https://www.washington.edu/students/crscat/hcde.html
WHY I want to do HCDE -
physical prototype, design
WHAT HCDE emphasize -
intersection, possibility, just future, collaboration, empathy
action-oriented toward challenges
The most important part of your application is your personal statement, as it’s how the admission committee gets to know you! The department particularly values personal statements that thoroughly address the prompt and articulate an understanding of HCDE. Involvement in student organizations, research, internships, employment, or volunteer experience may help us understand your interests and values and how you have identified that HCDE as the best fit for your goals. Completion of the admission prerequisites, competitive grades, and positive quarterly grade trends are also all key components in evaluating applications. While taking HCDE-related courses can be a great way to explore the field, since most HCDE courses are not open to non-majors, there is no expectation that students applying to the major will have already completed an HCDE course.
Introduction
Juniors/seniors only: Please note that the HCDE curriculum takes a minimum of 2 years to complete. If you will be applying to the HCDE major at the end of your junior year or later, please use the “Additional Comments” box in the application to briefly share why you are deciding to change your major, add another degree, or do not yet have another major in progress. Describe the reasons why you will need to extend your graduation timeline beyond 4 years/12 quarters and why this is the best path for meeting your individual academic and career goals.
Question 1: Please describe the specific activities you have engaged in to learn more about HCDE, including, but not limited to: involvement in student organizations, research, internships, projects, volunteer work, courses, or personal experiences that have helped you identify HCDE as the best fit for your interests and goals for the future.
Q1 logic —
My human-centered design journey started from high school, I was taking paid commissions to draw illustrations, where I was focusing on creating design for a single target audience(single client)
⬇️
cognitive psych course I took made me realize design can also serve for boarder audience and have long-lasting effect on improving human well-being
an VR research I learned in cognitive psych — Patients suffer severe burns found significant pain relief when immersed in virtual snowy landscape
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I want to go beyond individual research and focus on design for boarder populations, especially considered marginalized groups need
⬇️ with the belief of designing accessible solutions
INFO Wordplay Research studio, (a coding platform for creating accessible, multilingual, interactive typography that celebrates the world's diversity)→ I focus on research accessibility feature
research 1 - describing color for screen reader user (individual)
(for current screen reader it can’t let user know what color they created. Also we need to consider the cultural differences for color interpretation; I research on basic color term and world color survey to ensure the basic color we’ll use and drafted possible solutions for multi-lingual screen reader users.)
When I was designing possible solutions proposal to solve this problem, I encounter difficulties in turning my proposal into tangible design
equiped with the research skill I gained from psych, I want HCDE to give me more hands-on design experiences to convert my research insight into possible design solutions to address real-world challenges
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I want to double degree in HCDE to gain more hands-on learning in groups.
psych and HCDE? should I say something like what I learned in psych can help me contribute to HCDE community or this could be saved to Q2/Q3
Comment logic
career - want to get into industry after bachelor’s degree
Instead of graduating with psychology in 3 years, I decided to extend my graduation time and double degree in HCDE. With HCDE’s group project based course setting and sponsored capstone, I can prepared for authentic collaborative workplace in advance. Considered the similar course setting of HCDE BS and MS, I want to directly get into HCDE in bachelor’s degree and get industry-ready design abilities.