“ This is the key for your Master’s success.” Master Tips Collection Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
Köln International School of Design Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
1. Introduction - Framing the problem The initial goal of this self-initiated short-time-project was to “pass-on” something to the new generation of MA students. Therefore the main criteria was to develope something that was not only useful but also contained the personal and the integrative aspects which shape this program. It started by considering to document, analyse and reflect on the ‘306 Talks’ - as they were very successful and highly appreciated but unfortunately still are paused at the moment. One of the considered ideas was to ‘get hold’ of the 306 Tasks which were realized so far and to produce a “how-to”-manual. Ironically we came across a possible title “306talks - The way the MA is supposed to be”. By handing this compendium to the new MA-students would help to keep the activity alive. Additionally it was considered to possibly having one final talk initiated by the 2010 group in the beginning of next lective year. But as the ‘306 Talks’ was something self initiated, we thought it should be rescued - or not - by a spontaneous initiative. By the idea of ‘how the masters are supposed to be’ and how the group found itself doing this project, the discussion went once more to the aspect of ‘fulfilling expectations’. In specific the present question was ‘how to deal with all those expectations’ and was add to the idea of ‘leaving some useful message for the coming students’.
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Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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As a result the concept of a ‘collection of hints’ emerged, which relates to the advice we would like to have heard in the begin of our studies. As an outcome, the idea was to produce a booklet of personal, direct and practical hints from students to students. To generate the content, we decided that the best way would be to ask the group which is soon graduating because they had accomplished the whole mandatory part of the study and could now look back on their personal process as a reference. This strategy would be quite easy to accomplish by a questionnaire presented in the same day to 6 of the 9 students of 2010 group.
2. Research strategy It was discussed to ask only one ‘top-hint’ but, instead, it was prefered to have more answers from each participant, since having just one answer of each could possibly lead to a great overlap and a very limited list of hints. The formulation of the questions was chosen in order to get the hints of the 2010’s group with emphasizing especially their personal remarks. Instead of other possible formulations like ‘recommendation’ or ‘advice’, ‘tip’ was chosen due its idea of a small hint which is not meant as the indisputable truth. Also the possibility of a retrospective formulation taken into consideration (e.g. “Which tip would have like to have when starting?”). However it
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was dropped to its negative connotation and the approach should have a proactive direction.
was the day the group handed in the credit sheets to inscribe in the thesis phase.
From this analysis it was possible to cluster the answers in eight main topics :
Furthermore it was important to find out the interviewees main reasons why they found their ‘tip’ relevant to pass to others. The final formulation of the questions was:
In total 26 ‘tips’ were collected from the 2010’s students, 4 from the 2009’s and 10 answers from the students from 2011.
>> Learn about research methods soon enough.
>> What is your tip for the new MA students?
3. Clustering
>> Why did you pick this tip? For the presencial group three equal sets of these two questions were distributed. After filling in their answers they were asked to additionally note their priority from 1st - 3rd. For those who were not present an email was sent with instructions to fill it three times and order the answers, sending it back to the project team. The students who have graduated in 2011 (2009 group) and the group which is still in the Self Initiated Project time schedule (2011) were also asked to respond, being considered as two different groups of control. Their answers would contribute in the analysis and elaborations and will help to put the specific hints which arose in the 2010’s group into a context.
>> Meet your supervisors together. >> Don’t get distracted by others. Stick to the idea that you are excited about. >> Plan yourself. Be structured. Plan free time. Be self responsible.
By reading all the answers it was possible to identify common concepts among the quotes. Even with a great diversity of issues addressed by the ‘tips’, almost each aspect of them was mentioned by at least one more person. This fact facilitated the construction of clusters. One important consideration was regarding the two levels of the answers - first the Tips and secondly the explanations. Usually the Tip addressed a clear issue at the first reading but in some cases the explanations add more hints transforming slightly the final meaning.
>> Document everything you do. >> Do as much as possible in the first year. >> Share. Team up. >> Try out
Trying to find connections between the clusters was a natural step in the process as well as to arrange them in relation with the others in a narrative way. This narrative quality emerged to reinforce the initial idea of a booklet creation. Conjunctions were used as bridges between the clusters as a way of coordinating the overall message.
The focus of this research stayed in the 2010’s students group due the nature of their studies phase: the group was just completing all the modules necessary to start the thesis, still immerse in the master program (differently from alumni) and experienced enough in the evaluation process to take some lessons from it. The date of data collection
KISD . Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project | Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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- Using the original quotes as starting points to re-build and clarify the messages.
A map resulted from this exercise, which helped to recognize two major groups: The first addressed more specifically pragmatic hints among activities within the master program, meanwhile the second refers to attitudinal aspects which could facilitate the master studies process.
4. Reformulating the answers
In this stage of the project, we started the process of analysis, referring to the clusters and comments, building up preliminary reflections on the results.
- Selecting the one tip from the answers literally,which the one which represented the variety of comments best;
The tip-headlines were reformulated as well as their descriptions - aiming to synthesize the messages. The options to accomplish this were:
Don’t get distracted by others. Stick to the idea that you are excited about.
In the previous process of clustering, the clusters were already being named in a “catchy” way. Thanks to this step, it was mostly possible to use the cluster’s name as the reformulated version of the final Tip. The core effort of the reformulationprocess was to debate and find an agreement regarding the communication of the issues mentioned in the responses. This process aimed deeply to keep the original messages and only make them clearer and more precise concerning their overlaps. This elaboration was especially necessary when the different perspectives of the answers were contradicting. In this process some clusters were divided in more tips, since they addressed different issues. ‘Get comfortable with KISD’ for example was not in the headlines, but it appeared so many times in the explanations of the answers, that it seemed quite important to address it separately.
As a result, this process ended with a list of 12 tips: 1. Get comfortable with KISD. 2. Enjoy your first year & Try Out! 3. Use the resources you have at KISD. 4. Document everything you do. 5. Use your first year to do as many projects as possible. 6. Be proactive. 7. Team up & Share. 8. Be self-responsible. 9. Plan yourself. Be structured. 10. Meet your supervisors often and together. 11. Don’t get distracted by others. Stick to the idea that you are excited about. 12. Learn about research methods soon enough.
Share. Team up.
Learn about research methods soon enough.
Try out in order to...
Meet your supervisors together.
just...
Document everything you do.
Do as much as possible in the first year.
but... Plan yourself. Be structured. Plan free time. Be self responsible.
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KISD . Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project | Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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5. Choice of this specific shape and form After reworking the tips, it was necessary to work on the product that would carry them. The initial idea was to produce a booklet, that contains the assorted ‘tips’. This format would lead to a linear narrative what implies a closed discourse. The value of this narrative was questioned however, since the connections among the tips were far away from linearity, but more similar to a wiki net. Also, it would be more valuable to leave the reading process open, enabling each reader to build his/her own connections among the quotes. Therefore, the question which arises is ‘how to build a nonlinear media, which could be readable in different ways?’ In a very fast brainstorm the booklet shifted from a linear book with nice phrases, to a mind map, to a collection of cards connected like a puppet, to a puzzle of triangle parts
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(“dymaxion map”) with multiple possibilities of assemblage. As the image of a 3D mind map was quite strong, the ideas kept around a 3D puzzle, which could give the user the possibility to arrange it by him-/ herself. Since the re-elaboration resulted in exactly 12 main tips, it was the perfect number to build a dodecahedron, like playing dices. This shape could carry all the quotes having the main quote on one side and the explanation on the back. Additionally it is ‘attachable’, fun and open for the user to build the connections. All the tips are highly connected, so no matter how to position the pieces, the message would be coherent.
6. Product description In order to have an easy and fast opportunity of testing-out the idea and presenting, it was decided to produce a hand-crafted prototype. On this basis it will be possible to decide if and how to produce an advanced model and how many of them.
KISD . Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project | Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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The basic elements are the “tip cards�: 12 pentagons which can be connected as a dodecahedron: The front side contains the tip whereas the back provides the matching explanation and more detailed hints how to understand it. As material we chose to use 2mm cardboard and apply the printing on it manually. However for a final product it is recommended to use thin 3mm wood and a more integrated print-production. Concerning the colour-coding we chose black and blue - Black looks more serious and professional whereas the bright blue adds also a playful touch.
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KISD . Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project | Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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7. Analysis / Reflection
year’s graduates but far too few for making any grounded thesis.
Even though the main emphasis of this project was on a more personal aspect (“leaving something for the next generation of students”), a short reflection on the answers was possible and seemed promising.
Possible explanations for the “coregroup’s” very focused view on studying and KISD are:
Before doing so, it has to be mentioned, that the control-groups (1st year and last year graduates) were actually too small, for a profound argumentation of any hypothesis. Neither was the formal set-up of the questionnaire (as an anonymous survey which focused on the personal notes of the master students) not designed for these interpretation. However, by keeping the overview who contributed which comment the process of clustering similar answers lead to identifying several aspects worth mentioning.
Why did we receive exactly these answers? We realized that the answers possibly indicate a correlation to the people’s status in their studies as well as on the circumstances under which they filled the questionnaires. The feedback from the people who filled their answers together in a group contained only aspects about the course and was not related to general life in Cologne etc. On the contrary, the colleagues from the first-year - who filled their answers alone - also included non-KISDrelated aspects at least once within their answers. Additionally we received some answers from last
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- Maybe the concern about the way the Master works is something specific about the “2nd year” group. After two or more surveys and several heavy debates about the structure and pro/con of the Master-program, maybe this group is specially thinking within this context when thinking of the Masters. - Possibly the way of filling the form together and inside of KISD led to a more focused look into the program. When doing it as a single person – like the first year did – within the daily routines it might be more likely to also think of other things. - The status of studying produces a difference in the answer’s focus. Firstly this can be seen as another argument, why the second year students who are now about to focus on writing their thesis and feel higher pressure are more concerned about the pragmatic aspects. Secondly this status might also be enhancing to the fact that relatively there have been a lot of comments concerning enjoying the first year and using it as a time of collecting credits at an early stage in a relaxed way. This effect might be especially strong as the date of the interview was the deadline for the credit-sheets.
KISD . Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project | Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
What is the aspect mentioned most often? Ten of the answers were about ‘fulfilling requirements’. Those tips were maybe addressed to avoid this anxiety we all experience over the process especially in the last phase of handing in the credit-sheets. It can only be assumed that the regarding tips aim to avoiding this anxiety in the beginning of the Master-program as it very likely leads to limited creative output by a constant feeling of guilt etc... Only one ‘tip’ was mentioned one time, dealing with “Research Methodology”. Every other area was mentioned by at least one more person.
What were the highest priorities? Even though promising this question was not conducted due to the limited amount of participants.
Are there any implicit understandings among the answers ‘between the lines’? Merging the different comments to a smaller number of ‘tips’ was sometimes not easy because it meant discussing about the implied meaning of the comments. This task however made us discover frictions and contradiction between and in the explanations. These also: >> KISD - spirit ‘Catching up the ‘KISD – spirit’ (or similar formulations) has
been mentioned very often in the explanations. Nevertheless, this was never chosen as a major ‘Tip’. There are two possible explanations: - ‘‘Catching up the ‘KISD – spirit’ is something which cannot be done by itself and therefore it is also not possible to give it as an advice for someone. Instead it will be the side-effect by some concrete actions you will take – for example, doing projects with BA-students, hanging out at Gute-Stube, doing (leisure) activities with your MA-colleagues, etc... - It is more a ‘subconscious’ advice that is not rationally “accepted” as a critical factor of success. (What not must be, cannot be). This would make it especially advisable to add it as additional ‘tip’ because it might be easily overlooked. >> Matching Contradictions Many people at KISD might state that this school is all about contradictions. However it is all about the tension between them and how to find a way of connecting both aspects. This hypothesis is perfectly stated by trying to get the diverse tips together which made confronting aspects on the MA obvious but also lead to and understanding how they play together: “Enjoy the freedom” but “be responsible”. “Let yourself be lost” but “don’t get lost”.
Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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8. Conclusion Apart from the reflection there is a more general insight of this project that clearly stays in close relation to the MA-students’ ‘survey’ which has been conducted in the winter term 2011-2012. In fact this project approach might be seen as a form of evolvement to the Survey which potentially leads to a different type of analysis by covering alternative aspects. As one example it can be noted that the survey was very much directed towards the production of concrete insights in order to find possibilities for improvement to the MA-program. This was helpful to provide a good overview to the diversity of the opinions. However it was very difficult to find overlaps between the participants’ comments and to formulate a shared recommendation of what, where and how to improve the program. The current research-experiment by the ‘tips’ was in fact supposed to work completely different: The outcome should mainly be subjective and personal and not particularly clever and applicable for restructuring the MA Program. Interestingly enough though, also the current research produced a lot of potential for further exploration. As this approach is so open, it actually produced a better opportunity to draw productive conclusions as it was not directed AGAINST something. It will be easier to build up on the analysis of this kind of research with ideas on possible improvement - nobody had to feel excluded or attacked.
Thanks to Hiroe Jimmy Jeannette Mauro Na Young Vladimir Juliana Magdalena Peter
Maria Del Mar Marwan Shing Young David Menna Jaclyn
Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
All in all - Let’s see whether we will be able to meet the initial goal of leaving something behind. And maybe even something ‘useful’.
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KISD . Summer Semester 2012 . Short Term Project | Prof. Phillip Heidkamp
Master Tip Collection | Juliana Bach . Magdalena Cattan . Peter Zehetbauer
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