My Dad was at the Royal College of Art in the 70s, so as a kid I’d been round many of the end of year shows. These were magical. A friend of mine had also been on Visual Communication.

I did graphic design at Kingston, graduating in 2008 and then spent a year working in the service design industry but because I didn’t have enough experience, it was difficult for me to get a full-time position.

Eventually, I got a position as a project manager for an online branding and experiential agency, dealing with clients and budgets but it wasn’t creative at all. Needing to be more creative was the main reason for me applying to IDE.

To non-engineers, the programme seems pretty intimidating but I was assured there were others like me. It’s a challenge dealing with an engineering environment when you don't have that training But I was excited to be working in a team. You have lectures at Imperial to teach you the basics but you learn the most from your fellow students on projects.

The solo mechanical engineering project was one of the hardest things I’ve ever worked on. The brief was to design a gizmo with six or more mechanical parts. I didn’t pass as my gizmo just broke. It felt like someone had asked me to speak Japanese and then write a poem, but to survive on IDE you have to take everything that’s thrown at you.

My confidence at the end of the first year was low but second year was much more my territory. I was able to decide on projects that related to my strengths and I could choose what I wanted to do.

Being on IDE has taught me the language of engineers and I know how to communicate with them – from how to prototype a concept to actually making it.

You learn design enterprise skills that consider how an entire system works, who the stakeholders are, who’s paying to turn it around, and for the benefits of whom?

The tutors are brilliant at pushing you to communicate your project in the right way. You have to be able to pitch. Visualisation is also really important.

Living at home helped me get through the programme financially. I got a bursary from the College, which paid half my fees. I also saved when I was working, which I spent on my show, and I got extra money towards living expenses each term. Imperial College also gave £500 toward a group project. There’s no time for a job and I would strongly advise not doing work outside of the course.

My ultimate goal is to take my own project, Dial Log, which won a Helen Hamlyn award, into a design enterprise and to take it to market. I want to be part of a social project that is effecting real change.

You can’t underestimate how tough IDE is but the rewards are also the greatest.

I did a BA and a Masters, majoring in aeronautics engineering. It was a condensed study, and I was interested in bringing technology to the entertainment field.

I wanted to keep working in technology in art and design. I preferred to keep studying than working at a company because I had strong passion for reshaping my core interests. I wanted to do a PhD in this and found IDE was a good place to start a new period of study in design. The RCA is one of the top qualified colleges. I learned about it when [Professor] Miles Pennington was doing workshops in Tokyo. He is good at involving people from Japan – in my case, it was through my professor at university and he told me to get in touch with IDE.

I also applied to MIT, Stanford. The choice was between a very technical based university or diving into a completely new environment. I wanted to change my thinking, out of an engineering way, so that I could have originality in technology. My strength was Artificial Intelligence in the field of aeronautical engineering, where the thinking is very deep and very narrow. In design, you look at things much more broadly.

I had quite a difficult time as my background is very different. What I was encouraged to do here is not encouraged back home and visa versa. Designers have a big responsibility to choose their target audience but engineering is more about producing a collection of evidence to prove that that target audience is the right one. It’s good to have both ways of thinking.

My topic in MA proposed airships as a media for entertainment performance, for use at a club or a music venue. I made blimps that had a light source that reacts to the music.

My current topic is looking into things take on human life qualities. I want to give technology a lifelike quality. Design has tried to do that but with a new technology we can give more behavior. I’m trying to give things emotion and behaviour, particularly around repeated rhythm such as breathing and heartbeat. 

In terms of funding, I got a scholarship which covers all my fees and living expenses for three years. It’s from the Funai Foundation Scholarship programme, which in Japan is the foundation of a private company. 

There are five or six major foundations that provide that level of support. It’s not easy to find but it’s possible. I have a passion to do new things in a new environment, which is appealing for them. I did well in my masters and wrote many papers, I’ve exhibited at international conferences and won two awards.

What you learn here at the RCA is dependent on your motivation. But what is really good on IDE is seeing my colleagues all go through such big changes. I’m interested in setting up my own studio but I don’t know if that comes after graduation or working at a company. What I’m developing is not only skills, it’s a philosophy.