Great read, Núria T. Saldanha — I will definitely be referencing this as I continue to use design thinking to better understand the needs of my community.

Like Allen Arthur said, I also tend to jump directly to the solution before giving myself the opportunity to properly think through the steps of creating an amazing product/solution. My friends used to always laugh at my beauty pageant statement of “I just want to spend my time changing the world!”; although the desire to make the world a better place was clearly a passion of mine, I really had no concrete plan as to what that even looked like, or how I could get there.

(Insert light bulb over head emoji for design thinking here).

Design thinking has really been that aha moment for me as we discussed it both in orientation and in class this past week — while I have some ideas for how to positively impact the community I am working with, I know that it is critical to be a listener first and foremost. I’m excited to really get my hands dirty over the next several weeks by listening, engaging, and observing.

I think the most interesting part of the design thinking process will be prototyping and testing whatever it is I create. Both of these steps feel really exciting to me because they are rooted in my innate desire to create a tangible solution and try it out. Maybe I should have been a scientist…

In terms of using design thinking for other purposes, I absolutely think it can translate to other situations or ideas. When I’m not dreaming about saving the world, I tend to be a very organized person — I could see how the process of design thinking could be a great tool when working through important life decisions…like graduate school. ;)

I look forward to diving deeper into this process in the coming weeks!