Semester Review
The key to this class’s success was Professors Chen and Allen’s openness to different ideas. A lot of professors encourage students to be creative, but it often feels like the students’ designs that are closest to the ideas held by the professor receive the highest grades. This was not the case for this class because the instructors generally seemed pleased with any design as long as long as the design evolved with the feedback of the clinicians.
I am still unsure if I like the grading of this class. A commonly held thought is that students need to be graded in order to be motivated. This class is proof that this is not the case because it is largely “ungraded,” and my peers and I have put in a substantial amount of time into our designs. The motivation comes from the ability to design around a need that we are interested in. The reason I put ungraded in quotations was because at the end of the semester we do receive a grade, and it is slightly stressful to not know your stance in the class.
One of my favorite classes was the low fidelity prototype workshop with the A-school grad. I had thought that most initial prototypes were done on CAD, but being able to see and touch a prototype is invaluable. Another one of my favorite classes was the SPARK guest speaker. Working at SPARK would be my dream job because I love makerspaces.
BME Design 