Success story of Rituparna Guha (IITD)

Hello Friends!

I am Rituparna Guha. I have done my graduation in Architecture. I shall be pursuing M.Des in IDDC, IIT Delhi. I am really thankful to Prasanna Sir, for his guidance and help without which it would have been impossible to make it this far. I am glad he gave me this opportunity to share my story as well. 

Being an architect I had been in love with design for a very long time. I was working as a junior architect when I came across CEED exam in 2016. The test seemed very interesting and I decided to give it a try. Obviously I faced hard luck in my first attempt (as my approach was way more casual).

I maintained a focused approach and persistent practice and gave another attempt this year. It worked this time with most effective guidance from Prasanna sir and I achieved a decent AIR Rank 134 (Ceed score- 51).

CEED

As far as the exam is considered, this blog is a real guide which has all the necessary information. One essential tip would be TIME Management. For Part B- It is important to have decent sketching skills but It’s more important to ideate a creative solution and represent it in one’s best forte(like cartooning, humour etc)in a limited time span.That will showcase your creative uniqueness which is important. Hence, your practice should be more of a self-discovery. 

IDC, IIT Bombay

DAT Exam

Precisely they were much organised and conducted all DAT Tests on the same day following which the interviews were scheduled for the next two days. Since I had applied for Interaction Design only, I had only one DAT exam to give.

The question this year was a little different from the previous years. They gave a futuristic design problem; it was a product design for blind people to help them cross roads in India. It was very interesting to solve the issues with endless technical conceptual possibilities.

Interview

The panel had 3 professors; they started questioning on the DAT test, its reasoning and concepts. They really went deep interrogating every aspect of the design, from its working to its looks. After which they started with the folio. Since I had streamlined myself, my folio consisted works mainly on interaction design. It was a really nice discussion and I was glad they appreciated my work and keenly asked every detail of my projects. It lasted for 10 minutes after which they asked me to wait for another interview. This time it was another panel of 2 other professors, who went on with many more questions

IDDC, IIT Delhi

DAT Exam

Now this was a real challenging experience where there were multiple tasks given

1.      The first task was to design mobile covers for two contrasting personalities with stickers. The whole task was to be done with stickers (which were provided) and colourswithin a time span of 1hr.

2.      The second task was to design a vehicle for disabled users who did not have arms. Along with it we were provided with ivory sheets and cutting boards to make a model of the same design. The time limit was 2hr

The whole DAT process was for 3hrs and truly challenging in all respect.

Interview

This was quicker in comparison to the test. There were 4 professors in the panel. They asked me questions on my architecture thesis, its viability and other related concepts. They were interested to know why I wanted to pursue design and what my design inclinations were. Also they asked few questions on my design folio though they were in a bit of rush. The interview lasted for about 10 mins

I’m happy that my efforts paid off when I received the mail from the IDDC Department. I would like to thank Prasanna Sir. His mentoring has been invaluable all through the whole journey.

To all the readers of this blog, I would advise everybody to keep at their efforts and to have confidence on their work.More than anything else, the whole process should be an enjoyable experience, in order to bring in the best. A year ago, I used to read these inspirational stories in this blog to figure out my approach, little did I know that one day I could even share my own experience.The most important thing is to keep growing from every experience and every resource.  

Wish you all the best!