Students in Georgia Tech's Industrial Design Program gain additional professional development skills from their active, local student chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Though the involvement of this local chapter, students have the opportunity of entering IDSA's annual Student Merit Awards program where one outstanding senior from each of the five district conferences is selected to represent his district an upcoming National Conference.

For the third year in a row, a Georgia Tech student has been selected to represent the Southeast in the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) merit award contest. Through a juried selection, Arthur Wu (ID 2006) won the number one spot in the Southeast. Wu competed with students from Georgia Tech, Savannah College of Art and Design, Auburn University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, North Carolina State University and Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. The jury for the award was made up ofpracticing designers throughout the Southeast.

"As a student, Arthur has the innate ability to edit, change, and constantly improve on his original ideas or concepts to communicate the essence of what is important and of value," said Professor Wayne Chung. "That requires him to be constantly learning and listening. He is what I would call under-ground creative and over-ground effective. Many of his designs are clean and beautiful without much adornment or forced stylization; with more investigation, the overall concept, form, and details have real substance and thought that shows care and process. Arthur makes us proud to note that he is the third Georgia Tech student in a row to accomplish this incredible task."

Wu decided to take part in the competition two years ago while attending the ISDA conference and saw "the awesome work" that his fellow students were presenting.

"From that day on I made up my mind to put everything I had into being able to get on that stage and show off my work," said Wu. "With every project I've done here at Tech, my main motivation was to have something good enough to present in front of a national audience at the IDSA district conference. So right now I'm on a huge high. I've accomplished something that I've set my mind on over the past three years and worked incredibly hard to achieve."

Wu moves on to the upcoming IDSA National Conference to be held in Austin, Texas in September 2006 where he will compete with four other outstanding students who were selected from their U. S. districts. Professionals from national and international design companies and corporations will view and judge the students presentations.

"I'm very excited to go to the national conference in Austin, Texas. To be able to see the level of work of all the best students in the nation will be both inspiring and humbling at the same time. I really can't wait to go."

After graduating, Wu plans are to move to Dallas to work at Ignition, a design consultancy firm where he interned two summers ago. Wu is excited about his new job, but he also acknowledged that he is going to miss being at Georgia Tech.

"Georgia Tech is more than just a school program," said Wu. "It's a community of fun, motivated students who are passionate about design. The teachers here are dedicated to the students as well, and have so much to teach in the limited four years that we're here. It's so inspiring to see these teachers do their job that I hope to someday teach design at a university as well. We have a very strong program here, and I'm very proud of being able to represent Georgia Tech's ID program on a national level."