My path as I see it

It started with a roll of duct tape. From that moment on my life changed, I no longer wanted to be archeologist, or a blue angel pilot. No, from that moment all of my childhood dreams blew away with the wind, only leaving the whisper of my new path, Industrial Design. Through a series of days the single roll of duct tape transformed into a vast variety of things, from a patch for my pants to a trash spear. I was only ten years old but I had found my calling. Every new form and tool I could create intrigued me even more. During this week I constantly harassed my mother with my newest contraption, asking her advice and seeking reassurance of my underage genius. As time wore on I began to wonder how I could keep inventing for the rest of my life while getting paid. At that point my mother spoke two words which would ever change my path, and desires for my future, Industrial Design. Two words which would change my life and forever tie the path of my life to that of my parents.

Through the passage of time my desire of the field had grown immensely while also tragically and optimistically being tied to the fate of those that raised me. In the time that has passed from that first roll of duct tape I have desired so many different directions of this field that I could not even recall them all. As my life inched through my high school years, I was once again changed, as I was by those two words we all now speak on a daily basis. A new word shattered all that I had thought that I had known, forever altering my personality. A word, which I thought, was so separate from my life and what I had in mind for my future. During my sophomore year of high school my mother began a long and tumultuous battle with Cancer. It was disease which altered everything from our daily routine to the way we talked. A cloak of grey had fallen over our already dreary Seattle skyline.

The introduction of disease into my life utterly changed me, and my outlook on the field. I was able to witness the large array of devices and products used in the healing process, and the immense effect they had on my mother and others in the Cancer ward. My eyes opened through the struggles I witnessed, through every interaction of treatment those suffering either lost or gained hope. Life became a crapshoot for a cancer patient, every second predicting a complete change in ones life. Through observation I began to notice the role fear played into the rate of survival, and how products played into that fear, some calming, some fanning the flames.
During the five years my mother faced an uphill, and eventual terminal battle, my desires and goals for design drastically changed. I no longer wanted, nor personally could stomach the idea of designing just a “pretty” product. I no longer held the dream to sit in the ranks of Dieter Rams, and Charles and Ray Eames. Nor could I envision myself making the culinary designs I had often dreamed of. Of all of the paths an Industrial Designer could take, I developed an intense need to help those who were thrown blindly into the seesawing battle of life and death, those who were fighting a battle many years before their time, and those who stood with them during this time and eased their pain.

At this moment in my life my desire to help those who are fighting for their lives, and those who must live in the hell of surviving those that have fought and lost, is consuming. Of all the fields within Industrial Design I can only no envision myself in one, Medical Design. While I am still intrigued by the elegant curves of a beautiful chair, and the immense amount of thought put into the design of a spoon, I am and feel I always will be drawn to the emotional and technical aspects of medical design.

Throughout this semester I have explored several paths of design, while almost subconsciously linking them mostly to my thoughts on my desired future path. While many view the medical field as a cold scientific realm, I would truly like to end that stereotype through the admitted importance of the emotional side of medicine. When the patient as a whole is considered, only then can we truly delve into proper solutions, which take into account the ergonomics of the body and mind. To reach this unity of healing we must realize that the patient is not just the individual receiving treatment, it is also the family, those who are ultimately affected by all consequences of illness, and the loss of life.

I desire the field of medical design, not for intellectual gain, nor breakthrough technology’s. I strive to be in this daunting field through a naïve conviction that I may one day bring hope and peace to just one person who is fighting a daily battle just to see another day.


“…If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.”

-Emily Dickinson