that if I want to be a designer, RISD makes complete sense because it's the top design school in the country. However, then Berkeley is appealing because I still have science, and I've always liked math and science in school. After taking classes though, I absolutely hated computer science. I love what you can do with the technology, but the class was absolutely horrible for me (but others loved it). That being, the one design class I took, I loved, and got a near perfect score in the class. Bio-inspired design is still an option, but any biology degree requires a PhD if I want to do bio-inspired design, but I have yet to take a biology class.
For next semester, I basically have a schedule set up where I have a class in each subject, but I still need your help as I know that honestly probably won't help. Which school is more realistic in helping me in what I want to do, and what jobs are there even in this type of field?
Thank you for reading this super long post.
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