Imagining a Different Way

When brand-new NC State alumnus Xzavier Taylor views an object, he rarely sees one thing. He quickly starts to look beyond what’s in front of him — to greater potential.

A baby carrier that converts into a backpack. A Bluetooth speaker that swivels to find the face of a listener following a recipe or other online directions. A jogging stroller reimagined with a self-regenerative battery and automatic braking system, and the child’s seat facing the parent.

Sometimes his vision taps into convenience of use. Other times, it’s inspired by an event.

The complicated cave rescue of a soccer team in Thailand in 2018, for example, drove Taylor’s work to design an autonomous swarm-rescue drone. He sought something waterproof with light and sonar capabilities — able to move through pitch-black conditions, measure oxygen and send real-time images and communications. Not only an instrument of risk mitigation but also a beacon of hope and comfort.

A similar thread of reinvention — and finding light in the darkness — weaves through Taylor’s own story.

While this month’s commencement represented the culmination of 17 or 18 consecutive years of school for many NC State seniors, Taylor, 35, traveled a longer road to his bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the College of Design.

Right after high school, he briefly pursued graphic design at the Art Institute of Atlanta before, in his words, washing out and returning home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Qualla Boundary.

The decade or so that followed — what Taylor now calls his “rambunctious period” — included becoming a very young father of two children.

“I was just trying to live my life, doing the best that I could,” he said.

Eventually, he wanted, and needed, to become a better role model for his sons. He enrolled at Southwestern Community College in nearby Webster, embracing sobriety and training himself in positive ways to calm his anxiety and focus beyond his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. When an educator named Bob Keeling believed in Taylor the way no one else quite had, he began to thrive.

“I can see, for sure, the way a professor can change a life,” Taylor said.

He graduated magna cum laude in graphic design, doubling his high school grade-point average. Next up: fulfilling his mother’s unrealized dream of attending NC State.

“It was such a big deal for me to come here,” he said. “I never thought I was good enough. But I was a late bloomer.”

Once he got to the university, waitlisted for graphic design, a guest speaker in a freshman-year class on design thinking lit up Taylor’s imagination by describing industrial design projects. The stereotypical lightbulb went off.

“These people are solving real problems. I was just amazed,” he said. “It was like, now I can see it. I can see the path. And I really want this.”

Admitted to industrial design as a sophomore, Taylor completed the challenging curriculum in three years, while returning to the mountains most weekends to visit his sons.

Faculty members like Bong Il Jin pushed him to learn and become better at design. They, along with many talented classmates, began to bolster his confidence at the same time they challenged him. He started to believe in himself, accepting that he was good enough to be at NC State and his past no longer defined him.

Taylor also recognized the importance of asking for help, because at times, he struggled with food and rent and wasn’t sure he would reach graduation; it was important for him to provide what he could for his children, including a safe place for them to visit him in Raleigh.

“I would absolutely love to come back to NC State for my master’s degree and, one day, teach here. I’ve been able to help my classmates in a way the professors can’t, as I’m a decade older than most of my peers. So, in a way, I’ve become the person I needed when I was younger. There’s something really beautiful in that, I think.”

He worked three days a week in the industrial design shop at 111 Lampe Drive, becoming the “studio uncle” who helped fellow students with tasks like wood and metal fabrication. He worked as a deejay here and there, cobbled together funding from his tribe and applied to Pack Essentials.

Then, scholarship support from the Armand Cooke Industrial Design Student Fund changed everything.    

“It saved my life in a way. I know that sounds dramatic, but it really meant the world to me, having that financial burden alleviated,” Taylor said.

He’s ready to return to the Cherokee area to begin his design career. He hopes to tackle challenges like creating safe and effective headgear so children like his younger son, who received bilateral cochlear implants as a toddler, can play any sport they choose and live life to the fullest.

He can see himself as a professor or teacher someday, too, especially supporting young people who might struggle to see opportunity for themselves. He hopes to inspire dreams in not only his own children, one of whom attended NC State’s Design Camp last summer on a scholarship, but also others where he grew up.

Taylor expected there to be plenty of tears when his parents, girlfriend and sons, now ages 11 and 15, joined him for graduation.

“It’s like the understatement of history to say that NC State has made me feel seen,” he said. “The design program is fantastic and every single person that I’ve met here has made such a difference in my life.

“Xzavier today and Xzavier from years back — it’s night and day. I’m incredibly thankful.”

This post was originally published in Giving News.