My Experience: STEP

Back in June I attended a program at the College of Textiles at NC State for rising seniors known as STEP (Summer Texile Exploration Program). I found this program back in January 2016 because I was researching schools in North Carolina that offer a fashion merchandising major (which is not that many). I read that STEP was a week long program at the Textile College that explored every major and gave students the chance to focus on one specific major and do a project related to that major. 

This program is about 5 days long over the summer and made specifically for current high school juniors (will be rising seniors in the summertime) 

I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to explore the careers offered in the textile industry, so I applied. They only accepted around 160 students, and over 200 applied. I heard back early May that I had been accepted and must pay the $200 fee and select the major that I wanted to focus on for my project. 

I know the $200 fee may drive some away (especially since they recommend that you also bring $200 with you for food and activities), but you have to consider that they provide shelter, tshirts, transportation, amazing staff, supplies for projects, and nearly every meal. I believe I only bought my own food two or three times and the rest of my money I spent shopping on a trip to the mall that we took. 

There were five different majors offered to focus on: appearal design, textiles design, polymore chemistry, engineering, and fashion/textile management. When choosing which group to be in for my project, I decided to join the appearal design group because I thought it would be the most fun and a chance to do something I don’t do everyday. However, I want to major in fashion management because I believe that it is a more practical major with more job opportunities.

After committing to the appearal group, I recieved an email stating that our project would be to use/deconstruct old clothing/fabric to create a new and recycled outfit and that our design would have the chance to be featured in the Redress Raleigh pre-show. I chose to bring these two sundresses: 

 Weeks passed and before I know it, I was arriving at the camp. The first day was mainly just getting checked in and meeting everyone else at the camp. The dorms we stayed in were suite style with two people per room and about eight rooms and two bathrooms to share. 

The way our schedule was set up was so we did activities with everyone at the camp in the morning and split into groups in the afternoon. 

The activities we did with everyone included:

Touring the College of Textiles and participating in a scavenger hunt on the main campus. 

Spray painting in the Free Expression Tunnel located on main campus.

Shopping at South Point mall.

Listening to staff and speakers about application processes and financial aids/scholarships(STEP students are automatically nominated for the Centennial Scholarship). 

Listening to a Where are they Now presentation from a previous NC State College of Textiles student that now works for the luxury golf brand Peter Millar as a sells representative. 

Asking students on a panel consisting of students from every major questions about their majors and experiences.

Visiting Glenn Raven, a company that makes weather/sun fading resistant patio furniture, and seeing their design labs and thread spinning factory.

Screen printing tshirts.

Project Groups Offered:

1. Polymorphism Chemsitry: this was only offered in week three and I participated in week one so I do not know about their project.

2. Engineering: Points out that textile does not always mean fashion. Engineering of Textiles can be anything from sweat resistant clothing like that made by Under Armor to airplane manufactoring. While I was there, this group made a minature boat.

3. Textile Design: learned how to weave fabric and created fabric (scarves/placemats) inspired by whatever they desired.

4. Fashion Management: Designed a company (with a name) as well as a website and advertisement for that company. Some of the ones I remember seeing were a company that sells soles of sandals and straps separately and a company that has unique, handmade fabric so no product is the same.

5. Appearal Design: As stated above, we created a new outfit out of recycled fabric. I was nervous going into the camp because I had had no experience designing clothes or sewing and thought that everyone else would have but that was not the case and everything was taught to us. The first day we created a vision board and learned how to draw a design on Adobe Reader:

I made my romper patchwork as seen above because I knew there wasn’t enough fabric to make it all one color. The second day I learned how to use a sewing machine and made a “rough draft” of my romper out of muslin (a cheap fabric). After that I spent probably a whole day seam ripping the two dresses to get as much fabric as possible. The last day I supent sewing the romper together and cutting out each individual piece of embroidery. I ended up running out of time and attaching the embroidery back in my dorm. Here’s the before and after: 

The final day: On the last day our parents came in to see us present our projects and eat lunch. For the appearal group, we had to walk a runway and were judged. To my surprise, I won an award for the best design! After the camp, I got the opportunity to walk with my design as a designer in the Redress Raleigh Fashion Show!

My experience at STEP was absolutely amazing and I highly recommend that any rising high school senior that is interested in textiles participate in this program. The deadline to apply is May 1 and recommendation letters are required so defiantly click this link to learn more/apply!