Dear Terry,
Your conception of a polymath is interesting. I guess your definition applies to me. I have graduate degrees in design and communication sciences. I contributed to Cybernetics, information theory, and statistics. I am teaching a social science methodology and work on issues of social construction of reality.
However, while I agree that it is helpful to be competent in a variety of areas, I recall your conception of a designer as someone who develops specifications for complex products. A recent book by Sloman and Fernbach has the subtitle (paraphrased:) we cannot think alone.
To me it is far more important for designers to be superb listeners, applying ethnographies of unimagined possibilities, and have solid grounds to stand on (claiming neither outstanding aesthetic intuitions nor being a design thinker) when collaborating in multi-disciplinary teams. I my world, design is always a collaborative accomplishment.
Klaus
Sent from my iPhone
> On Mar 27, 2019, at 8:40 PM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear Santosh,
>
> Thank you for your message.
>
> You claimed that according to your experience '"Design" as the sector (academia > Exploration
>> Profession) itself is Polymathic in its nature.'
>
> Perhaps I had better clarify that my use of the term polymath in my earlier post is to refer to someone who has higher than degree-level expertise across multiple disciplines.
>
> From this perspective, a polymath in design is someone who has at least degree-level expertise in an area of design, plus degree-level or above expertise in several other disciplines (e.g. psychology, social science, management, economics, mathematics, physics, biology, engineering, computer science....).
>
> Over the last 40 or so years, many professional disciplines have been increasingly heading in this direction both within degree-programs and the provision of joint degrees from different fields. This latter can be seen in double major degree such as Engineering and German, Mathematics and Psychology etc.
>
> I understand that to competently create designs, designers often need skills in different fields and this is touched on in design education programs.
>
> However, I'd suggest that how this is done currently is rarely at the standard of third-year degree-level knowledge or higher in the different fields that are needed.
>
> I'm sure there are some design programs that include final year and higher degree-level content from other disciplines. it would be good to know about them.
>
> Best wishes,
> Terence
>
>
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