Hi, I'm Adam Slafsky
Throughout my childhood, I always found myself tinkering with anything I could get my hands on and having a desire to make and build. I eventually discovered my local maker-space where I quickly became a daily face. There, I would become certified in the wood shop, the metal shop, and the CNC lab where I would experiment and make as often as I could. With this passion for making in mind, I decided that engineering fit who I was and what I loved.
I originally attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to earn a degree in materials science and engineering. However, after completing my first three semesters, I decided I needed something different. While I enjoyed what I was studying, I found engineering lacking one significant component always present in what I enjoy - making. Knowing there was no way back once I decided, I took a leap and enrolled in industrial design during the second semester of my sophomore year. Soon after, I jumped into my classes and knew I had made the right decision. There was one problem, however. I would have to spend an extra year at university.
With confidence in my abilities as a designer and the drive to push myself, I knew that I could do something about it. I began working with my industrial design 101 professor and the chair of the department to prove myself—to prove that I had the skills and knowledge to skip a whole year of the curriculum.
In the first semester of my junior year, I was proud to enroll in the ID 301 course. Now, I am using the knowledge I learned in engineering and the skills I gained before university to drive my design work.