Design Thinking
Blog 4: Final Reflection
The design thinking class was the most unique class I have ever attended in my life. It began on the first day when the professor made us sit in a circle and ever since that day, with each class I felt more connected to the subject and with my classmates.
In class everything that was taught, we did practically, whether it was Brainstorming, the interviews, or working on our own prototype. Through this process, I was able to grasp what our professor was teaching because we were doing what was being taught and since I personally understand better when I do things practically, I could learn and retain a lot about design thinking. Another unique thing about our class was the “Question Party” where one person asked questions and shared their perspective about the readings for the week and the rest of the class could share their perspective. I still clearly remember one of the questions which was, “whether it is better to brainstorm in a group or alone?” I still remember there were a lot of interesting discussions about it. The question party made me open my mind to certain ideas as I realized that many a time, we can be rigid about our point of view but discussing certain concepts in a group can make one see the other side of the coin and improve one’s own perspective. I would like to highlight the guest lecturers who were really very cool and I remember working on the elevator problem and how surprised I was that the solution they actually provided was to add a mirror to the elevator and the number of complaints reduced. I also really enjoyed when we talked about failure using Lego in class.
The next most important part of my class was our group project. We as a team focused on how the transportation choices of people in NYC affect climate change and what could we do to improve the situation. After months of brainstorming, interviews, and discussions we decided to focus on biking as a solution but the challenge for us was that we had MANY ideas. Generally, the challenge is a lack of ideas but for us, the funny part was it was the abundance of amazing ideas that narrowing it down to one specific problem became a challenge. I think the main thing I learned through this project is how important and challenging it is to find that one solution to focus on. Thankfully our professor helped us a lot in gaining clarity and we decided to work on improving biking safety so that New Yorkers would be more encouraged to use bikes as a mode of transportation which would overall impact the climate in a positive way. Our team was amazing, and we got along really. I learned a lot from each one of them individually.
Personally, I think the most memorable thing I will carry on from this class is when our professor taught us about “Actually Listening”. I still remember that the professor had shown us a slide that was blank and just had one sentence about how important listening is and when I was done with the class, I realized how important it is to have as a life skill. Professionally, before attending this class and in the initial stages of the class I was always focused on the solutions and in the solution space. I just thought, Fine this is the problem, and this SHOULD be the solution. However, what I learned was that there is always more to the story which is understood only by listening and spending more time in the problem space and people in the problem space. I am still trying to explore what field I want to work for in the future, but one thing is for sure that I learned a lot of things from this class, and I could see myself become more open-minded, not jump to conclusions and solutions, and now I have an entirely new and a much broader perspective about things. I also made a lot of good friends through this class and to sum it up, it was one of a kind experience.
