Beginning the summer of my freshman year, I decided to start my studies within the cutting-edge Experience Architecture (XA) program at Michigan State University (MSU). The program can be defined as an interdisciplinary major in the College of Arts & Letters (CAL) where students gain differing experiences and perspectives in designing digital and physical spaces. The program offers a curriculum for students to explore aspects of creating web sites, applications, writing, and digital rhetoric.
The program itself requires around 53 credits within topics that cover various disciplines. Within the main requirements, students take courses related to career strategies, interaction design, web authoring, digital rhetoric, and more. From there, students choose from multiple elective courses including electronic art, content strategy, intensive writing practices, and digital fabrication practices. The main academic specialist for XA, Ann Crain, is a familiar face that many students within the XA community see and converse with. Crain is a large advocate for higher education and assisting students throughout their undergraduate journey. Throughout my experience, she has helped answer my questions regarding further areas of studies within UX, internships, and most especially, graduating on time!
A factor that captured my interests was XA’s ideology and procedure of advancing skills in learning how to design experiences for people. The program holds so many versatile directions and pathways that students can take, which I believe makes it a place for every student to excel in their interests.
One of the beginning courses that most XA students are required to take is XA 242: Introduction to Experience Architecture, which focuses on basic terminology and concepts related to user experience, like accessibility and user research. It even provided us with a client/case study to complete. I really enjoyed the course because it was heavily group-focused, as the UX workfield is all about collaboration and working together on projects. My skill at communicating and collaborating with others strengthened as we were required to do brainstorming sessions, design mockups, and presentations together. The classroom was also limited to around 20-30 students, which made communication and relationships with peers and the professor easier and intimate.
One of my final projects was working with the MSU Writing Center to prototype and mockup a reimagined system of their appointment website, making the process and navigation easier for students and community members. The project was equipped with countless interviews and communication with the Writing Center, attempts to put ourselves in our users’ shoes by making appointments ourselves, and gathering feedback from students outside of our course. This prepared us to recognize issues and solutions regarding the interface. This course was an excellent introduction to many of the concepts I’m touching on now, a year later.
After taking these basic courses, I’ve found that much of what I was doing was good enough to go into a portfolio. I had opportunities to work with clients like the MSU Writing Center and MSU Library and to work on other collaborative projects related to app development and website coding.
One of my favorite aspects of the major is how effective the staff is in caring for their students, and providing them a building block for when students are done with their degrees. Each student is placed within an email list, where our director Casey McArdle and other CAL staff share opportunities for meetings, internships, job postings, and more. These efforts assisted me in growing my experience in internships and learning more about the diverse fields that the XA major can put you in. Throughout their curriculum, students are required to complete a Capstone course and reach a specific amount of capstone points through UX-related internships/projects, attending UX/Technology based meetings, going to the XA organization on campus, and so much more! Overall, It’s definitely a major I’ve learned to love and grow in, and I hope anyone who is looking into it gives it a try!