Kitten taking on the challenge of swimming in an adult pool

Last summer with my favorite seniors: Heat, friends, and changes

Summer turned out to be shorter than I anticipated, yet it embraced constant sunshine and blossoming flowers all around. Saying farewell to some of my good friends who graduated this semester left me feeling a bit melancholic. Despite that, I enjoyed exploring Chicago and spending quality time with my friends, and somehow it’s time to go back to school again.

Summer in Chicago can feel like a dream.

My favorite friends and I visited Navy Pier and the Art Institute of Chicago for the Van Gogh exhibition in the heat of summer.

My wonderful senior took us to Evanston beach and introduced me to Super H Mart, where all my dream Asian cuisine comes true.

A former colleague from Michigan surprised me with a visit in Chicago. We had a great time exploring the Field Museum, experiencing an Escape Room for the first time, and biking to Navy Pier for some fun.

We went to see a rose garden, Chicago Public Library, and Chicago Cultural Center.

It was a busy time as I got accepted into the Code in Place program at Stanford, and it was a magical time of coding.

I made sure that I had the most amazing time in my birth month. I booked an Immersive Mozart and Monet experience for my birth week and visited the Lincoln Park Zoo, which looked stunning in summer and was a stark contrast to the winter visit I remembered. To celebrate my birthday, I went with my favorite friends to Kai Sushi.

My favorite friends and I went to the amazing Botanical Garden, and we got a free pass, maybe because we could convince the officer that we were somehow a family.

I’ve taken up biking extensively, traveling from one place to another, and recently ventured into scooting for the first time. These have now become my main modes of transportation. One day, I biked to North Avenue Beach and got so into it that I lost my name tag, Student ID card, and Ventra Pass.

I also get to go on an architecture boat tour again and watch a water show this summer. It was super hot, like I was burning in hell, but it was cool; still wouldn’t say it was worth it.

A-session: Where kitten fights business strategy & interaction design

The semester started with hope and joy, and with that, I joined a faculty member who started Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging). I also made new friends, whom have now become my favorite people, and my tea master. One of the most challenging classes this semester, which I brought upon myself, is Product Portfolio Planning. I was assigned the Fitbit company (now acquired by Google) with a smartwatch as a product portfolio. My assignment was to study the industry, the trends, the strengths, and the opportunity areas of the company to propose visionary and sensible recommendations for their product portfolio. This indeed is the first time that I get to wrestle with business strategy and a business framework. During the RecruitID networking event, I pulled an all-nighter again (classic) to go all out with my recommendations for Fitbit. I mean, I know that I can do more, but I am a proud yet sleepless kitten, once again!

Fitbit + Google company background information for Product Portfolio Planning

Interaction design method, apart from being less intense, has given me a new and interesting perspective on the design world. It has always been a part of my plan to explore interaction design, and the opportunity is here after enduring so many required courses last spring. It’s true that I, along with many students, find the classes offered this fall to be a big disappointment. Nevertheless, I appreciate that the instructor provided us with timely and detailed feedback. She was very eager to help and open to our suggestions. I really appreciate having her as my instructor.

5E Framework to capture user experience for Interaction Design Method class

My first and second attempts at Ikebana.

B-session: Where kitten meets the awesome, the almost-awesome, and the oh-please

Not to be crazy this time around, I had to drop one class — Innovation Implementation, but I plan to take it in the upcoming fall. I am satisfied and, to some extent, confident that handling five classes, no matter how crazy, is manageable. As it turned out, that’s precisely how things unfolded.

One of the best classes this semester, and after a long wait, I finally met who I anticipated would be an outstanding instructor in Metrics that matter — despite my advisor’s differing opinion. The class delved into measuring impact and key indicators that truly capture essential data for compelling arguments for design. As expected, the instructor is amazing, truly knowledgeable, and she will be named the co-winner of this semester’s Best Professor Award. My only wish is for more personal, detailed feedback on my work, which was somewhat lacking. Nevertheless, she is great. It surprised me to learn that she had considered law school before choosing to become a designer. It feels like I’ve found a kindred spirit. I also had the privilege of being on the team with my tea master, from whom I’ve gained valuable insights through his years of experience. I hold nothing but respect for him.

Google HEART framework to capture the important metrics of our design project for Metrics That Matter

Intro to Data Visualization is my shiny new toy this semester, and I have unrealistically high expectations for this class. We all know kitten loves to play around with coding. Despite my initial impression of the instructor, he turned out to be a really honest, realistic, and cool person. He outright told us that he wanted us to get the most out of the 7-week class. It was a bit of a letdown that he was unwell for a while, and we didn’t advance as much as I had hoped in data visualization with Python. However, we did take our first step using the Python library, Matplotlib. It’s up to me now to take it a step further.

Using Python to visualize sales data with Python library in Intro to Data Visualization class

The last, and oh gosh, heaven knows, the least: Intro to system. As expected from hearing not-so-great feedback about teamwork in this class from my favorite people, I had little expectation for it. Two of my team members were out cold in the first class, not a great start at all. My team decided to focus on immigrants in emergency room situations at hospitals — a really wide scope for a 7-week class, unrealistic, and not to mention that none of us actually had enough knowledge about the topic without research. The result, absolutely as expected, was a hot mess, to say the least. We had to research while also applying a framework to the content and tried to create a system map to present our analysis and system intervention. Content-wise, it was kind of interesting but similar to what I already know. We cannot just look at things on a flat surface; everything is connected in a circle. If you change one element, it will also affect the others. It just got me thinking if we can recreate certain changes we would like to see in our current system. After all, the system is not broken; it is designed that way.

I’m embarrassed to show our work, so here’s my personal redesign using trauma-informed design thinking.

Fall Semester Workshops: Where kitten meets her best dream and absolute chaos

Visual Communication System, or what we have come to later call and understand as the Space Elevator class. I’ll be honest — I hesitated to enroll in this class because the instructor specifically mentioned that there would be a lot of secondary research. Still recovering from a horrifying experience in the Principles and Methods of User Research last spring, I was not keen on reliving that nightmare. However, and it’s a big ‘however,’ the instructor is exceptionally organized, making her one of my all-time favorite faculty members due to her brilliant expertise in visual communication. This semester, she is rightfully nominated as the co-winner for my Best Professor Award. The entire class revolves around communicating the complex and rarely heard-of concept of the Space Elevator for our client, the US Space Command. I know, we’re so cool, and we have our best people on the team. This class has forever changed my preference in movie genres; I’m now more interested in space-related content than ever. I stand proudly with my dream team, and together, we go far, making this truly one of the best classes this semester.

Communicating risks associated with Space Elevator from ground up to space.

Coming up next is where the kitten meets her demise, or faces her true test of competency. The Interaction design workshop is where things get truly crazy, and this is truly an understatement. It becomes the grandest challenge for my project management skills, requiring me to seek help from multiple talented individuals, alumni and advisor, to navigate this crisis. As anticipated, entering with no background in interaction design and having heard not-so-great feedback about almost everything in this class, I had a strategy in mind when choosing my team leader. Oh how did I read the star so wrong. I had no idea she would be so busy this semester, and working with her revealed her blind spots more clearly than ever before. She is an incredibly hard worker, albeit unrealistically so, lacking precision in her approach. As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough, the third member of our team turned out to be someone with whom I wouldn’t naturally collaborate, as our vibes didn’t quite align. Despite all the drama and upheaval, we managed to pull through. I dare say I’ve learned a valuable lesson, and it was worth all the pain, once, to know the best practices of UX design; it truly is challenging. Funny, I was the first one to have had it with the team. Later on, they were at each other’s throats like cats and dogs, and I ended up playing peacemaker because I was way past just being angry at that point. We submitted work that was deemed acceptable, at least mine, and we were more than glad that it was over. We all surprisingly became friends again. But please, oh please, let’s not see you girls on the same team again, and we’ll be just fine.

WildfireWatch (my version of the name of our application) leverages AI to make better-informed decisions during wildfires. This is the first scenario of a mother in Hawaii asking a neighbor to pick up her son from school for her.

And the awards go to…

Product Portfolio Planning, Metrics that matter, and Visual Communication System workshop are recognized as the three best classes this semester for their outstanding materials, contents, and teamwork. The Best Professor Award, unsurprisingly, goes to instructors for Metrics that matter and Visual Communication System workshop classes. Lastly, the ultimate award goes to the kitten, who survived another semester of (maybe less) torture with certain experience behind her.

Bittersweet winter break, but wait?

It’s time to say goodbye to my favorite seniors. Some of them have left the State and returned home, but surprisingly, most of my favorite seniors are still here. They might even show up at Kaplan to play with me, as if they never left. I did spend a lot of quality time with my favorite people during Christmas and New Year. My beloved bunch kept me busy alright. Then comes the spring semester and a snowstorm, so stay warm and stay tuned!