For the past seven years, Ryan Ferguson has been a coach at NuVu. Before that, he was a young architect. Before that, he was a grad student at RISD, where he landed after studying architecture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Before that, he was building a trebuchet in his parents’ garage. That’s the kind of talent and creativity that NuVu coaches bring to our design studio curriculum.

Growing up, Ryan says his love of drawing, model making, and photography filled his youth—until his neighbor’s career in architecture piqued his interest. “My mom was like, what if you looked into this career path that seems to combine a lot of your interests in art, fabrication, math, and physics?” he recalls. “That’s kind of how I got into the architecture pipeline from a very early age.”

During his undergraduate studies, Ryan discovered industrial design. Until then, he says, he had never really considered how every object, every experience around us is designed by an individual. “I became aware of that as a possibility in architecture school. I think I always gravitated to the finer details of architecture, such as the joinery and the way a building comes together—projects that allowed me to design at that scale were always the most motivating,” he says.

After working a few years at an architecture firm in Iowa, focused primarily on education and healthcare projects, he says the pull to learn more about product design was too strong to resist. This brought him to RISD—and the East Coast—to study industrial design. While at RISD, his partner (now wife) landed a job at a Boston-area architecture firm. It was around this time he learned of NuVu High School and a current opening for a coach. “I heard that NuVu was looking for somebody who understood the architecture studio model, and had a physical fabrication skill set along with product design. Since I had all of those skills, and was intrigued," he recalls.

After learning more about the NuVu pedagogy and meeting the talented coaches, Ryan says he left the interview thinking that this would’ve been a dream school for his teenage self.  So when the offer came, Ryan says his answer was a no-brainer.

Seven years later, Ryan says that each school year, he’s not only been inspired by the students as they learn and deepen their skill set, but he’s also added to his own knowledge base. “It's always fun to take on a completely new discipline or creative domain that I haven't explored before and get to dive deeply into that—both from a conceptual and a technical level—to a point where I can then teach that subject, whatever it is,” he shares. “The best way to learn something new is actually to teach it.”

From running product design studios using Rhino (a 3D graphics and computer-aided design (CAD) software) to diving deep into robotics, to hands-on fabrication studios using different media like ceramics or bioplastic, or to culinary arts and even animation—Ryan says his own intellectual growth has only increased the longer he teaches at NuVu.

Then there’s the students’ own trajectory, which he says never gets tiring. “Seeing students overcome and blossom into their own creative beings, finding their niche or whatever it is that they really find motivating, and uncovering new ways to express themselves and gain creative confidence,” he shares. “I think that's been the most rewarding aspect.”

Not only is Ryan part of NuVu High School’s cohort of coaches, but he also assists with NuVuX, the high school’s sister organization, which teaches the NuVu way to educators across the globe. Developing curriculum and training for teachers, Ryan works to scaffold the onboarding process for educators attempting to teach the NuVu curriculum in their own classrooms. He also works to orient them with key aspects of the NuVu pedagogy, as well as helping the team with overall studio content creation.

When working on the NuVuX side, Ryan says his coaching experience helps him instruct teachers in how to coach the NuVu High School way. “Educators often ask the same questions new students would. They fall into a kind of pattern or habit within the different steps of the creative process,” he says. “It's interesting to see the similarities in the way that traditional teachers who are unfamiliar with the design studio model process and understand this innovative way of teaching.”

One of the biggest benefits of being a veteran coach at NuVu High School, he says, is watching the progression of students—from wrapping their heads around this new way of learning, to becoming NuVu pros. “Being able to really see a project through a thorough research phase until they have a strong foundation for the conceptual framing of the project—and then see them carry that into a fully executed and polished state that most projects would never get to in a traditional school—watching that unfold has been incredible.”