My story with design – a sharing by Product Design freshman Leann Wong

September is the favourite month of many of us on campus as it brings us energy, liveliness and laughter in the new academic year. Freshmen come in with their fresh minds, passion, aspirations, curiosity, and readiness for challenges and unknowns; while other senior students we love to see return to the studios after a long break in summer.

Leann Wong is freshly admitted to our BA(Hons) in Product Design programme in the coming semester (2020/21). Counting down to her new school life, she would like to make a sharing about the path she has gone through before arriving here.

Hello! My name is Leann Wong. I graduated from Good Hope School and I like writing quotes and reading. I am an optimistic person who enjoys exploring new/ unknown things and will commence my Product Design studies in September 2020.

These are some of the quotes I like.

My story with design 

I am a dreamer. I often come up with new ideas in my daily life. Sometimes I imagine new products that may help improve our living. However these are just inventions in my mind without digging deeper to find out the feasibility. That is why I feel like studying in design as it is a practical subject that may help me make all my fantasies come true. 

Smart and innovative designs always give me inspirations. I feel amazed every time I look at them. I hope that I am qualified enough to make such wonderful things in the future. Exhibitions like TDC’s DesignInspire and PolyU Design Annual Show enlightened me with tones of creative ideas, whilst Instagram pages posting famous design over the world (e.g. producy.daily) and even projects in kickstarter are also sources of my inspirations. 

Something I found inspirational from DesignInspire, 2019.

Souvenirs I collected from he Annual Show in 2019.

Nice design projects in my collection.

I enjoy having design as part of my daily life. I am trying to build the habit to jot down new ideas that come into my mind so that I can review and develop further. I explore design through reading sources online and books. I never feel shy to ask questions. I approached some PolyU graduates, my classmates who studies visual art, a few adult friends who work in design companies for information about designing skills, design programmes and the design industry which I fancy to get into.

This is the book I jot down my ideas on.

Reading books helps boosting my creativity.

My road to PolyU Design

Studying at PolyU Design has been my dream. I know that there is a long history for the school. The strong alumni support may help me to get into jobs I want more easily in the future. I also read about the professors’ backgrounds and qualifications. They are all experts and I feel confident that I can learn a lot from them. Comparing to other universities which offer similar programmes, PolyU is the only university I find the subjects practical enough, and its curriculum is more comprehensive. 

I participated in the School's Summer Programme in August 2019 where some student ambassadors took us for a tour of the Annual Show. I still remember that I struggled between interest and prospect at that time, until what the student ambassador Miss Ivy Man said during the tour blew my mind. She told me that she would rather study design in a vocational school than study any other bachelor’s degree programmes if she could not get an offer here. This made me reflect how important it is to follow my own will and pursue the things I really want over time. 

I met Miss Beatrice Woo from the School’s marketing team in the district-based university fair for Kowloon City on 2 November 2019. I felt so uncertain as I did not know whether I could be accepted without taking the Visual Art subject at school. She shared her experience and answered my questions patiently. I feel grateful to her for being so helpful to line up with two product design students to give me useful and practical advice (Special thanks to Ramona Shiu and Luke Yung!). 

13 August 2020 marks a very special day of my life. The university’s main round offer results were announced. I feel very glad that my application for PolyU Design’s BA programme was accepted. Before that I tried not to imagine whether it would be successful or not, as I did not want to be disappointed. When I found the application successful, I could hardly believe and was very touched!

Looking forward to in the coming four-year study, I hope that I would have good time management skills and study efficiently, not being a deadline fighter. I also hope that I can meet more friends, not only my fellow design schoolmates but also more people from other disciplines. Widening social circle is quite important to me. 

Can’t wait to see you soon at School of Design!

Last but not least, this is my turn to offer my advice for other secondary school students who want to get into PolyU Design:

• Always step out of you own comfort zone, dare to explore and ask others for getting more useful information. You will soon figure out what you really want and are able to prioritize your alternatives.
• There are a lot of comments from your parents and relatives. They may judge your decisions. You really have to be certain on your own decision making, as you are the only one knowing what your desired life is like.

Need advice on choosing the right design programme for yourself? Contact us. We are happy to help!