[AUDIO LOGO]
Everyone here loves making things, loves solving problems,
loves coming together to create.
It's just anyone who really loves to work with their hands.
It could be anything, really.
Having such easy access to the space and people really
encourages making things.
It's like the greatest toy box you could ever want to play in.
DesignPlus is a First Year Learning Community
for students of all different backgrounds who
want to explore design.
We have 1,100 incoming first year students.
A Learning Community allows them to find
a group of students similar to themselves
with this common academic interest.
What we want to do is make sure that students who might want
to pursue a thread in design, or maybe major in something that's
designed-related, they can see that
at the beginning in their first year through DesignPlus.
At its core, we're a social community.
So we come together every week for lunch,
and we also come together to learn.
Really excited today to introduce a special guest.
We invite an inspirational speaker
to come and share how they have explored
design in their career.
Medical school, for me, was a very anti-creative experience.
And I really wanted to change that.
So we started a design-thinking program at my medical school.
You can change all of the material properties.
You can change the colors.
I think through the speaker events,
we get to see design applied in the real world,
either through research or through industry,
and it's really interesting seeing their journeys.
In DesignPlus, we also explore MIT.
We go and visit cutting edge labs
working on design problems.
It's almost like a perfect educational buffet.
We took them to the Media Lab.
They got to see the whole thing.
And so they get an entree to things
that maybe they wouldn't see in their normal first year
experience.
DesignPlus is also an opportunity for you
to design and make things.
So we have this, kind of, central area where
a lot of people will work on their projects.
There's a room with industrial-level laser cutters,
a 3D scanner, a whole array of 3D printers.
And what's really nice is that DesignPlus mentors are always
available to train you on these machines.
Close the lid and hit the green button on the wall,
then you should be good to go.
If you come with an idea, or if you come with a project,
then we can figure out a way to try to prototype it or make
it real.
So you don't have to come in being an expert on any of that.
And then we can scaffold you up on the way
to use more elaborate and complicated machinery.
As a freshman, you get your academic advisor
assigned through the Learning Community
if you choose to participate in one.
My advisor gave really, really helpful guidance
in helping me think about how I wanted to structure my four
years here.
The other thing is the DesignPlus Lounge,
which I believe is one of the coolest spaces on campus
to just hang out.
It's always full of art supplies and half finished projects.
We have weekly lunches on Friday,
where you can just come and mingle with people
and see what they're up to.
So there's definitely a social community aspect
to the Learning Community, which I really like.
My favorite thing about DesignPlus
is just the people that I've been able to meet.
My closest friends are in DesignPlus.
Do a spin move.
It's great.
What really attracted me to DesignPlus
was just the element of just being me.
Being able to connect to all these different people,
through that lens of creativity, really
made me realize that my creative side is not secondary at MIT.
It's actually one of my greatest assets at MIT.
What we do at DesignPlus is we show students
that there are infinite paths through MIT.
But one thread that you often find
is creativity, and exploration, and making technology work
for people.
We like the idea that our students are explorers,
and they should keep up that same spirit of exploration
through their entire MIT education.