Sophomore Michaela Moreno shows the first project she made for Housing and Interior design. Photo by: Patricia Ortiz-Corona
By Patricia Ortiz
The Family and Consumer Science department has opened the doors once again to a class that allows students to be creative.
Last year due to the lack of students signing up for the class the FACS department could not offer students the Housing and Interior Design class. Mrs. Ruth McCollough is once again the instructor for Housing and Interior Design. Although this class is intended to be taken by juniors and seniors, all grades can take the class and learn from it.
Sophomore Stephanie Moran decided to take Housing and Interior design because, “I like to know what people like and I would like to learn how some designs vary from other designs.” Of course every student decided to take Housing and Interior Design for a different reason. Freshman Faith Hilty took the class because, I like to decorate rooms. Others like Senior Rachael Garcia enrolled in the class because, “I had an interest and was possibly thinking about majoring in interior design for college.”
Students hope to accomplish a variety of things from this class. Senior Brandy Gayheart hopes to be able to “design the inside of my house and fall in love with it because it is what I like or need not anyone else.” Senior Jesus Herrera would enjoy if the class would help him to learn important details that are necessary for a better house. Freshman Will Wlekinski hopes to learn about simple ways to design a house.
Mrs. McCollough said that the goal of the class is to provide students with the “information needed to choose the type of housing that best suits the need of an individual during one’s life cycle.” Of course the class still has not learned all of that information. So far the class has “looked through magazines looking for different house structures we like and share and discuss differences with other people’s choices,” Sophomore Michaela Moreno said. The class is being taught using textbooks and magazines. Other forms of learning can be implemented. For example, computers can also be used to learn. Computers appear to be the best resource “for locating and verifying the most current information for design, redesigns, cost analysis, and price comparisons,” Mrs. McCollough said.
In most classes students have to know a few background thing for the class. Junior Stormy Yoe said that,“[Interior design] certainly involves [knowing about] math and colors. Math is used for prices and quantity and colors are always important for designing.” Freshman Hayley Snyder agrees with Yoe saying that “we need to know about colors and math, so we know what colors mix and which [colors] clash.” Knowing about math and having a sense of what colors go well together is great to know so that more people want to hire the designer.
Housing and Interior Design does many hands on projects that will help in the learning of students. According to Mrs. McCollough some of the hands on projects would include, “Drawing to scale [and] designing space.”
With this new class some may wonder if Housing and Interior Design has anything to do with The Building Trades house and the answer is that the Interior Design class has nothing to do with the Building Trades house. However Mrs. McCollough said that she would, “love to be able for my student[s] to be able to collaborate with them during all their steps through decorating landscaping outdoor space and marketing the sale of the Building Trades house.”
Mrs. McCollough says that there are a wide variety of career options if the class is chosen as career option. Among the careers in which the class is helpful are design, construction, sales, redesign, manufacturing things that are needed in a house, furnishing, wall treatments, etc.