Design & Engineering “Thinking” - Paper Thin?
Thursday, March 29th, 2007There is an interesting blog post on the Adaptive Path website about design education. The title – “Design Schools: Please Start Teaching Design Again” – is a direct plea calling for design schools to get back to basics. You can almost see the author throwing his hands in the air.
The author claims that “quite a few design schools no longer teach design. Instead, they teach “design thinking” and expect that that will be enough (Frankly, it isn’t.)” He goes on to say that “Thinking without the making and doing is almost useless in the job market, unless you want to work at Accenture or some other big consulting firm.” He then says that “D schools are doing a serious disservice to their students by only teaching them “design thinking” when a class in typography or mechanics or drawing might not only give them a valuable skill, but also teach them thinking and making and doing — all at the same time…It’s harder to execute an idea than to have one, genius being 99% perspiration and all.”
I am relatively new to design, but this rings true – and hits close to home. I have a mechanical engineering degree and I feel like I was only taught “engineering thinking.” I know that accredited engineering programs have to follow strict guidelines – but when the guidelines don’t mandate a course in machining or technical drawing, a key foundational piece is missing. We are graduating mechanical engineers who don’t know how to work with bicycles let alone engines. The excuse is that graduates with a B.E. will be managing the engineers who do the dirty work or that on-the-job training out of school will teach you the skills you really need to know.
It sounds like design is running into the same phenomenon. In our service and information-based economy, theoretical knowledge is more important than technical ability. And rightly so - coming up with great ideas is higher value work. The disconnect is that ideas only become robust when they are backed up by the hands-on, real-world understanding of what happens to designs when they leap off the page or computer screen and into the lab, workshop, or assembly line.
I can’t be too critical because I don’t have too many of those deep hands-on experiences. I can only comment on what I think is a slightly flawed process as I stand at the end of it and look back. For my part, I am currently trying to backfill some of that real-world understanding and get my hands dirty.
