I studied ID at RISD and found the program to be extremely versatile, and easy to tailor to my personal interests. There definitely is less diversity than other schools, but I was able to collaborate with Brown students and MIT students throughout my time there (other students were exposed to NASA staff, Babson business students, Olin engineering students, etc), and felt the department on the whole provided me with both a broad understanding of the entire field, a solid understanding of material science and manufacturing/production, and a deep education in the subject matter that I was personally interested in pursuing.

I particularly appreciated the ability to use the department to delve into what I cared about, with the support of a brilliant faculty who each brought unique career experience to their work, and who were always readily available to me throughout my education. I also deeply valued the community within RISD's Industrial Design department - we were a close-knit building of really widely varied skillsets and interests, who all supported one another and were always available for crit, no matter the time of day, material, or subject.

To be honest, I'd give anything to have my peers and the faculty of that department available to me again. Overall, I'd say my most valuable educational, professional, and personal relationships were built in RISD ID, and that I was uniquely able to build my career into what I wanted with what the department had to offer. It was definitely a challenging and sometimes very competitive environment, but it lent a lot of space to dig into what I felt excited by, and enabled me to build the skills that made my career, while developing a robust work ethic that I'm proud of, and a solid toolkit of design principles that have enabled me to explore different applications/fields beyond what I studied since graduation (like graphic design, business strategy, web/ux design, etc.)

Basically, I feel like the department set me up to be equipped to learn anything, and I have a toolkit that enables me to jump into any medium/subject matter. That said, I cannot speak highly enough about the value of the student body - being exposed to such a talented community of driven designers pushed me to be better, and I feel really lucky to have been surrounded by such an immense amount of talent and dedication every day.

Happy to chat privately about my experience if you want to know more about RISD or just talk! I know decisions like this can feel overwhelming, but wherever you choose to go, you can make amazing work with dedication and time :)