Megan Ramirez: Senior Exhibition 2025

Megan Ramirez

This is one in a series of online interviews with MIAD seniors, who share their thoughts about their 2025 Senior Exhibition project and their MIAD education.

Megan Ramirez ’25 (Interior Architecture and Design), “The Sentinel Apartments.” Megan is a President’s (Honor) List student from Milwaukee, Wis.

What is your “elevator pitch” for your senior exhibition project?

Located in the heart of Downtown Milwaukee, “The Sentinel Apartments” provide a welcoming home for adults and young professionals who have to rent for longer periods of time due to the current housing climate. The building features sustainable materials and offers expanded living space, outdoor access and community connection in a restored historic setting.

What has the senior exhibition experience been like for you?

Preparing my project for the senior exhibition has been challenging but also very rewarding. It’s required many long days and late nights doing demographic research, drafting floor plans, creating renders and designing the exhibit space. However, I’ve been able to spend the last year working on a project that I really felt passionate about, which made all the work so worthwhile. It has also been so cool to see my fellow Interior Architecture and Design (IAD) classmates’ work come to life, because our projects really reflect each of us and our unique interests and design styles.

What will you take away from this project as you transition into the professional world?

Each of us has our own ideas and goals for our design work and future careers, many of which were represented in our thesis projects. We’ve been given the license to really explore what we were interested in this year, and because of that everyone has come up with some really amazing work. While our projects were individual endeavors, the supportive and constructive feedback we have gotten from our peers, IAD faculty and professional mentors has been so valuable.

I think the biggest takeaway from this experience has been the importance of creating an environment where each person can be themselves and pursue what they are interested in, while still feeling like an important and valued part of the team. Feedback from others is so important, and creating a space where people feel comfortable to give and receive that feedback is really valuable.

Anything else you’d like to share about yourself or MIAD?

I interned at Peabody’s Interiors during summer 2023 and have been working at Home Again Fabric and Furnishings (a design-related business where we do custom reupholstery and more) since August 2023. Both of those experiences have helped me to learn more about the world of interior design and taught me a lot about working closely with clients and representatives.

Also, my study abroad experiences (especially the MIAD Florence program in summer 2024) have been influential in helping me further develop my design style – I got so much inspiration from that experience, and it really emphasized for me the importance and value of bringing beauty to even our most ordinary and everyday spaces.

Apply to MIAD and plan your visit to MIAD’s Senior Exhibition!