The Bogeyman in the Studio: Teaching Time Management
Maria V Miller
Iowa State University
2013 National Conference for the Beginning Design Student
Abstract
This Toothpaste For Dinner quip, found favor with students this Fall. The image was quickly adopted and saw a high volume of shares on social networking sites. That this cartoon was so readily embraced is no surprise, it demonstrates sympathy for the young design student’s struggle and offers false validation. Inherent in the subtext of this theme, is the familiar and clichéd portrait of the creative genius as unwieldy renegade. It also adheres to a late modernist narrative of the design superstar as temperamental artist, beholden to no one. Where architecture is concerned, this model of truth is both factitious and dangerous.
The importance of managing time is often difficult to impress upon the eager beginning design student, many of whom still entertain romantic notions of what it means to be a designer. Because the beginning design studio is a student’s entrée into the world of design education, instructors have the power to teach an important skill that will not only influence a struggling student’s outcome in studio, but when carefully nurtured into habit, can also change
the course of their life. Through awareness and the employment of practical techniques backed by several scientific studies, we will discover how studio can serve as a tool for teaching the skill of time-management.