Vocational School of Justice
DEALING WITH EXAM STRESS WITH DESIGN
Prospective university students got rid of their exam anxiety at Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Izmir University of Economics (IUE). Youth, who came together at IUE Multi-Purpose Hall at “Design for Future with Youth Workshop”, expressed their dreams, visions in the fields of architecture, interior architecture and environmental design, industrial design, visual communication design, and fashion and textile design by using waste paper, fabrics, boxes, etc. Students, who reported that they had difficulty coping with anxiety and stress during the preparation process for university entrance exams, projected their hopes through design at the workshop.
Asst. Prof. Dr. Dilek Himam Er, Lecturer at IUE Department of Fashion and Textile Design, pointed out that students’ life style was based on test practices in the current examination system. She said, “When we met the students, we asked how their days went by, and they said that they were extremely anxious about the upcoming exams, and they did practice tests a lot. They pointed out that the very thought of exam itself, put them under a lot of pressure. So, we wanted to help students get rid of these anxious thoughts with this workshop.”
‘Happy cities with recycling’
Asst. Prof. Dr. Er reported that they used different materials including waste paper, fabrics, boxes, wood, paint, which were recyclable left overs from students’ projects within the faculty. She said that students designed a model of world where hopelessness and fear did not exist. “Students left their daily worries aside, and fictionalized a world with more positive thoughts. While a group of students focused on a specific character, others created their own cities, where neither anxiety, nor fear existed. And they translated this into their designs with the help of colors,” said Asst. Prof. Dr. Er. She said that Asst. Prof. Dr. Didem Kan Kılıç, Lecturer at Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Nermin Sena Özger, Research Assistant at Department of Visual Communication Design, Ece Küreli, Research Assistant at Department of Architecture, and Deniz Sayar, Lecturer at Department of Industrial Design, participated in the workshop.