One of the last discussion points which was made was about the difference between design students and media students. The fundamental difference is in the way we are taught/learn and consequently how style of thinking.

As brought up, design thinking is becoming the ‘fashionable’ thing in business schools as it brings in a new perspective. Designers are taught to engage and make things through doing. They are trained to think in terms of making things that will have some kind of effect, an effect on the future. Cultivating a ‘What if?’ thinking to explore different ideas for the future and also encourages problem solving. So in turn they are a forward looking practice. 

On the other hand, humanities subjects like media are more grounded in history and the understanding of the past. The focus on the past and leave the future abandoned. What the teachers are trying to do is move us past the technical skills and into the more conceptual thinking and problem solving. Something that takes time to build on and develop. Technical skills like editing and camera techniques are important but easier to learn. Another major difference which was brought up was that design is now very collaborative and edit and edit and edit. They show their work from the beginning and get critic on it. While perhaps thats not always the case with the humanities and we guard our work more. Although in this course I have found that feedback and peer/teacher critic has been emphasised ALOT. The new studio modal at RMIT is meant to be part of moving us forward into a method of making to see what we can do and what it can look like in the future. Soon we won’t be looking in opposite directions anymore.

*Image via Flickr credited to Susanne Nilsson