My name is Larry Erickson. I am the Paul and Helen Farago Chair for the Transportation Design Department at CCS.
Looking at developing ideas, especially now in transportation design, is a great opportunity not only for us but for the student too. They may see a problem that exists for us in a different way; they may see their own problem in a different way. I think there’s a wonderful opportunity when you get people from another country. We’ve got a wonderful mix of students, two from China, and two from Korea, one from India, and one here from the U.S. This opportunity to bring different backgrounds, different insights, and to exchange those with other people from other parts of the world is just one of the most wonderful things about education. And especially when you bring in the companies that contribute through sponsored projects or through exchanges with the students, the dialogue can be fantastic.
The professional experience for the students, before they came into the program, is not a prescribed path. Design problems don’t exist in just this one little narrow band. Design problems have to do with real world experience, have to do with common sense; they have to do with what it’s like to be collaborative, what it’s like to be resourceful, and how you get data. Design creativity and the fundamental pieces are part of this program such as the research and the business. Sometimes that research and that business comes about in ways you hadn’t anticipated. And the program offers them the opportunity to come in, develop those skills and, in some cases, go back to the industry they came out of in a different role.”
The Paul & Helen Farago Chair of Transportation | Larry Erickson
