Skills & Experiences

NuVu students experience an intense interdisciplinary environment characterized by ambiguous, complex, and unstructured problems to be addressed by rigorous brainstorming, collaborating, iterating, design, and experimental methodologies.

Students will also develop and enhance critically important 21st-century academic and life skills, including:

• Collaboration and collaborative problem-solving
• Working in an entirely project-based environment
• Learning cutting-edge technical skills using technologies and tools currently under development at the MIT Media Lab, start up tech companies, and elsewhere
• Working in a multi-age environment with peers and adults
• Working with open-structured problems in a multidisciplinary, results-focused environment

Students also increase their familiarity with and ability to apply traditional intellectual and academic skills, including: 

• Research
• Oral communication and presentation
• Quantitative reasoning and analysis
• Visual and digital art-making
• Scientific reasoning and analysis

The iterative process in the design studio is intended to provide students with continual feedback on performance as well as product, with the experience of working in an intense, feedback-rich environment providing students with information and support for continuous self-evaluation, reflection, and improvement. 

The primary means of evaluation is an end-of-trimester exhibition and review. At the conclusion of the program students will receive a narrative review of their work during the NuVu trimester as well as a final evaluation of either “Pass” or “No Credit.”