Women In Design: The Future of Our Field
IP student Sierra Thompson shares insights on how her five years with IP helped prepare her for a Summer College program focused on Industrial Design.
By Inneract Project
Meet Sierra Thompson, a 17-year-old high school senior who lives in the Bay Area. Sierra is an Inneract Project student who first joined us five years ago in 2018.
Since becoming an IP student, Sierra has built valuable skill sets in communication, creativity, collaboration, and more. She’s currently finishing up her college application process after successfully applying to 12 schools (a few from which she’s already gotten acceptances!).
In the summer of 2022, Sierra had the opportunity to attend the Pre-College Design Program hosted by the College of Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology, more commonly known as Georgia Tech. The program gives rising high-school seniors a taste of the college experience at the Georgia Tech College of Design by providing them with two weeks of in-person workshops on campus.
For Sierra, this meant packing her bags and heading east for the summer to join the Industrial Design cohort of the Pre-College Program. Using her experiences with IP as a source of inspiration for her application, Sierra was awarded a scholarship to attend the program.
We spoke to Sierra about her experience at the Georgia Tech Pre-College Design Program, how the lessons she learned working with IP allowed her to flourish there, and the influence that design has had on her life outside of the classroom.
Tell us a bit about how you landed a spot at your summer program and the work you did while you were there.
It was easy for me to get the scholarship and go there without any cost because of the essay that I wrote for my application, which was just explaining my experience with design and [preparing] with IP for five years.
The program had a few different options for focus areas. I did the Industrial Design one, and our big project was to make a prototype that would make it easier for someone with one hand to use a hanger for their clothing items within two weeks. As part of the program, we were put into groups to work together on solving this challenge every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
My part was mainly designing the slideshow because I’m really into graphic design, so that kind of work is fun for me. It was a collaborative process, but I took the lead on anything related to design on the project — like the logo, for example. I’d say my part was almost bringing the design elements to life. And I had an easier time doing that because working with IP allowed me to go in with certain knowledge like design terms that were used in the workshops.
I’m very grateful because IP has taught me a lot more than just design. Those skills really teach you how to be part of a community, and I will be forever grateful for that.
What were some of the challenges that you faced while you were in this program?
Working with teenagers who hadn’t been exposed to collaborative environments where ideas were more give and take was a new learning experience for me. Because of IP, I’m used to working on a team with people who are willing to step back if their idea doesn’t work for the whole team. That’s where some difficulty in the summer program came along because not everybody was willing to just let an idea go when it didn’t work.
Communicating and working in a team is always going to be important no matter what job you have. So eventually we just had to come together and decide what was going to work best to complete our task. There were definitely moments where some people weren’t excited to give up taking the lead on certain things, but that’s just what had to be done. And by the end our team had an understanding that we made this one product together and worked in our own separate ways to make it come to life. That’s what really matters. It’s not about everybody’s idea making the cut. It’s about how we can all add our own skills to reach the same goal.
How did your experience working with IP help shape your mindset on teamwork?
Teamwork is just a big theme when you work with IP. I guess with IP it’s easier because we have such tight time limits on our projects, so it’s [possible] for us to just get into the work. But IP teaches you that you can’t just be stuck in your own world and your own thoughts. You can think, but it’s important to bring those individual thoughts into the project because it’s not just you working on something alone.
It’s also nice because that lesson didn’t just help me in the program or in the design world. It helped me in general. I find that it’s easier for me if my classmates aren’t easy to work with to have the ability to take a step back, regroup, and find a way to reach a shared goal.
How do you think your community of fellow IP students has influenced your learning, particularly in a field mainly dominated by white voices?
I think my experiences with IP have helped highlight how easy and comfortable it feels for me to work with people of color. There's a certain mindset that everybody has that not just one person can have power when you're in a team. I think it can be harder for people who have always had power to adapt to learning how to be on a team. I’m not saying it’s always like that, but it can be hard when you’re one of very few who look like you and share your experience.
I really appreciate the community that IP has given me. I spend my days going to a majority white school. It’s nice that I can go to IP and I'm at almost a second home. IP helps children of color learn about design, so I feel safe here to learn with people I identify with.
Sierra will be attending Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas after her high school graduation! Want to hear more about Inneract Project students like Sierra? Stay up to date with all of our events, programs, and stories from students and parents on our website. Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter and subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more updates!
