But don’t take our word for it! Look at the interior design plans 2021 Pre-College alumni Maya Guliani and Sahara Kiskis created in the program, and listen to what they have to say about the experience.  

For the past two summers, NYSID offered its pre-college program entirely virtually because of the pandemic.  Now, registration for Summer 2022 is open and NYSID Pre-College will be back in person for those who want it to be.  

NYSID’s faculty were surprised how well the program worked virtually over the past two years: students got a lot out of the intimacy and geographic diversity of an online classroom. Their work was impressive. Says Sahara Kiskis, an alumni of the 2020 and 2021 programs, “I started Pre-College in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and it was such a light in my life during a dark time. It was so cool to meet other students from all over the world, and I bonded with my teachers more than I could have imagined.” This year, NYSID is offering both an in-person and DR (online and synchronous) program for both levels of Pre-College. It’s about choice, and the flexibility to experience the best interior design of New York from anywhere.  

The Options in a Nutshell 

• Onsite Pre-College I (Residential Design): July 11-21  

• Onsite Pre-College II (Commercial Design): July 25-August 4 

• DR (Online) Pre-College I (Residential Design): July 11-22  

• DR (Online) Pre-College II (Commercial Design): July 25-August 5 

Register HERE  

The Work & Experience of Maya Giuliani 

Maya Guliani, a high school sophomore who resides on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, first got an inkling that she might want to take classes in interior design when her parents were renovating a home. They relied on her for design decisions, and she was good at it. Later, they helped her explore her interest in interior design by enrolling her in both sessions of NYSID’s Pre College Program for the summer of 2021. It was an experience that changed the way she thinks about herself.  

In the first course, Pre-College I, an introduction to residential design in which students design a one bedroom apartment, Maya designed an eclectic, vintage-themed dream apartment in the West Village for an older version of herself (in her 20s). For the first time ever, she learned to “draft and use an architectural scale.” She visited vintage boutiques in Manhattan (such as Olde Good Things) to source furniture and take photos for the ideation board she would eventually turn into her first layout and presentation.  

“The best part of the program was the teachers. They had so much experience,” says Guliani. “They were able to take us on tours of real spaces and also show us their own work, which was so rewarding.” (The program is team-taught by multiple instructors, all practicing designers). One lesson stands out for Guliani: Pre-College faculty member Don Kossar showed the students a huge semi-circular lighting fixture he created for a dentist’s office out of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). She says, “The light elevated the space and left users with a feeling. This influenced all of the students. We saw that this thing our teacher put in a space changed the whole mood of the dentist’s office and made it a place to look forward to.” 

Guliani felt that the practical lessons of Pre-College I really came together for her in a unifying concept in Pre-College II, which centers on contract design, specifically the design of a hotel and restaurant. She says, ”My big takeaway was that when you are designing a space, everything has to be cohesive and have a purpose. You couldn’t just choose something because you liked it. It had to have a use, or fit into the story of the space. Everything should reinforce the concept and work together at the same time.” She was inspired by the digital tour of the Baccarat Hotel. She says, “Everything in the Baccarat (Hotel) was thoughtful and meticulous, and reinforced the brand. The 20-foot crystal chandeliers in every room were over the top but made it a unique experience, something that the customer can’t find anywhere else that keeps them coming back.”  

For her commercial design project, Guliani created a boutique hotel, restaurant and performance space called “The Spot,” located in Greenwich Village. The unifying symbol of the space was snakes, which to Guliani, represent rebirth and renewal. An intricate map on the wall of the lobby resembled snakeskin, as did the tiles on the front of the reception desk. The performance stage mimicked the round form of a serpent. One of her instructors, the interior designer Randi Halpern, remembered her work as outstanding many months after the program. 

Says Guliani, who has just applied for a summer internship to the MET, “The NYSID program sparked a great interest in design for me, as well as interest in future design education. The classes helped me build the skill set to design.”  

The Work & Experience of Sahara Kiskis 

Sahara Kiskis, a high school senior who lives in San Diego, took Pre-College I in Summer, 2020 and Pre-College II in Summer, 2021. She found her way to a distance learning program with NYSID because there were no in-person programs to take in Summer of 2020, when the first wave of COVID-19 locked down teenagers all over the country. She says, “I would wake up at 6am because I am on the West Coast and get out of bed to study design in the mornings. I looked forward to it. I am still in touch with many of my friends from that first summer.” 

“[Pre-College I] was my very first exposure to Interior Design,” she adds. “It was all about getting to know the fundamentals. Maybe the most important thing I learned was learning to measure things correctly for their function. It was all about the prep work. But it was also about inspiration. One of the very first things my teacher Randi (Halpern) asked us to do was to create an inspiration board on Pinterest and I was like yes, I can do this.” 

Even though Kiskis was exposed to design early in life because her mother is a restaurateur and she has grown up around the renovation of restaurants, she used to think of herself as a person good at the “execution” of projects, rather than a person with lots of ideas.  But the process of researching a mood board and color scheme for a specific client inspired her, resulting in her concept of a chic pink, black and white apartment for the owner of a floral shop. She says, “I am a worker bee but this course taught me to slow down to look for inspiration. I didn’t feel like I had a creative chip in me until this program showed me I do.” 

When she came back the following summer for Pre-College II, she found the second course challenging, but even more engaging. She says, “The difference was mainly it was a smaller group, and this time around, my teachers, Don and Randi, held you accountable for knowing the basics. It took me a hot second to catch up and remember all I had learned the summer before, but then it clicked.” She designed an earthy, lush, botanically-inspired hotel called “The Ivy House,” based on traditional tea houses that incorporate gardens, in Sydney, Australia. As part of the hotel experience, she created a restaurant that specializes in real and unreal edible flowers called “Petal & Farm.” She says, “I realized that hotels and restaurants play such a big role in our society. Hotels and restaurants are essential because they are escapes for people. To have that fantasy moment is so special and I want to help people feel that.” 

When we spoke with Kiskis, she had been accepted to one liberal arts college and was waiting for word from others. She opted for a multidisciplinary liberal arts college because she wants to explore both her love of writing and her love of design. She applied to colleges as an Art History major, a path she hopes will leave the door open to the possibilities of interior design or design journalism. 

“I never knew I would love commercial design so much,” Kiskis says. “This just opened a whole new door for me in figuring out what I wanted to do. I never thought interior design would be something I might pursue until I took this.”