Master in Design Studies (MDesS)
August de los Reyes - Concentration in Technology
Being accepted to the Advanced Studies Program presented me with a tough decision: whether or not to put my career on hold to go back to school. When I decided to enroll in the MDesS Program in Design and Technology, I had been working as a product designer at Microsoft where I was a member of a small design team charged with strategic projects to elevate the experience of personal computing. My work led me to the research question which I pursued at Harvard: how can designers articulate emotional intent into the product design and development process?
I got a lot more out of my experience than I bargained for. Not only did I get to pursue my research question with the academic rigor that writing a thesis would allow, the MDesS program’s other core requirements led me to entirely new avenues of inquiry into design that I would not have dreamed of before setting foot on campus. The tremendous faculty took deep-seated interest in my personal success, and the resources of Harvard coupled with the broad cross-registration programs—I took two incredible courses at the MIT Media Lab—ensured I had everything I need to accomplish my goals.
The decision to put my career on hold paid off: before graduating, I had been accepted as a visiting associate at the University of Oxford where I conducted a large part of my thesis research at the Oxford Internet Institute. I had also been accepted to two doctoral programs in design. After completing the MDesS program, I returned to the workforce with new perspectives, both broad and deep, that I apply to my everyday work as well as to my personal growth as a design professional for the rest of my career.