Final Reflection — Resolving Discomfort, and Learning from it

I will start by saying that this experience was nothing like how I initially expected it to be. This class was recommended to me by a teammate from my personnel selection class, and I thought that it would be interesting to hear what the professor has to say about creativity and the design thinking process. Never did I stop to consider that I would be actively involved in the learning process.

To be very honest, the whole process was very uncomfortable to me, but this journey also taught me to be okay with the discomfort.

It was very uncomfortable when we were given the topic of climate change, since I’m not a very environmentally-conscious person, so I don’t know a lot about the topic that our group chose — fast fashion. I was also very skeptical of any solutions that’s labeled as environmentally-friendly, which made me question whether I would be able to contribute to our group’s discussion at all. However, I also learnt that bringing in a skeptical point of view is a much needed perspective in design thinking, since it helps us to be aware of any pre-existing assumptions we had about the problem and aid prototyping.

It was also very uncomfortable when I felt like my opinions clashed with the group. I’m usually a very non-confrontation person, but due to my skeptical point of view, I felt obligated to voice my concerns for the sake of our project, even if it risked breaking the harmony within our group. I had to admit, it was not the best experience. Yet, looking back now, I felt like conflict is unavoidable in the design thinking process, since we all came in with vastly different perspectives and backgrounds. Even though I felt like a villain at the time, looking back, I realized that my teammates actually cherished every bit of opinion that I gave, which was why, I believe, that our team worked together so well.

Looking forward, I believe that the design thinking process would be really helpful in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, especially in the data collection and diagnosis stages. I might be a little skeptical whether I would be able to apply the whole process, but I believe that some of the tools would be useful to adopt.

Nonetheless, this journey taught me a lot. Even though I might not become a more environmentally-conscious person after this, I still think that the experience and the knowledge I’ve gained in design thinking would be really helpful to me in my future career.

Thanks for everything!