On Saturday, senior interior design students at Mississippi State University unveiled the culmination of their studio projects, including things like digital renderings, tiny 3D-printed chairs and unique lighting structures in an exhibit in Memorial Hall.
The exhibit featured selected works from students’ time in the program, ranging from medical and hospitality spaces to senior living facilities and restaurants, displayed on large, colorful boards around the room. The students stood before them, showing off their projects to the passersby. The projects were created using advanced software like Revit and Enscape, allowing students to build detailed 3D models from scratch.
Senior interior design major Leighann Pounders said that the show reflected each student’s unique strengths and interests.
“This is just a collection of everyone’s favorite projects they’ve done over the past three years,” Pounders said. “We start with a single line and just build it up higher. It doesn’t show the complete process, just the result, but behind every board is weeks of planning, floor plans and renderings.”
While each board represented an individual student’s years of work, many projects overlapped due to collaboration with other students. According to seniors Lilian Barlow and Diamond Brown, the exhibit was organized by rows based on group studio collaborations, though every student contributed unique elements to their display.
“You’ll see the same project sometimes, but different aspects that each person worked on,” Barlow said. “We all worked together and inspired each other.”
Beyond the visual design skills, students said the program prepared them for professional collaboration, project management and communication — key areas in the interior design industry.
“It’s a friendly, very fast-paced environment,” Brown said. “We’ve got these bonds, go on trips together and we do these projects together, so it helps us in the real world, too.”
Pounders said that the level of dedication required long nights and hard work, especially in the final push when a major project was due.
“One of my studio projects took three all-nighters in a row to finish,” Pounders said. “I maybe got three hours of sleep each night. But seeing it all come together made it worth it.”
In addition to their studio work, interior design students completed hands-on projects in their core classes like Furniture Design, Color and Lighting for Interiors and Career and Portfolio Development. Pounders pointed to her custom-painted box and the lamps that were on display in the middle of the room as examples of how the program emphasizes experience and building a portfolio.
As the class of 2025 quickly approaches graduation, many students are looking into their future career paths. Pounders, for example, recently accepted a job offer from a residential and commercial architecture firm in Huntsville, Alabama, just days after attending a career fair hosted by MSU.
“I had an interview the next week, and within six minutes after that, I had a job,” Pounders said.
The nationally-accredited interior design program at MSU, hosted by the College of Art, Architecture and Design, is known for its rigorous curriculum and education. Students must complete over 120 credit hours, a portfolio review between their second and third-year summers and an internship to complete the program.
For the class of 2025, the senior exhibit marked not only a milestone in their academic careers but also a celebration of creativity and accomplishments from their hard work.
“It’s really rewarding seeing it from start to finish,” Barlow said. “We built these concepts from nothing, and now we get to look around and say, ‘We did that.’”
