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Lian (Harvard GSD M.Arch.I)

I graduated in 2013, but still blog here once in a while.

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    God bless Geeks

    By Lian Chikako Chang
    Aug 18, '09 6:18 PM EST

    Hello!

    Today was download/installation day, take two. I ran into some
    technical difficulties last week and had to re-partition and re-
    install Windows, then spent the afternoon with about 20 of my new classmates setting up Rhino, V-Ray, 3D-Studio Max, AutoCAD, Illustrator, and Photoshop, which is what we'll be learning in our one week digital skills course.

    The Computer Resources people at the GSD know their stuff, and they're cool about spending the time to help solve your problems and answer your questions. That's a huge help--and I guess that's a plus when you have a large school that has certain ways of doing things, and certain software that you're required to use, because any issue you have has been seen many times already. At one of the admissions open houses, Preston Scott Cohen was talking about this--about how the GSD follows trends, and how having a critical mass of people in Gund Hall working through similar questions with similar tools for a period of time, before moving on to the next big thing, allows for a huge amount of synergy, and for ideas to be tested to their limits. I'm used to being a bit more independent, but it's pretty exciting to be part of a giant design borg, being exposed to cutting edge stuff, and--eventually, if all goes well--contributing to it too.

    BTW, the only program I know from the above list is Photoshop, so wish me luck!

    Thanks for reading.

    Your newbie,
    Lian



     
    • 5 Comments

    • Kamu Kakizaki

      Good luck Lian!

      All that in a week? Seems pretty dense if not a lot of people have a background in digital stuff. Not that I'm really an expert though.

      Anyways, make sure to make friends as they are usually the most helpful ;)

      Aug 18, 09 10:07 pm  · 
       · 
      randomized
      Preston Scott Cohen was talking about this--about how the GSD follows trends, and how having a critical mass of people in Gund Hall working through similar questions with similar tools for a period of time, before moving on to the next big thing, allows for a huge amount of synergy, and for ideas to be tested to their limits.

      So they are trendfollowers rather than trendsetters?
      Aug 19, 09 6:15 am  · 
       · 
      Lian Chikako Chang

      @Luke: yeah, it's gonna be rough! It's just the basics, though, this week. I'm sure the learning curve will continue well into the semester.

      @randomized: I'm sure there's a bit of both going on. Which is, to me, how it should be.

      Aug 19, 09 8:01 am  · 
       · 
      iheartbooks

      i love reading your posts. i miss the excitment of starting school fresh, but reading your posts makes me smile.

      Aug 19, 09 2:23 pm  · 
       · 
      John Tubles

      whoa... havard gsd provides programs...thats way awesome... good luck! just play around with the programs for a bit and you will be fine...desperation is the best movtivator...

      Aug 19, 09 4:49 pm  · 
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About this Blog

This blog was most active from 2009-2013. Writing about my experiences and life at Harvard GSD started out as a way for me to process my experiences as an M.Arch.I student, and evolved into a record of the intellectual and cultural life of the Cambridge architecture (and to a lesser extent, design/technology) community, through live-blogs. These days, I work as a data storyteller (and blogger at Littldata.com) in San Francisco, and still post here once in a while.

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