ESS 421: Berkeley Certificate for Design Innovation

Laura Vogt:
Hello, I’m Laura Vogt, the Associate Director of Marketing Communications in the College of Engineering. This week on the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer, I’m excited to welcome back Tyshon Rogers to introduce us to the Berkeley Certificate for Design Innovation, or BCDI. Hi, Tyshon. Thank you so much for being here today.

Tyshon Rogers:
Oh, hi. How are you? Glad to be here.

Laura Vogt:
It’s been a couple of years since you were here to tell us about the BCDI, and I thought it was a good time to invite you back and tell our new students about the programming. So let’s start with learning more about you. Tell us more about yourself and your role at UC Berkeley.

Tyshon Rogers:
Yes. So my role at Berkeley is I’m a Student Services Advisor and I work at the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation. I am also the Student Services Advisor for the Berkeley Certificate for Design Innovation. In both programs, we try to cater towards students who have interest in design education, and we can allow for students to take courses, to learn skills, do a number of different trainings, but my primary job at Jacobs is really scheduling enrollment. And then for the Berkeley Certificate in Design Innovation, I administer that program. I work with students to help them along in fulfilling the course requirements. Yeah, that’s what I do presently. I had a stint in the History Department before I came over to Jacobs and the Berkeley Certificate in Design Innovation, and my background is generally in Humanities.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. I know so much about design is not necessarily engineering focused. It’s a really interdisciplinary program in general, so it’s great that you’re coming with a different background.

Tyshon Rogers:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you so much again for being here today. I really appreciate your time. So let’s start with the basics of what is the Berkeley Certificate for Design Innovation and how does it relate to the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation?

Tyshon Rogers:
Okay. So, the basics of the program essentially emerged out of mechanical engineering instructors thinking about ways to innovate and change the pedagogy of engineering in certain ways, to incorporate more human-centered design and design methodology into the curriculum. Out of this came a broader campus-wide situation where you had the Deans of four colleges invest into a program that was meant to introduce students across the campus to multidisciplinary design. And so the program was launched in 2017 and it was launched by the Deans of the four schools that are involved. That would be College of Engineering, College of Environmental Design, School of Business Haas, and the Letters, Science, Arts, and Humanities Division.

Tyshon Rogers:
So the initial courses emerged from those four colleges, and those courses were chosen based on their engagement with a certain type of pedagogy that taught human-centered design methods and design methodology. So that was the primary focus. That was how it emerged. And hopefully that influence of teaching has spread into other courses around the campus and you’ll see a number of those methods taught in classes overtly now. And engineers have a lot more communication when it comes to that throughout their other classes. So that’s how it initially launched. The program consists of me as the Student Services Advisor, and we also have the Academic Board that has a professor from each of those supporting colleges. So, Eric Paulos from EECS represents COE. Sara Beckman from Haas. Kristen Whissel represents Letters and Science, Arts and Humanities Division. She’s a film professor. And Simon Schleicher represents CED. And he’s an architecture professor.

Tyshon Rogers:
So with that we review courses for addition, and we set the agenda and any new developments that we are wrestling with for the program to extend it out and serve the general undergraduate community.

Laura Vogt:
So when you talk about design innovation, what does that mean?

Tyshon Rogers:
So when we speak of design innovation, we see design as an intersection between two major components, which will be naturally design methods and then technological innovation. And so this intersection allows for us to link these new technologies that you learn through a number of different courses here, whether that’s introductory hands on courses or theoretical engineering courses. It allows us to link those new technologies with the human experience in a way that centers on people. And so that’s the whole purpose of human-centered design, and it allows for people to be at the center of that creation process and allows engineers essentially and students in general to be better designers and more effective designers. And I would say just in adding onto that, the way this is going to work is that the courses that we do offer to the circuit, most of them are pretty hands on in a lot of ways. And so in that way, we engage with Jacobs physically as a resource, whether that’s through their active learning classrooms that are designed with design teaching in mind.

Tyshon Rogers:
So you’ll have whiteboards, you’ll have a bunch of materials to be able to rapidly prototype. You’ll have movable tables and stuff like that and power tables. So you can break off into groups and come back together. And the classroom ultimately operates like a design team, essentially allows for design teams to operate like they would in the real world. So there’s a lot of intersection between Jacobs and the certificate program and we can go into that a little bit more.

Laura Vogt:
And so why is the BCDI something that students should want to pursue? Why are they seeking this out?

Tyshon Rogers:
There’s a couple of ways why students are seeking it out. You’ll have students who have already explored design in one form or fashion before they’ve arrived at Berkeley. You have students who are at Berkeley who happened to take a course and then their interest was peaked and they decided to explore a little bit further. Then you have students who want to fully engage in design work once they leave Berkeley. And I would say the program is open for and can serve all those student needs. Ultimately students in general, I think it’s good to have students from multidisciplinary backgrounds involved in design, because what’s known as design touches all of our lives. And whether your political economy or you’re EECS, we’re going to need perspectives of people from all types of disciplines to design a future that works for the populace.

Tyshon Rogers:
And so students can engage in a number of different ways. It can be pretty streamlined and straightforward, like a student may want to be a user experience designer. And then they can take a suite of courses that offers them an experience that allows for them to do a lot of physical design work and present a portfolio that shows essentially professional work and speaks directly to working in that industry, to students who want to explore a number of different design methodologies and subject matters, whether this is computer design or physical product design, it allows for the students who just want to broaden your horizons when it comes to design. And so there’s a lot of intersections in different entry points for students in general, but ultimately students should want to pursue it to gain a sense of purpose in what they do pursue and when they do put their skills to work on.

Laura Vogt:
So does the BCDI have separate tracks that you could choose from as you’re pursuing it, or is it you have to hit just different sections and when you choosing your courses?

Tyshon Rogers:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So the academic committee, we actually wrestled with this for a minute and we didn’t want to silo off different tracks for students and have been choose and feel the need to choose. But students are naturally choosing certain tracks. They work themselves out in a certain way. So we allow for it to be open. We don’t list them or break them off into different tracks, but naturally students will, if they are a little bit more hyper focused on what they want to pursue, they will find a number of different courses that would allow for you to pursue that. And then if there’s issues with course availability or something like that, then they work with me to figure out other options and stuff like that along the way. But usually the suite of courses and then our flexibility allows for students to pursue what they would like to pursue specifically.

Laura Vogt:
And I know not all the courses are offered solely by the College of Engineering, but are the courses for the BCDI mostly done in Jacob’s Hall?

Tyshon Rogers:
I would say maybe 50% to 60% are offered in Jacob’s Hall. So definitely a good number of courses, whether it’s the lecture and the labs, we also have courses that offer just the labs in the building, because there’ll be doing a lot more physical interaction in the labs. So in some form or fashion, if you’re taking one of the courses that are a part of the program, you’re probably in the building some form of fashion 75% of the time as far as the course are concerned. There are courses that do operate outside the building in different spaces. We do offer as part of the certificate some theater courses and some courses in CDD that would naturally be housed in their buildings.

Laura Vogt:
Would you say that most of the classes are hands on experiences where you’re working in a group and starting with an idea and creating something?

Tyshon Rogers:
Oh yes, absolutely. So if you’re a student who, let’s say is in engineering, and you’re looking to have a hands on experience versus working through some of the theoretical teachings, et cetera, and some of the basics like the math that you have to take, the CS courses you may have to take, et cetera. We have a number of different hands on courses that you can engage with. At Jacobs they developed design innovation courses, which are officially a part of the College of Engineering, but they are multidisciplinary courses that are open to students from across the campus. And so those courses are designed with hands on teamwork activities in mind, with also final projects that you would you present at the end. And at Jacobs they also have a design showcase at the end where you will be presenting your designs ultimately. But you do work through that design framework in these classes and the majority of classes.

Laura Vogt:
Is there any requirements as to how far into your studies you need to be before you can start pursuing the certificate?

Tyshon Rogers:
So, no. And ideally the certificate is set up for a student who doesn’t know about design and they come to campus as a freshman and they become interested in through, meet at CAli-Palooza or they hear about a decal at the decal showcase and stuff like that. So it’s meant as a way for a freshman to take our first grouping of courses, which we like design foundations to be introduced to design through whatever discipline they would like to be introduced to it from. And once they sit that course, they have a idea of what design broadly means and the interactions and activities involved. And then they can choose from there. And so ideally will work maybe one class per year, as you learn what you want to do and pursue next. It’s not that heavy of a load to complete in conjunction with your normal academic track.

Laura Vogt:
You’re almost answering the next question of how many classes are you having to take to do this and how do you fit it into your schedule?

Tyshon Rogers:
Yeah, so sorry about that.

Laura Vogt:
No, that’s good, it’s a good transition.

Tyshon Rogers:
But yeah, so ultimately there are four courses you need to take. And we have three categories of courses. So the design foundations are our smallest group of courses, but we have a number of courses in each design area. And from each school that sponsors the program. So you can learn about design from College of Environmental design perspective, or you can learn about it from a College of Engineering perspective, from a Haas perspective or from Arts and Humanities perspective. And that means you can take Intro to Visual Thinking under R8, or you can take something like Design Methodology, which is a design innovation course that is essentially in college engineering courses. So you can choose from there and then decide where you want to go as you pursue further courses.

Tyshon Rogers:
We also have a group in a course called Design Skills in that group of courses. The courses are more focused on gaining tangible skills sets. So you’ll have courses like 3D utilization. You’ll have courses in prototyping and fabrication. We have a course, Creative Programming and Electronics. So it runs the gamut of technical courses that are, and a lot of these courses are open to students from all types of backgrounds in design, and the basic course specifically are geared towards students from any academic backgrounds who participate. So you can learn basic physical product design through a course like Prototyping and Fabrication and Design Innovation 22. Even if you have no technical background, you can see how the sausage is made in some ways, or at least know what you would need from your mechanical engineering, electrical engineering team as to how to put together a physical product that let’s say is controlled through Bluetooth technology.

Tyshon Rogers:
And then we have a final level of courses called Advanced Design, which take the skillsets that you’ve learned and the methodological approaches that you’ve learned and combine it to take you to a full iterative design process and solve really difficult problems with products. So that’s ideally how it work. And then hopefully if you’re pursuing design, then you have courses that line up specifically for what area of design you’re pursuing.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, I really like that, that you’ve got so many choices and that you’re not bottle necked into one specific thing.

Tyshon Rogers:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Laura Vogt:
And so can you share with us one or two of your favorite experiences of working with this program?

Tyshon Rogers:
Yeah, so I would say, I think I’ve touched on this. So the best part about it would be, let’s say my first tabling at CAli-Palooza, where you meet a ton of freshmen will come in and we’re at the table and we have a bunch of devices and doohickies going on at our table and students are stopping by and saying, “Oh, what’s that?” And you’re like, “Oh, this was 3D printed at Jacobs, dadada, and you could take this class.” And so you introduce students who just came to Berkeley and are just interested in what they see and how could they be a part of it. And then you tell them about stuff. You hand them some flyers and stuff like that.

Tyshon Rogers:
And then you see them show up in the next semester. You see them join a design focus club, or take a decal. Then see them participating in courses and they’re at a design showcase showing off a final product. And just seeing students go from the point where I met them, where they had just a general interest in stuff that just looked cool, to actually being a part of my grant programs and scaling up projects and working in teams and being engaged with a number of different resources that Jacobs to sort of really expand projects and try to show societal issues or local community issues. That is probably the best part of the process, to see that.

Laura Vogt:
Do the classes ever build on each other, so you could start a project in one class and then continue working on it towards the end?

Tyshon Rogers:
Yes. So we do have a couple of cases where that works out. So in Design Innovation, we had a course called Global Product Development. This course ran into some of the issues, but essentially the way the course was set up, it was in our advanced design category, but you would have to apply to the course. And you would apply with either a project you’ve worked on with a team in another course, or maybe something you were doing independently, but you could take a, let’s say a project you were working on in some other course, let’s say any course that’s a part of the, let’s say Intro to Product Development. And you could take that project and apply to this course. And what you would do in Global Product Development was taught in conjunction with another class in Hong Kong. And then at spring break, they would go to Hong Kong to explore manufacturing plants and stuff like that.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, wow.

Tyshon Rogers:
They would also go into mainland China. And as you can see, obviously we’ve run into issues, geopolitical issues that just slowed that process down. That is in flux, but that was one class that was a direct feeder class that you had to apply in bringing projects from other courses and stuff like that into it, so other parts participate, but it was essentially really expanding and looking at how do you scale up on a global scale with a project, whether you pursue an incubation period where you’re looking for funding for a year or two to really work on a project that can scale it up. We’ve had some courses like that. There are some other courses that feed into each other. So if you’re a EECS student and you’re interested in assistive technology, some of the courses that are part of our certificate, like design the human body is a mechanical engineering course, can feed into other courses that we have on the list. It all depends on what you’re interested in.

Laura Vogt:
And what’s the best place for students to learn more about the BCDI?

Tyshon Rogers:
Yes. So as far as just how it functions, how do you sign up and stuff like that, the best place to go is bcdi.berkeley.edu. And in general, if you have any questions about the program, you can email me at Trogers, T-R-O-G-E-R-S@berkeley.edu. And I can answer all your questions about the program.

Laura Vogt:
And is there anything else that we haven’t talked about that you want to add?

Tyshon Rogers:
Let’s see. So I would say also too, for students who are looking for ways to engage right now, who are interested in design and feel like they’re on hold because of the pandemic, et cetera, Jacobs is developed a number of different tools for you to still be able to engage with some hands-on activity in some ways. So beyond the courses that we’re offering, we have a modified version of our maker space where if you’re part of a course that’s affiliated with Jacobs, you can submit files for prototyping. So if you want to have things laser cutted or 3D printed, or if you want to use our metal laser cutters, you can submit jobs to our maker space and have those done. And you can either come and pick up or we can ship.

Tyshon Rogers:
So we still have a number of different resources for you. We have virtual workshops that’ll be offered throughout the semester. It’s on a number of different technical issues, whether it has a 3D visualization design. We have a number of different workshops coming up in here, new ones are constantly popping up. And if there’s something that you’re interested in learning from our design specialists, you can also reach out to them and suggest workshops for anything specific that you’re interested in. We also have features as far as new instructional videos on how to use certain machines. So you can still prep yourself for when, like I say, Jacob’s Hall opens and the maker spaces across the campus opens. We still have our online trainings available for use. So please go to Jacob’s Institute website and check out all the resources that are still available to you right now.

Laura Vogt:
Awesome. Well, Tyshon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and telling us about the BCDI and how our students can pursue it and learn more about design innovation. I appreciate you.

Tyshon Rogers:
Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. No problem.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you to everyone for checking out the Not So Secret Guide To Being a Berkeley Engineer. I look forward to podcasting with you next week.